New England Patriots wide receiver Mack Hollins restructured his contract in August. Hollins, who signed with the club on a two-year deal last offseason, allowed the club to change his incentives from likely to be earned” to “not likely to be earned” in order to clear up some cap space prior to the start of the regular season -- instead of making $300,000 for 30 receptions, $300,000 for 40 receptions and $400,000 for 50 receptions, he will now only make those respective amounts for 47, 50, and 55 receptions in 2026. It's not like he wanted to make it harder to earn his money, though...
Hollins claims the club forced his hand. I mean that’s an unfortunate side of the business, but I’m happy to be here. That’s the risk that you run.
It’s like, ‘Hey, you could take this offer, or we could potentially cut you.’ They’re not saying, like — that’s the business,” Hollins said. Like, I’m happy to be here. My goal is to go hit all those incentives.
It doesn’t matter whatever you put them at. I’m gonna go try to hit them, and it’ll be water under the bridge.” The Patriots would have freed up $3.8 million in cap space had they cut Hollins, though they were able to convince him to restructure in order to save money and keep the suddenly important wide receiver on the books. New England will now need him to step up in a big way after placing A.J.
Brown on injured reserve, with the veteran now set to partially lead a wide receiver group that also consists of Romeo Doubs, DeMario Douglas, Kyle Williams and Efton Chism III. If the club would have cut him at the end of training camp, perhaps it wouldn't have traded Kayshon Boutte to the Houston Texans, but are now in decent position to roll with the punches until the true No. 1 option returns at some point in October.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
