I shall remind you, once again, that Bill Belichick once said: “Cap space, as we all know, can be maneuvered in a number of different ways.” The Patriots needed to do some more maneuvering after finishing up rookie contracts for their 2022 draft class, and it has come in the form of veteran team captain David Andrews.

As first reported by

The Patriots restructured the contract of C David Andrews, creating $2.1M in 2022 cap space by converting $3.15M of compensation into a signing bonus, per source.

Andrews’ updated 2022 cap charge: $4.275M.

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) June 24, 2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Field Yates of ESPN, Andrews has agreed to restructure his contract with the Patriots in order to create cap space for 2022. In general terms, they restructured the most common way, by converting salary into a signing bonus. That spreads a dollar amount out over multiple years on the cap, which typically adds immediate space for teams in need of it.

Per Yates, Andrews agreed to convert $3.15 million of his 2022 salary into a signing bonus, which creates $2.1 million in extra cap space for 2022. The sacrifice – and albeit a very minor one – is that it adds $1.05 million in space to 2023 and 2024.

This restructure for David Andrews doesn’t include any new money. It moves money around to give Andrews more security and the team immediate cap space. https://t.co/lbS5ejde11

— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) June 24, 2022" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Mike Reiss later confirmed that the restructure doesn’t add any “new money” for Andrews. It’s like an advance. Just getting a nice little chunk o’ change a little early. Not surprising that Andrews would do the team a solid, here.

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According to Patriots cap expert Miguel Benzan, the restructure is “more than a simple salary to signing bonus conversion.” So he’s going to need more time to figure out Andrews’ actual cap number for 2022. If you care.

Maybe you don’t care about the cap, which is fair. An attitude of “I don’t know, just figure it out” is fair. Just know that the proverbial bills will come due some day on all the Patriots’ spending from 2021. The hope is that they draft well, and avoid having to peel valuable players off their roster in order to make room under their budget. The Chiefs just had to do this by trading Tyreek Hill and replacing him with JuJu Smith-Schuster. You see?

Anyway, this is a long way of saying the Patriots are in a spot where they need to maneuver their cap space in order to keep their current roster together. So if you were still holding out hope they were going to add a veteran free agent before training camp, or make a more significant move, don’t hold your breath.

We’ll see if the Patriots make any more moves between Friday and the start of training camp, but it seems like this is it until July. We’ll continue to keep you up-to-date on all the goings-on with the 2022 Patriots here at 985TheSportsHub.com, with training camp previews coming soon.

In the meantime, here’s our own Alex Barth on the Patriots finalizing their rookie contracts for 2022.

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Matt Dolloff is a writer and podcaster for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Have a news tip, question, or comment for Matt? Yell at him on Twitter @mattdolloff and follow him on Instagram @realmattdolloff. You can also email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.