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Now, since people seem unable to concede something as blatantly obvious as a $50 million dollar spending gap being a legitimate point when discussing the Krafts' willingness to spend, I'll step out of this thread before the insanity gets worse. Good luck to all of you who wish to keep pretending that a spending gap of more than $12 million per season isn't a legitimate point for those arguing Kraft is being cheap.
No, DI the point you miss was that while the cowboys may have spent 50MM more on player salaries in that time period. we have no idea what they spent on coaches facilities, etc. We DO know that during that time the Pats spent lavishly on player facilities, the latest technology. etc. We also know that they do things MOST teams don't like having their own scouting system, rather than spending less and using the 2 national scouting organizations. It would be a lot more cost effective to do it the other way.
Sorry, DI, you haven't come CLOSE to making a legitimate case that the Pats have EVER been stingy under the Kraft ownership. While it would be fair disagree with some of their player personnel moves, they weren't done with the idea of "saving us some money". Not signing Seymour wasn't just about the dollars he wanted, but how it affected the entire salary structure, and who it meant that you couldn't sign. That "50MM dollar gap" is a straw man argument, and doesn't hold water.
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Just to finish up with this, since it posted before my last post was published, I understand the issue with a time window. However, any term used is going to be open to that same sort of complaint. In this case, though, the year window included big contracts for the likes of Brady and Seymour, as well as the big money paid to Samuel in 2007, so I'm certainly not persuaded that the window is unfair to the Patriots with regards to the "cheap" argument.
AD's in there, too, so you're probably right.
I still don't see it as a smoking gun. Is it a cherry on top of a mountain of other evidence? Perhaps. But not enough to make a case out of on its own, IMO.
__________________ "They have one objective," said Washington cornerback Shawn Springs. "They whoop people's [backsides]. If you understand that, it answers all your questions. They might not lose [this year]."
I agree with the title of the thread, but to be fair the Patriots couldn't cut staff even if they wanted to. For the past half dozen years at least, the Patriots have had the leanest staff in the entire league. We have fewer assistants and coaches than anyone else. We can do this because Belichick does 10 different things at once.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DropKickFlutie
The original poster focused on the coaches and staff of the Patriots.
To add to Deus'es point, the Patriots have had the leanest coaching staff and assistants in the league for many years now. They simply can't cut any more people even if they wanted to, because they've been operating at bare minimum for awhile already. They can uniquely get away with it because Belichick can manage so many things at once, even managing low-wage assistants.
I agree with the title of the thread, but the point raised about the staff is not the strongest argument for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DropKickFlutie
I agree with your overall point, but you're going too far in making some points. The Pats have not spent to the max cap every year. They also pay Belichick highly, yes, but have paid peanuts to coordinators since 2004. They also have the league's fewest assistants and smallest coaching staff for many years.
Jonathan Kraft has also been running a lot of the team over the past several years, so that's another reason why this entire discussion about Robert Kraft being cheap or not is silly.
I think you may be making a lot of assumptions based on often-repeated rhetoric rather than any factual evidence.
I'll give you the point on the Patriots having the smallest coaching staff in the league - though I would really like to see data put together to back up that claim like the data Deus provided to find out if that is true or not.
However I would definitely want to see some data that shows the Patriots pay their coaches less than any other team, or that the Patriots entire budget for all coaches or personnel on the football side of operations is lower than that of other teams.
Ironically this seems to be something that is eerily similar to the "Patriots are cheap" and "Kraft is cheap" hyperbole that many hear so many times that they assume it must be true.
You have to pay your players over time. That's why a longer time period is needed, rather than just a one year window. So, show me the $50 million in unusual bonuses that the Patriots paid in 2003, and that was taken off the board when it would have otherwise put them right at the top. After all, the 2004-2008 period includes Brady's contract following the 2005 season, and Seymour's extension after the 2006 season, just to point to a couple of the team's largest payouts.
Oops, and the Cowboys gave Owens a 12.9 million signing bonus in 2008 pushing them up to 60 million in bonuses.
Large signing bonuses allow you to temporarily exceed the cap; this is why the teams who paid out a ton in 2008 and to a lesser degree 2007 (Seattle, Dallas and the Redskins) were able to bump ahead of the rest of the NFL in that survey. It doesn't let you exceed the cap over a longer period of time.
Ken, as you're smart enough to know, it's not about misspending, it's about spending. Making obviously horrible arguments about how one team allocated its salary spending does not mitigate the cheapness/lack of cheapness of the allocated salary spending of other teams.
Now, since people seem unable to concede something as blatantly obvious as a $50 million dollar spending gap being a legitimate point when discussing the Krafts' willingness to spend, I'll step out of this thread before the insanity gets worse. Good luck to all of you who wish to keep pretending that a spending gap of more than $12 million per season isn't a legitimate point for those arguing Kraft is being cheap.
You'd prefer he spent more and not have the best record, or close to it, in football?
I thought the point was winning games.
So, who do you want to trade places with, the Cowgirls, Seahawks, or Redskins?
However I would definitely want to see some data that shows the Patriots pay their coaches less than any other team, or that the Patriots entire budget for all coaches or personnel on the football side of operations is lower than that of other teams.
Well we all know that information isn't public, so we'll never know. All we know is they've had the smallest staff and fewest assistants in the league for many years now, and that they've chosen to develop *mostly* unknown and low profile people on their staff who wouldn't command big money given their backgrounds before they joined.
The point is the original poster wanted to challenge a point nobody is even making, by raising something about the Patriots staff that doesn't really support his/her argument.
The point is the original poster wanted to challenge a point nobody is even making, by raising something about the Patriots staff that doesn't really support his/her argument.
It's so ironic, because Kraft is a fan who, before the discipline of Belichick, lavished big contracts on the likes of Bledsoe, Max Lane and Todd Ruschi, among others leaving the team in this state, according to football genius Joel Buschbaum.
By Joel Buchsbaum, Contributing editor
As published in print March 5, 2001
Quote:
The question posed to NFL insiders was: Which team had the least chance of making the playoffs or going to the Super Bowl in the next five years? The Patriots were a unanimous choice, but several other teams will have more than their share of obstacles to overcome as well.
Quote:
Almost all the scouts we spoke to gave the following reasons for picking the Patriots.
The Patriots are in salary-cap hell because they spent money unwisely due to their inability to evaluate their own talent.
It's so ironic, because Kraft is a fan who, before the discipline of Belichick, lavished big contracts on the likes of Bledsoe, Max Lane and Todd Ruschi, among others leaving the team in this state, according to football genius Joel Buschbaum.
I'm not disagreeing with you. We AGREE on the title of this thread. As I said before, I don't recall anyone here even accusing Robert Kraft of being cheap (it may be in the poster's head), and if you go back to the very first post, the argument he/she uses is a weak argument in terms of what the Patriots did with their coaching staff and assistants, given that they have the leanest (and less experienced) NFL staff aside from Belichick.
I do remember when Bledsoe was the highest paid. I don't even know if Robert Kraft runs the team that much anymore though, so discussing this is just a waste of time. Maybe someone should make a thread about Jonathan Kraft, who I think is not the same as his father.
Last edited by DropKickFlutie; 05-24-2011 at 09:32 PM..
I'm not disagreeing with you. We AGREE on the title of this thread. As I said before, I don't recall anyone here even accusing Robert Kraft of being cheap (it may be in the poster's head), and if you go back to the very first post, the argument he/she uses is a weak argument in terms of what the Patriots did with their coaching staff and assistants, given that they have the leanest (and less experienced) NFL staff aside from Belichick.
I do remember when Bledsoe was the highest paid. I don't even know if Robert Kraft runs the team that much anymore though, so discussing this is just a waste of time. Maybe someone should make a thread about Jonathan Kraft, who I think is not the same as his father.
Well, the middle of the thread seems to be about whether we spend as much as we possibly can, as if that has any importance.
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Re: Kraft is NOT Cheap
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