I just really wish the sports media talking heads had at least a cursory knowledge of A) the salary cap and B) how trades work.
According to Spotrac, NE has $2.1 million in cap space. NFLPA says $1 million. Overthecap says $900K. Detroit would take on an immediate $32 million cap hit by trading Stafford. It's not something they "might have to take" or something they "could defer" or "get creative" with. It's just a fact of life. They currently have $29 million in cap space, so without making other moves they couldn't do it. Because Stafford previously converted some salary and roster bonuses into signing bonus money, he is only due $8.3 million this year (but upped what his dead cap number would be in doing so).
NE would have to be able to absorb that $8.3 million into their salary cap immediately if they traded for him (meaning they couldn't make that trade without making other roster moves first, shedding salary for other players, or trading back at least $7 million-ish in contracts to DET for this year without creating even more dead cap money). The easiest way for NE to free up cap space would be to trade G Joe Thuney ($14.7 million) or move on from WR Mohamed Sanu ($6.5 million). But that would A) create other holes on the NE roster that would need to be filled, B) cost them multiple high level draft picks to acquire Stafford, C) leave them no high picks left to improve their roster, and D) still leave them with no cap room to sign any other players.
If Stafford were moved and with his dead salary cap hit being dumped on DET, he would be signed for 2 additional years and NE would have him at $20 million and $23 million. Again, NE likes Stidham. Who knows if they would rather have Stafford coming off an injury and having to give up players and picks for the rights to Stafford for 3 years and $51 million. Or over the same 3 years, they could roll with Stidham for A TOTAL of $2.5 million. Which one sounds more like BB?????
The other connect the dots story would be that NE would trade for DET's first round pick, mortgaging the farm to jump in front of other teams to take Tua. That one makes more sense from a salary cap perspective, but would not make much sense to bring in a high profile, injury prone rookie QB without making any attempt to improve the team's offensive weapons.
IMO, it's looking more and more likely that NE rolls with Stidham for a bargain basement contract, keeps most of their 12 picks this year and a projected 13 picks next year, brings back a dozen guys that were on IR, plays a handful of draft picks from last year that they put in mothballs, keeps their stockpile of $105 million in cap space for 2021, and gets guys some experience this year to make some serious improvements for 2021. Between all those picks, the guys they drafted last year, and the guys on IR, that adds up to 40+ players (in addition to that pile of salary cap money).
Bottom line, New England could look like a COMPLETELY different team in 2021. I am not sure they want to invest heavily in Matthew Stafford (and deal with all the gyrations and machinations to be able to acquire him), as that seems like a band aid to what will be a major retooling of their roster in the next 12-15 months..
