Report: Patriots give OL Jermaine Eluemunor an original-round tender

In classic New England fashion, they’re making the small moves first.

According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the New England Patriots have assigned an original-round tender to restricted free-agent offensive lineman and last-minute 2019 trade acquisition Jermaine Eluemunor.

Refresher No. 1: The Patriots traded with their longtime frenemies, the Baltimore Ravens, to acquire Eluemunor on Aug. 28, 2019. New England sent a fourth-round pick to Baltimore in the exchange to fortify their offensive line, and got Eluemunor and a Baltimore sixth-rounder in return.

Refresher No. 2: After arriving in New England, despite various offensive line issues and are-you-freaking-kidding-me injuries, Eluemunor still mostly failed to crack the depth chart, playing only 29 snaps on offense and 38 snaps on special teams all season long. That shakes out to 3 percent of the Patriots’ offensive snaps and 8 percent of their special-teams snaps, respectively.

Having said that, an original-round tender will almost certainly suffice to keep Eluemunor in New England for 2020, unless some other team we aren’t aware of is just jonesing to get him and couldn’t swing a deal with the Ravens last year.

Cap-wise, since the ink’s barely dry on the new CBA that was signed today, here’s what original-round tenders received as of last spring:

Original-round tender: One-year contract worth the greater of (a) $2.025 million or (b) 110 percent of the player’s prior-year base salary. Draft-choice compensation: a pick in the round the player was originally drafted in.

And via the hero we deserve, Miguel Benzan of the Boston Sports Journal has the Patriots’ current salary-cap number as follows: