The New England Patriots entered this weekend

with a mere $1.64 million in salary cap space available – relatively little when compared to other clubs around the NFL New England Patriots Womens Hoodie , and possibly insufficient in case the team wanted to add a higher-priced player as a free agency pickup or via trade (the deadline is not even two weeks away). The Patriots trying to create additional wiggle room was therefore expected, the question was just how they would do it.Now we know, at least in part: New England and cornerback Stephon Gilmore agreed to a contract restructure to free up almost $4 million in additional cap space (as first reported by NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero):ESPN Boston’s Mike Reiss added more details to the original report shortly afterwards:Before the restructure, Gilmore was on the Patriots’ pay roll with $12.5 million – the second highest cap number on the team behind only Tom Brady’s $22.0 million. With his cap hit now down to $8.8 million, New England was able to bring its available space up to $5.35 million. While this still ranks the team in the bottom half of the league, it creates additional flexibility from a financial perspective.Meanwhile Womens Customized New England Patriots Jerseys , Gilmore will not lose out on any money as his salary now becomes fully guaranteed and will hit the team’s pay roll over the remaining four seasons of his contract (adding $1.24 million to his salary cap hit each year). Safe to say that this is a win-win situation for both parties. Deficiencies on the defensive side of the football were a recurring theme for the Patriots during the 2017 season.An inconsistent pass rush and inability to get offenses off the field on third down were two areas New England sought to improve in the offseason.Following a 31-20 loss to Jacksonville in which both issues were again prevalent, is still some work for the Patriots to do.In last season's AFC championship loss to New England, the Jaguars' offense got conservative late and it contributed to Jacksonville surrendering a 10-point, fourth-quarter lead. The Jaguars stayed aggressive throughout the game in Sunday's rematch, going right at the secondary. Oft-criticized Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles turned in one of the best performances of his career, completing 29 of 45 passes for 377 yards and four touchdowns with only one interception.Jacksonville's offense did a lot of its damage on third down www.patriotsauthorizedshop.com , going 10 for 14 (71 percent). Seven of those conversions came on third downs of 6 or more yards."We need to play better on third down on both sides of the ball," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said Monday. "There were times where everything was a problem. Sometimes we had rush and not enough coverage. Sometimes we had good coverage and not enough rush."The Patriots' defense hit Bortles four times but didn't get a sack.New England also may be without two starters next week when it visits Detroit. Defensive end Trey Flowers and safety Patrick Chung both left Sunday's game with concussions and began the week in the NFL's concussion protocol.Aside from their issues up front, the Patriots were also guilty of giving up lots of yards after catches to the Jaguars. Jacksonville's biggest play came in the fourth quarter, when Dede Westbrook caught a short pass over the middle from Bortles, picked his way through New England's secondary and rumbled for a 61-yard touchdown .Belichick said issues with tackling and positioning were contributing factors on that play and on others."A couple times they had the ball, they got the ball to guys that are really good with it New England Patriots Womens T-Shirt , but sometimes we lost leverage. A couple times we had contact and didn't finish the tackle," he said. "Just overall we have to do a better job of playing with leverage and tackling and using our help and getting the runner on the ground."Despite the issues against the Jaguars, safety Devin McCourty said nothing happened from a schematic standpoint that can't be corrected in time for the matchup with the Lions."It wasn't like guys weren't playing hard. We just didn't play well enough," he said. "When we watch the film, we will see that guys just didn't play well enough. That's how I felt. We got to get better. We talk about it all the time in the early part of the season in September and October. We just got to get better and stick together."Duron Harmon, who would likely move into Chung's starting role if he's unavailable against Detroit New England Patriots Hats , said the defense's focus this week in practice will be clear."We just have to do a better job on third down and getting the offense off the field and everything will take care of itself," he said.