When Tom Brady left the Patriots, one of the most-discussed names to replace him was Andy Dalton. But that doesn’t appear to be happening.

Dalton hasn’t been discussed among the quarterbacks the Patriots are currently considering, according to Jeff Howe of TheAthletic.com. Something would have to change for the Patriots to look toward Dalton.

The Patriots are near the bottom of the league in available salary cap space and currently wouldn’t be able to take on Dalton’s $17.5 million base salary without getting rid of some other players, so it seems very unlikely that they’d trade for him any time soon.

The other two teams that were most often mentioned as potential suitors for Dalton were the Colts and Bears, but the Colts signed Philip Rivers and the Bears traded for Nick Foles, so we can cross both of those teams off the list for Dalton.

That means that the Bengals may not find any takers in a Dalton trade, which would mean either that they’d keep him around and let him serve as the veteran mentor to the presumed first overall pick Joe Burrow, or Dalton could be released.

Report: Patriots not discussing Andy Dalton originally appeared on Pro Football Talk