Patriots: Rex Burkhead Taking a Pay Cut After a Career Year is Senseless

Rex Burkhead broke up the Cam Newton stories with a bit of news. Burkhead who has played three seasons in Foxboro has reworked his contract. Field Yates tweeted the news this July 7th around 9:45 am.

"Source: the Patriots and RB Rex Burkhead have agreed to a reworked final year of his contract. Burkhead gets $550K to sign and drops his base salary from $2.5M to $1.05M, with $400K available in roster bonuses (down from $500K). The move creates $981,250 in cap space." Tweeted Field Yates. 

Burkhead took a reduced contract to help the team who needed to desperately free up some cap room. There are many players that the Patriots can restructure in order to get their cap down. Thomas Carannante of Musket Fire mentioned a certain receiver who is getting over paid at the moment.

Carannante wrote, "Mohamed Sanu is guaranteed $6.5 million and had a terrible campaign in 2019. The Pats couldn’t shave $1.5 million off his deal and create some incentives for him?"

Burkhead is in a loaded backfield and this by no way means that he is safe. While Burkhead can be just as important to the passing game, his lower salary might make a needy team want to offer up a draft pick for him. The Patriots have James White's contract coming up. White is more valuable than Burkhead.

We will have to see what the Patriots have planned at running back. Excluding the fullbacks, the Patriots have six Halfbacks. While JJ Taylor can end up on the practice squad, surely the Patriots have too many needs to keep five men on the roster at the position.