Mike Lombardi: Cassel to be franchised [merged]

[IcyPatriot]

I have expected this for a while ... anything less is reckless by the Patriots even if it eats up cap space for 2009.

ESPN - Report: Pats will franchise Cassel - AFC East

Michael Lombardi, a former NFL executive with several teams, reported on this week's edition of Showtime's "Inside the NFL" the New England Patriots will put the franchise tag on Matt Cassel to prevent him from becoming a free agent.

 

[lightningbolt]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Can you guys afford it though? The combined money that you will have to pay Tom Brady and Matt Cassell in 2009 will be $28 million if you franchise Cassell and your salary cap is I believe $130 million for 2009, which will mean you'll probably have to cut a lot of players in order to make up for that extra money which will be going towards Cassell. I think you'd probably be better off just signing a backup quarterback from another team who has experience such as for instance A. J. Feeley from the Eagles or Billy Volek from the Chargers and let Matt Cassell go.

 

[BelichickFan]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Can you guys afford it though? The combined money that you will have to pay Tom Brady and Matt Cassell in 2009 will be $28 million if you franchise Cassell and your salary cap is I believe $130 million for 2009, which will mean you'll probably have to cut a lot of players in order to make up for that extra money which will be going towards Cassell. I think you'd probably be better off just signing a backup quarterback from another team who has experience such as for instance A. J. Feeley from the Eagles or Billy Volek from the Chargers and let Matt Cassell go.

As has been discussed ad nauseum . . . we only need the money until he's traded then we get the money freed up again. What we need to avoid is what happened to the Chargers when they let Drew Brees go for nothing (except a comp pick).

 

[IcyPatriot]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Can you guys afford it though? The combined money that you will have to pay Tom Brady and Matt Cassell in 2009 will be $28 million if you franchise Cassell and your salary cap is I believe $130 million for 2009

With Brady injured the Patriots can franchise Cassel and then trade him and the NFL can't say squat about it. The Patriots have a right to do what's best for the team. No doctor in the world could now say 100% when Tom will be ready. Even though holes could be shot in the theory ... the Patriots can pull off a sign and then trade and the NFL is powerless to stop them. I'm bettting we get more compensation than many of our foes expect. I'm expecting 1 pick in the 2009 draft and a conditional pick in the 2010 draft.

 

[lostjumper]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised According to Mike Lombardi

According to Miguel's numbers here on the site, the Pats are currently 22 million under the cap. Looks like they will have room to Franchise Cassell for the time being.

 

[lightningbolt]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

As has been discussed ad nauseum . . . we only need the money until he's traded then we get the money freed up again. What we need to avoid is what happened to the Chargers when they let Drew Brees go for nothing (except a comp pick).

Well, we really didn't have a choice at the time. It was a risky move to franchise a quarterback who had just been seriously injured; if no team wanted to pay him more than we were, we would have been screwed big time because we would have been left paying two quarterbacks starting type money, without even knowing if Brees would ever fully recover. Matt Cassell's situation is totally different from Brees because Cassell is fully healthy, so teams that are interested in him know exactly what they will be getting; Brees was a big question mark due to the injury.

 

[IcyPatriot]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised According to Mike Lombardi

According to Miguel's numbers here on the site, the Pats are currently 22 million under the cap. Looks like they will have room to Franchise Cassell for the time being.

I'm also thinking Belichick is cutting Seymour and re-signing Jarvis to a 3-4 year deal for cheaper money ... that's another thread though isn't it?

 

[lightningbolt]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

With Brady injured the Patriots can franchise Cassel and then trade him and the NFL can't say squat about it. The Patriots have a right to do what's best for the team. No doctor in the world could now say 100% when Tom will be ready. Even though holes could be shot in the theory ... the Patriots can pull off a sign and then trade and the NFL is powerless to stop them. I'm bettting we get more compensation than many of our foes expect. I'm expecting 1 pick in the 2009 draft and a conditional pick in the 2010 draft.

If you can pull it off then yea, then would be very smart. Which teams look like they'll be interested in Cassell? I'm guessing Minnesotta is one of those teams. The Titans would also be very wise if they picked him up because with a good quarterback, they'd be even more dangerous than they are now.

 

[BelichickFan]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Well, we really didn't have a choice at the time. It was a risky move to franchise a quarterback who had just been seriously injured

Understood. I said at the time I'd have traded Rivers since Brees was much more impressive in Rivers' rookie year than he had been the year before. I get the shoulder thing but IMO there was too much value at QB to just let one walk. I liked them both and would have traded whichever I could get the most for.

 

[BelichickFan]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Which teams look like they'll be interested in Cassell? I'm guessing Minnesotta is one of those teams. The Titans would also be very wise if they picked him up because with a good quarterback, they'd be even more dangerous than they are now.

There's a variety of teams like Detroit (could use the #1 pick elsewhere and trade us Dallas' #1 or even Detroit's #2), TB, Minnesota, Jets, and some teams with marginal QB like SF, KC and Chicago who may want to upgrade if the price in trade isn't too high.

 

[lightningbolt]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Understood. I said at the time I'd have traded Rivers since Brees was much more impressive in Rivers' rookie year than he had been the year before. I get the shoulder thing but IMO there was too much value at QB to just let one walk. I liked them both and would have traded whichever I could get the most for.

A.J. Smith never liked Brees, and he was big on Rivers so it was pretty much assumed that Rivers would eventually get the job. Brees getting injured just made it much easier for A.J. Smith to make that decision because a lot of fans would have been pissed off if he had let a healthy Brees walk; with the injury he could justify letting him go. Franchising Brees now looks like it would have been a good idea but at the time we didn't know if he would fully recover, and if teams believed that he wouldn't fully recover from it and be his old self, then they wouldn't have traded with us for him, which would have screwed us since Philip Rivers was signed to a long contract so we'd have to pay both of them. A 3rd round compensatory pick was logically the best we could hope for at the time, and it was the least risky option since we knew at the time that Rivers was also a good quarterback, so it's not like we were taking a huge risk by letting Brees go.

 

[lightningbolt]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

There's a variety of teams like Detroit (could use the #1 pick elsewhere and trade us Dallas' #1 or even Detroit's #2), TB, Minnesota, Jets, and some teams with marginal QB like SF, KC and Chicago who may want to upgrade if the price in trade isn't too high.

Even though they need a quarterback, the Jetts will definitely not get Cassell. The Patriots would be stupid to help their division opponent by trading them a good quarterback. He'll likely go to Minnesotta or Chicago.

 

[BelichickFan]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

A.J. Smith never liked Brees, and he was big on Rivers so it was pretty much assumed that Rivers would eventually get the job. Brees getting injured just made it much easier for A.J. Smith to make that decision because a lot of fans would have been pissed off if he had let a healthy Brees walk; with the injury he could justify letting him go.

Thankfully I said this at the time so it's not second guessing - but drafting Rivers made sense with Brees coming off a QB rating of 67; however then Brees had ratings of 105 and 89. I forget the details but Rivers' contract made him tradeable (maybe the Chargers just had the cap space to absorb the bonus acceleration, I forget the details) and I really felt at the time it was the move to make. You guys still have a top 10, probably top 5, QB but I just hate seeing value leave for nothing.

Don't get me started on what I would have done with Asante Samuel

 

[BelichickFan]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Even though they need a quarterback, the Jetts will definitely not get Cassell. The Patriots would be stupid to help their division opponent by trading them a good quarterback.

Everyone has their price

 

[lightningbolt]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Everyone has their price

I suppose if they traded you a 1st and 3rd round pick, then that would be worth it, but I don't know if they'd be willing to do that considering how much they recently had to give up for Brett Favre(stupid idea by the way).

 

[BelichickFan]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

I suppose if they traded you a 1st and 3rd round pick, then that would be worth it, but I don't know if they'd be willing to do that considering how much they recently had to give up for Brett Favre(stupid idea by the way).

Right, the price would likely be prohibitively high but I have no doubt Belichick would trade him to The Jest - for the right price; that price would just be a lot higher than to, say, Minnesota.

 

[Deus Irae]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

I suppose if they traded you a 1st and 3rd round pick, then that would be worth it, but I don't know if they'd be willing to do that considering how much they recently had to give up for Brett Favre(stupid idea by the way).

If Favre comes back, he'll be better than he was at the end of the year. He was playing with an injury, and the loss of arm strength and accuracy was apparent to anyone who paid attention. The problem for the Jets was that the backup sucks, so they couldn't afford to make a change (I'm not sure Mangini had the balls to do it anyway). Had Favre not gotten injured, the Jets are almost certainly in the playoffs and people are praising the Jets for their offseason moves. That's just the nature of the game.

 

[lightningbolt]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Thankfully I said this at the time so it's not second guessing - but drafting Rivers made sense with Brees coming off a QB rating of 67; however then Brees had ratings of 105 and 89. I forget the details but Rivers' contract made him tradeable (maybe the Chargers just had the cap space to absorb the bonus acceleration, I forget the details) and I really felt at the time it was the move to make. You guys still have a top 10, probably top 5, QB

Rivers has the best stats of any quarterback this year. I would rank him 3rd behind Manning and Brady. I think he's also the best out of the crop of young quarterbacks in the league(Rivers, Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, Romo, Cutler, etc.)

but I just hate seeing value leave for nothing. Don't get me started on what I would have done with Asante Samuel

Even worse than the Brees trade, the one that makes me regret not having franchised him is Michael Turner. He's looking like the best running back in the league now(1700 yards with 17 tds) and we just let him walk away for free to Atlanta. Before the 2007 season, teams were offering us 1st round picks for him but A.J. Smith overplayed his hand by demanding a 1st and a 3rd and no one ended up taking him up on that offer. I felt we should have just settled for a 1st, considering that we still had LT and Sproles so it's not like we'd be missing much by Turner leaving.

 

[lightningbolt]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

If Favre comes back, he'll be better than he was at the end of the year. He was playing with an injury, and the loss of arm strength and accuracy was apparent to anyone who paid attention. The problem for the Jets was that the backup sucks, so they couldn't afford to make a change (I'm not sure Mangini had the balls to do it anyway). Had Favre not gotten injured, the Jets are almost certainly in the playoffs and people are praising the Jets for their offseason moves. That's just the nature of the game.

I thought the Favre move was stupid because it's not like he'll be there for very long; one more year at most. They should have instead tried to get a young quarterback like Matt Schaub or someone else of that caliber who could be their quarterback for several years.

 

[alamo]

Re: Cassel to Be Franchised

Everyone has their price

Technically, if a franchised (non-exclusive of course) Cassel signed a contract with the Jets the Patriots could not stop them, except by matching the contract (which would effectively be impossible). But of course in that case the Jets owe the Pats two first round picks.

Which seems crazy, will never happen... until you think back to the fact Jets have in the past given quite nice picks to the Pats (for Parcells) and vice versa (for Belichick). While Cassel isn't worth quite that much, you never know with the Jets...