Spending to the cap is not going all in.
Let's examine spending to the cap with one example since you people keep conflating a paycheck with cap debt.
"Pay" and
"cap" are two different things.
In 2018 the Patriots reworked Stephon Gilmore's deal, paying him more of his owed salary upfront but kicking some of his salary cap money down the road so they could sign other players at the trade deadline. If they had available space to work with they simply would have signed said players, they didn't.
2018
In 2019 the Patriots did the same thing, reworked Gilmore's deal and pushed more salary cap down the road so they could sign players at the trade deadline. Salary cap owed doesn't disappear until it's paid, it accumulates and snowballs. If they had available space to work with they simply would have signed said players, they didn't.
2019
In 2020 the Patriots had to move half of Gilmore's 2021 salary into 2020 just to keep him happy and because he did them a favor twice, he wasn't about to play for 7 million dollars after winning DPOY nor should he. Stephon's 2020 cap hit is huge at $28,341,668 while his salary is only $15,500,000. His cap hit if he plays in 2021 is large at $17,170,834 especially since he is only owed the remainder of his salary at $7,500,000... which he absolutely won't play for even if he is coming off injury, nor should he.
Gilmore's cap hit in 2020 and 2021 is bloated as a result of kicking the salary cap can down the road. They did this to provide deep teams from 2014-2019 for Brady. I get that you people only see
"weapons" and nothing else, but having the best defense, special teams and O-Line is why they were as good as they were. They kicked the salary cap can down the road on Brady's contract every year going back to 2014, they did it for Gronk, they did it for Gilmore, they did it for Cannon when they had to wedge Sanu on the roster and did it with numerous other players.
They have a bunch of dead cap on their books that needs to be cleared off and it's not just the result of signing one or two bad deals, but a result of five straight years of pushing salary cap debt into the future so they could sign other players and create competitive rosters. Most of you people including many media members saying Bill is
"making excuses" are clueless.
BB has an economics degree from Wesleyan and Kraft is a billionaire who settled the NFL labor dispute... I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing. But maybe I'm wrong and the jokers here who don't know the difference between "cap," "salary" and "dead cap" have it all figured out. Or the media who are taking this opportunity to dance on BB's grave for being mean to them all these years... laughable.