The Patriots will enter the 2017 offseason with a ton of cap space ($61,248,593 according to our own salary cap guru in Miguel @patscap) but have a lot of players hitting free agency. There is a total of 21 players that are free agents this spring. It begins with 14 unrestricted free agents, three restricted free agents, and four exclusive-rights free agents.
Here is a list of the Patriots free agents and their ages in parenthesis:
UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENTS:
TE Martellus Bennett (30)
RB LeGarrette Blount (30)
RB Brandon Bolden (27)
DT Alan Branch (32)
FB James Develin (28)
WR Michael Floyd (27)
FS Duron Harmon (26)
LB Dont’a Hightower (26)
DE Chris Long (31)
LB Barkevious Mingo (26)
CB Logan Ryan (26)
TE Greg Scruggs (26)
DE Jabaal Sheard (27)
OT Sebastian Vollmer (32)
RESTRICTED FREE AGENTS:
CB Malcolm Butler (26)
OT Cameron Fleming (24)
LB Trevor Reilly (29)
EXCLUSIVE-RIGHTS FREE AGENTS:
CB Justin Coleman (23)
DE Geneo Grissom (24)
LB Brandon King (23)
TE Matt Lengel (26)
So, what are the differences in the categories you ask?