supafly

The NFL and all of its 32 separate parts are certainly a money making machine overall cash wise (your $225 dollar playoff ticket helped that cause), but the reason for the "teams don't have money" talk/concern is that this is the 3rd year in a row where the salary cap has not really budged at all.

We are seeing a flat cap era in this decade so far, so it gets people to talking about how teams will manage their perspective rosters individually as opposed to years past when the cap went up slightly or more each calendar year.

One good thing is that our coach/owner/front office were prepared for this to happen much more than the popular thinking of many other teams at this point last year, so they should be well prepared for that. Another great thing is that they are constantly planning for the future, at least as much as they possibly can. While it may not put them in the best group of prospects, they also don't venture near the cap hell of the poorly managed teams around the NFL who will eventually have to make difficult decisions.

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ATippett56

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manxman2601

This will makes BB's approach of trading for future picks in the draft much harder won't it? If teams are being more conservative in FA, they'll be valuing their draft picks much higher as a cheaper source of labour.

supafly

First of all, this is taking into acct the fact that it's 100% true that free agency will be that much different. While it is certainly possible, we'll need to see how the cap floor comes into effect first before coming to that conclusion.

Secondly, the other side of your thinking is that if teams do indeed value their draft picks even more now, there likely will still be some takers who want to try and bulk up on a certain guy they like or a certain talent field before any significant dropoff occurs..which is usually somewhere around rounds 2-4 depending upon the depth of the individual draft class itself.

I definitely see what you're getting at, but I personally don't think it will be that much more different myself. All it takes is ONE team to want to be impatient and jump the gun to move up and grab their target.

If anything, there could even be some type of debate as to whether or not it'd actually increase the likelihood of Belichick being able to trade down and out to accumulate more picks.

We'll have to watch carefully this year and see how much/if any difference there actually is, not only in the drafting process, but also in free agency. My guess is that it's going to be right around the same as it always is, due to the cap floor rule kicking in. That will force some of the cheaper teams to have to spend to the floor, where some of the others who haven't prepared for the flat cap may have their hands tied a bit more. If it changes anything at all, it may only change who the "usual players" are in the early stages of free agency.

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Patiently waiting to defend the next "bubble" player in this summer's training camp.....

manxman2601

Yup, you could well be right. Certainly, in last years draft, we saw a big upswing in trades at the top of the draft. On the other hand, BB lost out significantly in one trade in terms of the trade chart value. Certainly a richer trade atmosphere in the draft can only be a good thing for BB.

mayoclinic

The "don't have money" argument is a cap one, not a revenue one. The owners are raking it in, and will continue to do so. But they want to make sure the money goes into their pockets, and so the cap has remained flat, limiting the amount of money that teams can invest. There have been predictions that even when the new TV revenues start to kick in next year the cap still won't increase much, and possibly not in 2015. Your ticket price is paying ownership more than it is paying the team.

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DaBruinz

This idea that teams don't have money is false. There are at least 3 teams with over $40M to spend. And there are other teams that will open up money to spend as well. The Patriots will also probably open up money much like they have previously.

So, I'm not buying the idea that teams don't have money.. Also, I believe that this is the 1st year that teams have to meet a cap floor..

patsinthesnow

I was wondering who the 3 teams were. I find out the Colts are 40 million under the cap with no real major FAs of their own. (33 year old Freeney) Wow...the Colts really have a chance to position themselves as the 2nd best team in the AFC in just Luck's 2nd year.

Luck, Ballard, Hilton, Allen/Fleener will all be in year 2. With the cap they could go sign Vollmer, a good CB, and even Welker. They could then draft a guard and some defense. Geez, Suck for Luck worked.

DaBruinz

Demps is unproven and may only be a one trick pony (kick returns). Vereen is still relatively untested, though he did have an excellent game against Houston after Woodhead went down.

Woodhead has done whatever the Pats have asked of him. He's become a very good pass blocker. He's been on special teams, both coverage and return units. That is very hard to let go. And lets not forget that Vereen spent his entire first year injured, for the most part.

Synovia

Whoever is predicting these things is wrong. The NFL cap is set as a percentage of total revenue. If the revenue goes up, the cap goes up. If ticket prices go up, the cap goes up. etc.