Peppers is 30 years old now and having him hasn't been a difference maker in Carolina either. Samuel's tag number was $7.8M, still well below the past and present cap and contract leaders on the team. He had also played for at least the tail end of his 4 year rookie deal for well below his market (by simple virtue of his ring in 2004 as essentially the starting LCB once the $12M man Ty Law went down). We can get a passrushing component without throwing $20M at the problem. When you do it your way if **** happens you're shir out of luck.
Again different eras in time. Three years ago, $7.8 million was an significantly bigger part of the cap considering the cap since the last CBA has been growing at an exponential rate.
As for the money for Peppers, if it is an one year deal in an uncapped year, the money is irrelevant as long as Kraft is willing to pay it and it doesn't shortchange the Pats from making the other moves they make. It is like Red Sox fans crying about how much a certain player is making since it really doesn't make a difference as long as the Red Sox are still adding players they need.
Seriously, if there is no cap this year, the Patriots give Mankins, Wilfork, and Gostkowski long term deals, they fill most of their holes in free agency and the draft, and they pay Peppers $20 million for one year; you are going to be upset because Peppers is 30? Opposed to paying Adalius Thomas more than that for basically one good year of service and two average to mediocre? At least with Peppers, you don't have him holding your team down if he doesn't pan out.
Not even close, and Kraft has a mortgage to pay, Snyder doesn't. Snyder has already bankrupted one of his other businesses, to boot. Kraft isn't looking to do that to his family. Kraft has 3 Lombardi's in his personal collection. Snyder has zero - mostly because he mismanaged his franchise out of the gate and has yet to learn his lesson. You don't win by collecting talent intent on market setting deals, you win by building a deep and cohesive and disciplined team to whom winning matters.
Snyder has a mortgage. The state assisted him in building FedEx field, but he had to shell out about $200 million of his own money. Snyder's other business misfortunes probably have nothing to do with the Redskins.
As for Snyder's lack of success, it has to do with his lack of scouting, willingness to trade away all his draft picks, impatience with players and coaches, and his love of acquiring names who are mismatches or are living purely on reputation.
The Jets took the Snyder way of building a team and they are playing in the AFC Championships on Sunday. Paying for big free agents have apparently haven't hurt them.
An uncapped year is not the same as a capped year. If you spend in an uncapped year it doesn't chock your cap unless the cap is reinstated and you have a multiyear contract on a player. What Snyder did and what I suggested is unrelated.
Yes it does. Kraft learned his lesson. He wasn't winning the fanboy way.
But the rules have changed in an uncapped year. He and Belichick have to learn new rules. You can argue they are already behind the curve since the cap growing as fast as it did means that their way of looking at value of players is outdated and probably cost us players that we probably didn't have to lose like Asante Samuel. Maybe Kraft and Belichick need to go back to school because you can argue they are managing this team in an outdated fashion. I don't 100% subscribe to that notion, but it does have some valid points.
The Krafts are pretty CBA savvy. They appear to be unwilling to take risks that don't have long term benefit. They know that any new CBA will have a cap and it won't be rising as dramatically as it has even in the recent past. That is the goal of owners in this entire process... Teams who behave foolishly in advance of an uncapped year or new CBA will be the next generation of teams in cap hell. Happened when the cap was first introduced, too. This team succeeded because BB had a plan to manage the cap properly. Kraft bought in to his overall management philolophy as his scheme.
The fact of the matter is we have no idea how they are going to approach an uncapped year? Do you really take Jonathan Kraft on his word based on what he told Felger and Mazz on the radio.
Fact of the matter is Felger has a point in that we have been predicting cap doom for the Colts for years now and maybe in the next decade or two we will be right. I know Harrison's contract forced them to cut marquee players like Wayne, Freeney, and Clark.
Even if there is no cap in 2010 and a new cap returns in 2011, every team has the freedom to do outrageous one year deals in 2010 with no cap consequence. If the Pats want to do things similiar to what they did with Stallworth and Washington only bigger, they can and it will not affect a future cap one iota. I am sure Kraft and Belichick know this. Whether they take advantage of this is something we will have to wait until March to see.
Personally, I think the Pats are going to spend this offseason no matter what. Cap or no cap, they have tens of millions they will probably spend because of their cap flexibility at this point if there was a cap and their actual real dollar payroll is so low.
One thing is for sure, no matter what happens with the cap, the rules in managing an NFL roster has changed since the early part of this Century. The Pats will have to adapt or they will have been past by the rest of the league.
