At least we know the Patriots aren’t going for defensive degree-of-difficulty points in repeating as Super Bowl winners. The Patriots showed the money to free agent linebacker and heart-and-soul playmaker Dont’a Hightower on Wednesday, re-signing him to a four-year, $43.5 million deal, instead of showing him the door like Chandler Jones and Jamie Collins. The Patriots are holding on to one of their young, Pro Bowl defenders. Hallelujah.
The only major remaining offseason question now is do they want to hold the high ground in negotiations with restricted free agent Malcolm Butler or do they want to hold on to Butler long term?
The good news is that the Patriots are not going to go 0 for 4 in retaining young cornerstone defenders. The bad news is it feels as if Butler is more likely to follow in the footsteps of Jones and Collins, who were traded away, than Hightower. Butler is scheduled to be in New Orleans on Thursday, negotiating a deal with the Saints, so they can negotiate his exit from Patriot Place with the Patriots.
The Patriots like winning at the negotiating table as much as they like winning on the field, but beating Butler into submission for a season or separation is a loss. What kind of message does it send forcing players who have hand-delivered Super Bowls to scratch and claw for every cent? Why buy in if you have to crawl through the contractual Sahara for a payout? That’s the conclusion Collins came to.
The Patriots are in the driver’s seat with Butler via the $3.91 million first-round restricted free agent tender they placed on him. It gives them the right to match any contract offer he gets or receive a first-round pick or watch him squirm without offers and play for the tender. If he doesn’t sign the tender, they can rescind it and force him to play for the league minimum of $690,000 — that would be greater than 110 percent of his 2016 base salary ($600,000).
They control the outcome for the Cinderella cornerback. They have a replacement on board in Buffalo Bills refugee Stephon Gilmore, who signed a five-year, $65 million contract on the first day of free agency. Like the receivers that Butler faces, they’re well-covered.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick is fond of saying that it’s about the players. That they’re the ones who deserve the credit. He said it after he recorded his 200th career regular-season win in 2014, a 30-7 victory over the Minnesota Vikings. He said that on the rostrum to Julian Edelman after Super Bowl XLIX, the game Butler secured with an interception for the ages.
It’s all about the players until it comes time to pay them. Then it’s a little bit more about the unimpeachable system of player replacement and financial restraint that has formed the foundation of the Patriots’ five Super Bowl titles. Butler is learning that aspect of the Patriot Way the hard way.
It has been pointed out by some that Butler should be grateful for the $3.91 million tender offer, which is more money than he has made to this point of his career. But it doesn’t matter if an offer pays you more than you’re scheduled to make if it doesn’t pay what you believe you’re worth as a cornerback who was second-team All-Pro last season, led the team in interceptions last season, and is good enough to be shadowing Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown.
Plus, the reason the Patriots gave Butler the highest tender wasn’t out of the goodness of their hearts. It was to deter teams from making offers that influenced Butler’s value. It was simply smart business by the Patriots to pay Butler an extra $1.164 million — the difference between the first-round tender of $3.91 million and the second-round tender — to buy leverage and a potential first-round pick.
If the Patriots had put the second-round tender on Butler, he would have an offer sheet by now. There are reports the Houston Texans are willing to sacrifice a second-round pick for the Super Bowl XLIX hero.
Some Patriots fans and observers say Butler should simply wait to get paid. He only has three seasons in the league. The timing isn’t right. That’s fine, but the 27-year-old already has provided two years as a No. 1 corner at a cut-rate. The Detroit Lions paid cornerback Darius Slay with a four-year, $48 million extension last summer as he entered the fourth and final year of his rookie deal.
Patriotologists practically act like the players should pay the Patriots to play and not the other way around. They believe Butler should simply accept his circumstances. If he had done that in the first place, he never would have made it in the NFL, and the Patriots would have one fewer Lombardi Trophy to show off in the lobby. Butler got here by doing what others told him he couldn’t do and proving that their evaluations of his worth were erroneous.
It has also been pointed out that Butler is in line to make more money through his first four seasons than some players who were drafted in the second round the year he entered the league, 2014. That’s apples to oranges. Those players got a portion of their money up front, guaranteed. Oakland quarterback Derek Carr received a $2.26 million signing bonus for breathing before he ever played a down in the NFL. The total guarantee on his contract was $3.31 million.
Butler’s signing bonus and guaranteed money as an undrafted free agent were listed as $0. In Butler’s first three years his base salary was the league minimum for his years of service — $420,000, $510,000, and $600,000.
So, you have a guy playing three seasons for the league minimum with no guaranteed money to this point in his career. He is now looking for real money beyond the CBA salary-suppressant mechanism of his RFA tender. That doesn’t sound like a crime, just like it’s not a crime on the Patriots’ part to decide they’re going to leverage him to the hilt, even if it means losing him.
Both sides have contract cases. But it’s both sides, not just the side wielding the collectively bargained cudgel.
The Patriots won the Super Bowl without Collins or Jones. They’re winning the offseason without Butler. But what you can do and what you should do aren’t always the same.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cgasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.