Ty Law Question - Page 6 - New England Patriots Forums

***PatsFanSince74*** · 07-13-2006, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyJohnson

Thats the type of answer my original question was soliciting.
What I do not agree with is that BB and Pioli value 'winning the negotiation' over winning games and SBs. I tihnk they absolutley will blink first if they can afford it under the cap and believe we are a better team with Law.
I have no disagreement with the thinking that BB and Pioli guard every single cap dollar tightly, and they will walk away from players rather than blowing out the integrity of how they are buiilding the team. That is because there are other players to spend it on. Its a budget. If you have $150 to go to the grocery strore with and need to feed a family for a week, there are many things you would like to buy, but cannot because you must sacrifice something else. Many GMs handle this analogy by eating steak and lobster for a couple days then scrounging on spaghetti and butter until payday. BB and Pioli in this analogy would comparison shop, decide that in order to have 3 square meals every day that you can only have desert once or twice.
The analogy is different in the Law case. We have an extra bonus (more cap room) to spend. We can afford the luxury item. Of course you could save it for later, and thats where the analogy departs its effectiveness, because not using the $$ now means less chance of winning now, which is the first order of business.

Its hard to quantify, but if Law elevates the team significantly more than anyone else or combination of players available for the same cap room, and you have the room to sign him, we should, even if that means he 'wins the negotation' and we have to pay a bit more than we would have liked to.

Consider this, we have built a team through an approach that says we are demanding value. (By the way that comes hardly at all through contract negotiation and almost solely because we get more from players in their rookie contracts than anyone does) If you built a team on the philosophy you would only pay mediocre pay, require home town discounts, never pay full market value, you would have a poor to medicore team. What the Patriots have done is build a large part of the team on the 'frugal' approach. What do you do with the savings? You pay for very good players.

Thats the part thats gets missed here. The Pats under BB have been as top heavy as any team on the cap. The savings in some areas create one thing, the ability to spend more in others.

In the case of Law, I would rather add a 5mill (hypothetical #) player at a cost of 6mill if we can afford it than add no one.

Your post really captures the dilemma of managing under the cap in the NFL today.

On the assumption that you can't "pay a little more than you want to" every time you face such a decision, how do you pick your spots when you will indeed do so? At what point does "going the extra mill" (ha ha) hurt you in terms (a) of the next negotiation and (b) the morale of players who have already taken less to stay within the "system?" [However, as for the latter point,let's be honest, BB and Pioli long ago "went Darwinian" and decided to be "frugal" with players that they regard as "plug compatible" (ie, who can be replaced without a lot of trouble) and to pay up, to some degree, for those they consider special.]

In the final analysis, impact-wise, I agree with you. Assuming, as seems to be true, that they have cap room, Law is a case where they should pay-up, while simultaneously acknowledging that they will have to deal with (a) and (b) above as a result.

***AndyJohnson*** · 07-13-2006, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoLewisrocks

I disagree about that top heavy comment. We are not, either by cap or by contract, a top heavy team. We were when they got here, and they had to cut their way out of that and have not collected the elite position players that put you in that position nor have they paid their own elite players elite salaries to remain with the exception of Seymour. Under Belioli's system you do not overpay for anyone, including Brady. Kraft said before his resigning that if he wanted Manning money or better they would have a real problem retaining him. His savings is spread across the roster to allow them to afford to pay fair market for others, not to overpay them. He allowed them to keep Seymour who, while he got the very top of his market for the short term, is still not overpaid. Overpaid would have been a 6-7 year $60M+ deal with upwards of $25M+ guaranteed. Seymour's cap will average $7.5M over the next 4 seasons.

In the highest cap season in Brady's contract, and one they could have lowered at the expense of future caps, it takes us 8 players to total what KC is spending on 6. They have 6 over 6, we have 1. I can't think of a single player we have "overpaid" in the last 6 seasons. Sure some ended up overpaid based on their performance after the fact but we didn't overpay for their perceived talent going into their deal - which is what you seem to think they should be willing to do for Ty just because we can. That's a philosophical dead end road Belioli is not going to start down. Because what do you do then when you need to sign a player or players at fair market next season and you can't afford to because you overpaid for someone last season because you were cap flush? The answer would then be you either cut someone else you also need to create new space or walk away.

Depends how you define top heavy.
Which is more top heavy?
6 players taking up 40 mill, or 10 players taking up 55 mill?

My point is we HAVE TO BE top heavy, because we are "bottom light". That is we have numerous players who produce above their cap # in their rookie contract. Other teams are paying more money to fill those roles. Everyone has the same middle class. By definition, we would be spending more on the higher end.
How it materializes here isnt in paying one or two guys a boatload of money, but by paying MORE players in the upper echelon.
I would bet a lot of money that if yuo cut off "upper echelon" at say 2-2.5 mill cap numbers, the Pats would have more of those than any team. That is what I meant by top heavy.

By the way, Ted Johnson, Antowain Smith, Donald Hayes are examples of being overpaid.
McGinest and Law were overpaid from the contracts BB inherited, but he decided to continue overpaying them.

***thewaylifeshouldbe*** · 07-13-2006, 12:49 PM

Is it possible that KC signing Law could actually be a boon to us in some fashions?

Allow for money available to extend Branch and pay Sey a chunk of his dough.

As well possibly help KC with handing Denver a couple of losses and disrupting a post-season homefield advantage. I would rather host Denver than visit there in the playoffs if the post-season meant a match with them.

All speculation of course, but I am not so sure that "losing" Law to KC is a negative.

belichickaholic · 07-13-2006, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smg93

Sorry, but that's really really stretching it. Like you said, he's made an excellent point that you can't counter. I can't believe you're still trying to defend a point that you have admitted is indefensible now. Do you really mean to say that its possible that QB's threw to Ty Law more than all of our CB's combined?????? With all due respect, that's pretty weak.

Yes, it was a poor point and I apologize. But my original point, before it got twisted, was that he was thrown at a lot for a reason. It had nothing to do with the Pats DB's. You don't get 10 int's unless they're throwing on your side of the feild.

He's a 32 year old CB coming off a bad foot. Of course they're going to throw on his side. But as Arrellbee and a few other posters have said, how many of those int's were good and how many were lucky?

I saw several of them myself and he appeared to be beaten on the play and the ball was mis thrown. In 5 years from 2000 to 2004, he had 16 int's, in 1year, last year, he had 10.

As others have said, int's can be deceiving and with Ty, I believe that is the case. IMHO he is no longer an elite corner and I hope the Pats don't bring him back at all. let alone pay him big money.

But at the same time, I'm just a fan and damn that koolaid tastes good!

shakadave · 07-13-2006, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thewaylifeshouldbe

Is it possible that KC signing Law could actually be a boon to us in some fashions?

Allow for money available to extend Branch and pay Sey a chunk of his dough.

All speculation of course, but I am not so sure that "losing" Law to KC is a negative.

The new article today in the Kansas City Star http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...s/15025442.htm
gives some amazing numbers. KC's cap situation is such that, after you do the math, you see they have no more than $3m to try to sign Law. That can't be enough, can it? If it's really a two-team race (which it's probably not) could we actually scoop up Law for like $3.8m? If so, this whole decision just got easier.

5 Rings for Brady!! · 07-13-2006, 02:06 PM

If we have lots of guys outplaying their contract, then we have lots of underpaided guys taking up roster spots. Also, most everybody that stays a Patriot will end up in our vast middle class. We have a single handful of top-heavy players, and as MO pointed out, they are not overpaid at the top either. The ones at the top are compensated at a reasonable value for player and team, but they are not overpaid. We use the draft quite effectively to get maximum value out of cheap rookies.

Not to beat a dead horse, but as I mentioned, and Mo also mentions, the Pats seem VERY likely to have already offered Law a fair market deal. This will be proven to be a fair deal if Ty can't bluff and bullcrap his way into a better deal from his only other suitor, Kansas City.

Bioli doesn't play games, and they have already put their cards on the table for Law to consider, IMHO.

Very likely, the Pats will sweeten the deal a little if they need a token olive branch.

***MoLewisrocks*** · 07-13-2006, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyJohnson

Depends how you define top heavy.
Which is more top heavy?
6 players taking up 40 mill, or 10 players taking up 55 mill?

We have 10 players taking up $44M so I'd say we are far less top heavy than either of your I presume rhetorical examples. I define top heavy as a disproportionate percentage of your payroll or cap being earmarked for a fraction of your roster. 10-20% of your players taking up 30-40% or more of your financial resources which are to a large extent limited under a relatively hard cap.

My point is we HAVE TO BE top heavy, because we are "bottom light". That is we have numerous players who produce above their cap # in their rookie contract. Other teams are paying more money to fill those roles. Everyone has the same middle class. By definition, we would be spending more on the higher end.

No that is really convoluted thinking. Other teams pay the same for their rookie contract players by and large unless they are consistently stuck with top picks (which is another whole problem). Some rely more heavily on them to fill out the roster than we do. Some pick better and therefore get more value but that is in hindlight and we are not the only team whose rookies outproduce their rookie contracts by a longshot.

Indy is one example of a team who is far more reliant on rookies playing (well or otherwise) because they cannot spend routinely on mid level or aging FA (who often provide an immediate upgrade over draftees) to build a blended middle class or higher functioning depth because their top heavy payroll will not accommodate it. So they have to try to grow and are forced to rely on their own drafted middle class, and often lose them just as they are rounding into better form. It happens to other low revenue teams as well, just Indy exacerbates it by being top heavy on the offensive side of the ball as a philosophical approach of choice to competing against and beating higher revenue teams.

When we lose a player it is generally because either we would not overpay them on principle even knowing someone else would, or because their level of play was not worth even fair market to this team. When Indy loses a player it's because they chose not to overpay him because they can not afford to overpay them all, or because they couldn't even afford to pay them fair market because they have paid too many others so much more than market to stay.

How it materializes here isnt in paying one or two guys a boatload of money, but by paying MORE players in the upper echelon.

We do not pay our upper echelon players - and I define that as our core players who would be welcome on most any team (Brady, Seymour, Colvin, Vrabel, Tedy, Rodney) more, we actually pay 5 of the 6 far less than market value relative to their performance and position). Good LB's average $4M. Only one of ours makes slightly above $4M average. Rodney was quick to point out last season that he wasn't even in the top 20 salaried safeties. Brady is the fourth or fifth ranked QB by contract AAV and he lags behind the top dogs by $3-4M per season or about 20% less.

I would bet a lot of money that if yuo cut off "upper echelon" at say 2-2.5 mill cap numbers, the Pats would have more of those than any team. That is what I meant by top heavy.

That isn't top heavy, that's having better quality across the board because you aren't top heavy. Your talking us having more players making league starter average as a bad thing, I think Belioli calls that a team based roster philosophy. We have 11 players in your upper echelon. Cut off "upper echelon" at $3M+ and we only have 6. Cut it off at $4M+ and we have only 3. Remember, KC has at least 6 of those and likely lots more.

By the way, Ted Johnson, Antowain Smith, Donald Hayes are examples of being overpaid.
McGinest and Law were overpaid from the contracts BB inherited, but he decided to continue overpaying them.

Guys are overpaid in hindsight on existing contracts all the time. We're talking about deliberately overpaying a player. Apples and oranges. And what Ted and Antoin made relative to others in their position vs. how they and this team performed in their last few seasons here - I don't see overpayment. Willie and Ty were eventually cut when their production value was exceeded by their cap cost. And because of dead cap costs on those contracts BB inherited they really couldn't have been cut much sooner.

arrellbee · 07-13-2006, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyJohnson

Depends how you define top heavy.
Which is more top heavy?
6 players taking up 40 mill, or 10 players taking up 55 mill?

My point is we HAVE TO BE top heavy, because we are "bottom light". That is we have numerous players who produce above their cap # in their rookie contract. Other teams are paying more money to fill those roles. Everyone has the same middle class. By definition, we would be spending more on the higher end.

No. We are spending significantly less.

How it materializes here isnt in paying one or two guys a boatload of money, but by paying MORE players in the upper echelon.
I would bet a lot of money that if yuo cut off "upper echelon" at say 2-2.5 mill cap numbers, the Pats would have more of those than any team. That is what I meant by top heavy.

No. We are within one player of the other teams listed below.

By the way, Ted Johnson, Antowain Smith, Donald Hayes are examples of being overpaid.
McGinest and Law were overpaid from the contracts BB inherited, but he decided to continue overpaying them.

I can see why you might think that way. But it doesn't actually work out that way.

The following numbers as of June 6th come from:
Pats - Miguel
Colts, Steelers, Eagles - Ian Whetstone (url reference from Miguel)
Total cap for top 10, 15, and 20 players; total cap for players over $2M; # of players over $2M
..............10......15......20......>2M......#>2 M
Colts........55......67......73.......65........14
Eagles......49......59......66.......53........12
Steelers....54......65......72.......63........14
Pats.........40......51......57.......47........13

I was a little surprised that the Steelers were similar to the Colts.
I think the Eagles are generally regarded as being closest to the Pats in paying the bottom of their roster more than other teams.

5 Rings for Brady!! · 07-13-2006, 05:28 PM

Great Post! Our top 20 players make what Steelers and Colts top ten make, and a lot less than the Iggles to boot!

spacecrime · 07-13-2006, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smg93

Sorry, but that's really really stretching it. Like you said, he's made an excellent point that you can't counter. I can't believe you're still trying to defend a point that you have admitted is indefensible now. Do you really mean to say that its possible that QB's threw to Ty Law more than all of our CB's combined?????? With all due respect, that's pretty weak.

Of course not. You are missing a key point. Sure, the opposing QBs tossed at Ty a lot, which gave him ectra chances. But the main way he piled up INTs is the way that guys litk Delthea O'Neil piles them up. By leaving his man if he thinks the pass will go elsewhere.

Freelancing rather than playing Team Defense is great if you want stats and not have fans and media mad at you. You not only pile up the INTs, but the fans and media do not see you as responsible for the great catch that was made. They blame the player who was closest to the WR catching the ball, whihc isn't Ty ( or Delthea, etc) who was supposed to be there but now is somewhere else.

People here still blame Randall Gay for that pass Plaxico caught, even though Harrison said repeatedly that HE screwed up. And most still blame Samuels for letting Ricky Proehl catch a TD late in the Panthers SB, when you can see on the tape the some other Pats CB left Proehl to go somehere else. Without knowing the game play called, fans can't tell who was responsible. They don't even care. As long as a guy gets 10 INTs he can give up 20 TDs and no one notices if he is out of position.

Fans and media can't tell, but coaches can. Law wasn't signed until August aof last year because other coaches were getting wise to him. Only Edwards was blind. And this year only one coach has interest, and that is our blind friend Herm.