Salary Cap Has Increased by 30 Percent, Right?
 

Or at least over 28%, if I've got the numbers right--was about $85 million, and will now be $109, correct? What I'm wondering, and don't think I've seen anywhere, is how the deals the Pats are currently making translate into the older cap dollars. What I mean is, it seems to me the Pats--as usual, before other teams have figured it out--have not changed their approach at all. Rather, they have rapidly adapted to the new cap structure, which means, duh, there's more money to spend! It seems like a lot of teams are trying to be "fiscally responsible" now, because the Pats had so much success with the disciplined approach, that they don't realize that to be responsible now STILL means you can increase spending. Honestly, this seems obvious, but I don't think I've seen it broken down mathematically.

Anybody up for doing this? Translating the current FA deals the Pats are making into the previous cap dollars?

Re: Salary Cap Has Increased by 30 Percent, Right?
 

The 2006 cap was $102,000,000.

Re: Salary Cap Has Increased by 30 Percent, Right?
 

Right--I should have been clearer. The cap in 2005 was $85.5 million, I believe, before increasing to 102 and now 109........my point being the market has shifted markedly in a very short time, which I don't think is being processed correctly by most teams.

Re: Salary Cap Has Increased by 30 Percent, Right?
 

Next you'll tell me the moon isn't made out of cheese!

Re: Salary Cap Has Increased by 30 Percent, Right?
 

Well, I don't think the rest of the league are morons. I'm really making a request to someone on the board to try and analyze the Pats FA signings this year by converting them to the 2005 salary cap dollars--I think it'd be interesting to see.

Re: Salary Cap Has Increased by 30 Percent, Right?
 

Peter King noted Colvin's 2002 contract was 6.7% of the Salary Cap that year. Thomas' is 6.4% this year, seems to be some consistency in that regard.

Re: Salary Cap Has Increased by 30 Percent, Right?
 

Hmmmm... where have I heard this before? :D

Re: Salary Cap Has Increased by 30 Percent, Right?
 

I've done a number of threads on cap inflation strategy... at the risk of belaboring the obvious.

It's not just that money is out there, it's that we're just catching up to the inflation of 06's off-season, and adding to it the 7M bump this off-season. If you can get your value early, it would seem the way to go, assuming that nobody knows how high the market can climb unless it unfolds like last year, with deals lingering on the table all summer. Well, we made sure that did not happen this year.

In a high-inflation era, holding money until next year is not very sound policy. Buying real assets, on the other hand, is a pretty decent hedge. Likewise, locking down a guy with dollars that might even end up being "cheap" 07 dollars (early market dollars), is going to look realllly good against 08, 09, or 2010 dollars (the inflation after the one-time 06 bump is still higher than prior to.)

I don't know how much this sort of consideration plays into the Pats' valuations, but they must try to peg values at projected market rate. This year, it looks like they nailed their projections, and even got Thomas and Stallworth at a relatively decent price.

PFnV