I'm not disagreeing with you that we kept some cap money in store to resign players like Branch... as well as Graham, Koppen, and Samuel, too. So far, we've got one inked to a new deal.
The reason, however, why it is NOT academic that we're at around league average for cap space left is that some people are acting like the Pats are the only team under the cap, and that somehow, because we didn't go crazy in the post-CBA bull market in free agency, our FO was lax in restocking the team with talent.
It's a made-up issue. There's really very little basis for it, and the only people who are talking about it are the panicmongerers in the local sports media, and the chicken littles who believe them.
People are always looking for someone to blame whenever the team has some problems. We've lost Mel Mitchell, Tebucky Jones, Randall Gay, Rodney Harrison and Eugene Wilson for significant time at safety, and have had Samuel, Hobbs and Chad Scott all in and out w/ injury -- and the fact that we're having depth injuries from this injury plague (on players from ages 22 as well as 34, mind you) is the fault of the FO for not spending enough?
We had Monty Beisel wash out, Barry Gardener break a leg and Seau break an arm -- and again, the problem is because we didn't spend that $6 million dollars?
The same guys who were available when we picked up Seau are available now -- Huff, Claiborne, Sharper -- and we still don't want them.
So whom should we have spend money on? Julian Peterson and Lavar Arrington? They are both overrated and were way overpaid. Witherspoon and Thornton are too small to fit our system -- and were also overpaid.
There wasn't weren't many talented players available, and the ones that were were landing insane contracts because of the CBA-induced boom-time spending.
Its the Pats' restraint in not going after expensive, overrated guys like Peterson that will eventually result in our being able to hang onto guys like Ty Warren.
