Jimke said:
I don't know if this team will take a step back in 2006 but I see
a dangerous trend beginning.
I have followed the Pats since 1959 when they did not even have
a name. I would read the paper each day to see what player Mike
Holovak had signed.
Prior to the BB/Pioli era, the Pats had a few good teams but they did
not have any staying power. Ownership would intefere (Chuck Sullivan)or the general manager was inept(Bobby Grier). The Pats would lose good
players and replace them with inferior ones.
Free agency this year was not a good year for the Patriots. They lost
good players and signed players that other teams had discarded. I'm
fearful that our policy may be to discard players like Deon Branch, Daniel
Graham, Dan Koppen,and Assante Samuel after their rookie contract expires.
I think the "policy" is to set a value for each player. With 31 other teams also able to set a value for that player, and many of them without the same level of fiscal discipline, it is more (rather than less) likely in any given case that the Pats "lose" a guy to free agency, assuming the player has anything to bring to the table.
And these past few years, each player has something to bring to the table in most years -- the SB ring. Even Branch, a year and a half removed from being SB MVP, is basically trying to get cleared for Free Agency based on the bloom staying on that rose. He knows he has low #1/high #2 numbers, and is likely to have again, under the Pats' system, and he wants #1 money or the right to look elsewhere. Well, nowhere is it written the Pats have to do that.
Okay, let's get some perspective -- I remember Sam "Bam" Cunningham. I don't remember if he ever played for another team, but to me he is a Patriot forever. Loved the guy.
But I loved him the same way I loved those lovable losing Sox teams all those years. Loved following his stat line and watching him in action, as often as not in losing efforts. Loved Grogan the same way, loved telling people how he's the best running QB in the league but he can throw too, how much more valuable he was than Bert Jones was to the Colts... etcetera. What I really hated was having to shut the hell up when someone dropped the A-bomb, which they usually did pretty quick, to wit: "yeah um did the Pats make the playoffs this year?" Sometimes they did, sometimes they did not, but they hardly ever made it past the first round. These days losing in the second round is the disappointment, not the promised land.
The model for winning is different from the model of loyalty, like elsewhere in society these days. Just like one company will discard you like a rusty sprocket if you try to do your whole career there, one team can only carry you on the roster year in and year out if you really do take a hit to stay (the Troy Brown example.) I am not "for" labor or management in this issue, for the league. I am just "for" my team - the Patriots.
In practice this means I can't really go off too much on "greedy" players, but I sure can't go off on "stupid" management because their approach lacks loyalty. Most players don't show it, management sure doesn't show it. It's a business, different from the fan experience of the league in that way....
But the way the Brown deal works, well, that just gives me warm fuzzies. Regardless of anybody else, Troy Brown has reacted to free agency by unabashedly saying "me? I got paid fine... just let me retire a Patriot." I don't call that foolish, I don't call it the "model" for anybody else... I just call it a beautiful exception to the current environment.
PFnV
