The New England Patriots and wide receiver Mack Hollins have reached an agreement on a reworked contract that reclassified his contract incentives.
The 33-year-old entered 2026 with three incentive escalators. He could earn an extra $300,000 each by catching 30 and 40 passes, respectively, and add $400,000 more if hauling in 50 passes during the regular season. As a result of Hollins finishing his 2025 campaign with 46 catches, the first two of those levels were classified as likely to be earned and therefore
counted against New England’s salary cap this year.
That is no longer the case. As first reported by Joseph Pasteris, the Patriots moved the goal posts for all three of those escalators and made them fall entirely into the not likely to be earned category.
According to Michael Ginnitti of Spotrac, the new incentive structure looks as follows:
WR Mack Hollins: Contract incentives
Maximum incentives: $1,000,000
2026: Up to $1,000,000
$300,000: 47 receptions
$300,000: 50 receptions
$400,000: 55 receptions
Increasing all three levels — 30 to 47, 40 to 50, 50 to 55 — still keeps them within Hollins’ theoretical reach; his career-high in catches stands at 57, accomplished during his lone season with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022. That said, reaching even the first level is now significantly more challenging considering that he finished his first year as a Patriot with the aforementioned 46 catches.
It is worth noting that the renegotiation took place before the Patriots’ season opener against the Seattle Seahawks. Hollins caught four passes in that game, all while seeing teammate A.J. Brown suffer a high-ankle sprain that is reportedly expected to keep him out for six weeks. With Brown sidelined, Hollins is expected to increase his role and target share.
The renegotiation is not the first time the Patriots decided to alter Hollins’ previously agreed-upon incentive structure. Back in February, they added a $400,000 signing bonus to his deal after he missed out an incentive of that value by only four catches.
This latest agreement means that the Patriots created $600,000 in cap space for 2026. Hollins was originally counted against New England’s books with $5.56 million, a number that has decreased to $4.96 million.
