Winning Super Bowl may cause a NFL monopoly

[Pat the Pats Fan]

Re: Winning SuperBowl may cause a NFL monopoly

Do you think that the reason that they let these guys leave is because they're injury prone? As we speak, none of these guys are healthy. I was looking at Graham last night, granted it's a preseason game, with another injury. Why would the Patriots want to invest top dollar in a player that can't stay on the field?

Letting those players go, Graham, Givens and Branch was not due to the Pats thinking they were going to get hurt, it was because they didn't want to meet their salary requirements......Givens was never hurt while a Patriot, Branch missed 6 games in his time here......

 

[jbb9s]

Your observation clearly holds water....but what about the possibility of an uncapped season? Would that help the Patriots (one of the most profitable teams with cash to spend if they want) or hurt them (their mastery of the salary cap is moot)?

 

[mgteich]

I agree. We are no more a monopoly than the Colts, Chargers, Cowboys or even the Steelers.

We are saying all this because the GB management CHOSE not to win the battle for Moss and chose not to support Favre well enough. I am not taking anything away from our office before the 2007 season. We did great, expect for a truly aweful effort in choosing players on draft day. Of course we did great on draft day, on all the picks we traded away for players in 2007 or for picksin 2008.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a monopoly.
Players naturally gravitate towards successful teams.
This is no different for winning teams like the Colts, Chargers, Cowboys etc.

The difference is that in 2007, the Patriots finally cashed in on their wise cap management to acquire some top level free agents available on the market such as Adalius Thomas.
The trades for Moss and Welker were also brilliant moves.
2007 is simply the year of the perfect storm for the Patriots.

That doesn't mean that other successful teams won't have players that want to play for them.
To be a monopoly you have to control ALL the supply, aka Microsoft and their Windows OS.
That's not the case here.
Free agents are free to choose, and many still pick the cash over a chance at a ring.