The QB’s restructured contract gives

the team more room under the salary cap.

FOXBORO, Mass. (AP) – Tom Brady finally found time to catch his breath, examine his cluttered life and make a to-do list.

Now he can cross out that line about restructuring his contract. Brady reworked the deal late last week to give the New England Patriots more room under the salary cap. With two first-round draft picks next month, they’re sure to need it.

“You do whatever it takes to help the team get better players and help the team win,” he said Thursday. “Ultimately, the only thing I care about is winning.”

Brady’s base salary for 2003 was $3.125 million. That was reduced to $450,000, according to a report in the Boston Herald.

Unlike most NFL player contracts, the Patriots agreed to guarantee some money, and payments will be spread out over a longer period, Brady said.

“The salary cap is one thing that all these teams are trying to figure out how to manipulate it best,” he said. “I think we freed up a couple of million bucks.” Now Brady can focus on other chores on his list that have been ignored during his whirlwind ride .

from backup quarterback to Super Bowl MVP.

to full-time starter to a man without a playoff berth in less than two seasons.

“About a month ago, I made a list of all the things that I needed to do,” he said. “I had moved to a different place. I’ve had boxes piled up all over the place. There were gifts for people that I’ve wanted to buy, wedding gifts that I’m eight months late on.”

He figures he’d been to his family’s California home for about 10 days during the past 18 months. And with the start of the Patriots offseason training program last Monday, he’s not likely to spend much, if any, time there before training camp in mid-July.

For now, he’ll work on conditioning, footwork, throwing and getting his right shoulder healthy. It hurt him late last season and the only indication he gave Thursday of what was wrong was that it was inflamed.

Anything more would have aroused the ire of coach Bill Belichick.

“You know Coach doesn’t like us to get into that,” Brady said at a meeting with reporters. “Believe me, I’d go from here straight to his office if I started talking about it.”

He’s had to cut back on golf and weight training and hasn’t thrown much, but he’s optimistic his shoulder will be fine in a few weeks.

“It’s not like it’s killing me,” Brady said. “It’s just that, as a quarterback, you want it to go perfect. It’s not quite perfect yet.”

In his second pro season in 2001, Brady replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe in the second game and led the Patriots to the championship. Last season, after Bledsoe was traded to Buffalo, the Patriots won their first three games but finished 9-7 and were eliminated from playoff contention on the last day of the regular season.

“We just never seemed to be as consistent as we would have liked,” Brady said.

The Patriots made some big free-agent splashes in the offseason, signing linebacker Rosevelt Colvin and safety Rodney Harrison.

“Mostly those additions have been on defense.” Brady said with a smile. “If they don’t give up any points this year, I don’t think we’ll lose too many games.”

But he has plenty of work to do before the regular season.

He’s taking part in running and conditioning drills, and once his arm is ready, he expects to throw three days a week.

He’d also like to shorten his to-do list.

“From the time we won the Super Bowl,” he said, “it was just madness. It was so fast. There were things I never got a chance to do and now I’m starting to get settled into putting things in order in my life.”

For now, anyway.

“Every day, for one thing that I eliminate doing, there’s two other things that pop up,” he said. “I want to make sure that I’m spending most of my time on the most important things.”

AP-ES-03-27-03 1817EST