Cap Hell

[PatsFanInVa]

I'm responding to the post in which you quoted me...and yes, we're pretty much in agreement. Just curious why you quoted me, then apparently included me with "you guys."

And I'm not in high dudgeon, lol, just a wee bit confused.

Okay then "some of you guys"

my bad

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Pats aren't in cap hell but they're constrained by the bad contracts they gave out last year to jags like jonnu smith, algohor, and godcheaux. They were frequently bidding against themselves as no one else had any money. No matter. Top of the market!

Anyway belichick went all out and now he's constrained. And this is with a qb on his rookie deal, imagine some teams have 20m or so eaten by the qb! Yet they somehow field competitive or even good teams. We have 20m in extra money and still field mediocrity.

It all comes back to the draft. Complete inabity to find players in the draft (where they are very cheap) means constant trips to the free agency well. And insult to injury, belichick signs jags to huge guaranteed (uncutable) contracts! It's a prescription for mediocrity.

But he's "executive of the year". Sure, according to whom the agents who extracted top dollar out of him?

You have a future in sports radio.
You're objectively wrong, but you're passionate.

Patriots aren't constrained at all. They could have easily signed many of their targets. There weren't outlandish contracts for many of them.

The question is why aren't they doing it?

1. Does Bill believe that w/ middle of the road FAs and his projected draft hits from his big board, that Mac has enough to carry the team? or

2. Does Bill believe the team is too far removed from a SB run regardless of the talent brought in so better to save bullets for next season's run?

We don't know the answer.

Disclaimer: yes I know it's only the 1st week of FAcy but there's a clear pattern that has developed in this short time plus rumors from multiple sources about the Pats not wanting to spend this offseason.

About it being 1st week - agree, he prolly doesn't think "let's go out there and break the bank." That would make no sense... if you think, and I do, that BB largely bought into the inflation theory. Yes, it's a good idea not to Spend While It's Cheap, followed up by Spend When the Martket Bounces Back, followed by Do It Again and Again... They're not constrained, but it would be stupid to just spend like drunken sailors all the time. Maybe there's a goal not to spend, maybe they want to make more modest deals in off-season, not run out there waving money in the air like 1987 Wall Street pit traders.

I simultaneously always wish we had more shiny toys and wish that everybody would shut up about how inept the most successful franchise in NFL history is about building teams when we don't snap up every shiny new toy

Worse than either though is when nobody posts so I encourage everybody to keep posting

 

[rochrist]

Great, the Pats win the fiscally responsible trophy.

Ok Felger. Nevertheless, it DOES matter.

 

[rochrist]

And yet.....

2006: A call and/or a catch away from beating Colts.
2010: Weren't they 14-2 with best offense?
2011: Possible Welker catch away from SB win
2013: AFC title game.
2018: SB win
2019: 12-4.

I guess they "re-loaded" in some years. But they still won the division every year.

You cannot /possibly/ content that a team that won the SB in 2018 with only ONE player on it (Brady) from the 2001 team did not do any rebuilding. The notion is ludicrous. What you fail to get is that it's possible to keep on winning while rebuilding. Just not SBs.

 

[rochrist]

Great, the Pats win the fiscally responsible trophy.

They also go to 9 SBs in 20 years.

 

[rochrist]

As you point out, it has nothing to do with being cheap, they spend to the cap, they just aren't kicking the can down the road like other teams who push debt into the future with future voidable years and so forth. Not only do the Patriots not do that, they even took a year (the Cam year) to balance their books.

The Patriots are like the financially conservative married professor who pays his credit card off every month, lives in a modest 1900 sq ft house that is now paid off (yea!), and whose only debt is a brand new car for the wife (with a 4 year loan). Spending to the "cap" on the wife via new car and plenty of travel, but without going into a bunch of debt or pushing a bunch of debt into the future.

Teams like New Orleans, Kansas City, and now the Browns are the married couple who when business was going good bought 3 beach condos, a swimming pool for their house, and a boat (many of the purchases with only the minimum down payment), leading to them having to refinance their house to back out the maximum amount of cash, had to sell the boat and some of the condos, and now are constantly opening new 15 month without interest credit cards and transferring their sizable, constantly increasing credit card debt to newer and newer credit cards. They are good people and have a great life, they just choose to push debt into the future to enjoy that life while they have Drew Brees or Patrick Mahomes (to bring the analogy back home to NFL Team spending philosophies).

.....By the way, I'm almost positive that my brother in law's family does not read PatsFans.com posts, fortunately for me.

Bravo!

 

[1960Pats]

If everyone starts to do this, then every team with stud QB is gonna milk it for 10 years and have one cap reset year.


Teams which don't do this will be wallowing in mediocrity and come up short. I just feel this and the continued projected cap increase means teams have all the more leverage to do this for a good portion of the QB s prime career. GB,NO and Rams are classic examples . Now bills, raiders, broncos are doing this .

It's not a question of whether pats will do cap manipulation, it's about when..

Once bill gets confident that Mac can stand head and shoulders with the big boys, the pats will get new toys.

That makes a ton of sense, but then I wonder if Mac can make a better impression with those new toys.

 

[1960Pats]

It was real in the 2000s before the exponential explosion in revenue from TV deals over the last decade. Problem is SOME teams never adjusted their philosophy.

I remember years ago on another site in the early Belichick years that a poster was ridiculed for having the "idiotic" notion that some day teams won't need fans to be in the stands to make money. We're there now.

 

[VectorPrime]

I remember years ago on another site in the early Belichick years that a poster was ridiculed for having the "idiotic" notion that some day teams won't need fans to be in the stands to make money. We're there now.

This is one of the biggest reasons why MLB is broken. So many cheap ass owners can field joke teams with no payroll to crowds of 1/4 filled stadiums and still rake in the shared revenue.

 

[1960Pats]

This is one of the biggest reasons why MLB is broken. So many cheap ass owners can field joke teams with no payroll to crowds of 1/4 filled stadiums and still rake in the shared revenue.

There's something very wrong when the folks talking about games are making more than the players.

 

[skinnydog]

They also go to 9 SBs in 20 years.

Yes, with the GOAT at QB. Will that work without the Goat?

 

[RIpats88]

Yeah but where do you think we're going this year? Are we a legit SB contender? Would one or two bigger moves this past week have made us a legit SB contender? If not, and we're building for 2023, then being undisciplined about our moves this year will hurt our 2023 chances, and put us closer to the cap hell that the Saints are in.

And is it possible that our needs this offseason can still be met at a better price via the draft, remaining FA's, cuts, etc.?

Our problems are not the result of FA, but from several consecutive years of draft mistakes pre-2021. If we have another good draft this year then we'll have started to right the ship.

Well JC Jackson is only 26 so one could argue it doesn't hurt our team to keep him at only $16.5million. now bill has another hole to fill.

I do agree though that the poor drafts are what got us to this point. We need another good draft here. CB, LB, WR, OL.

 

[skinnydog]

Ok Felger. Nevertheless, it DOES matter.

Haha, good one

 

[stinkypete]

This is true. The team can pile the cap hit mostly into one season. Of course after that you have to rebuild everything which takes years. That is what the Pats are doing, rebuilding after Tom left and BB took a "cap reset" year. BB will manipulate the cap when he thinks the Pats can push to win a Super Bowl - no reason to push monies into future years when we are only a marginal playoff team. My guess is BB will be more aggressive in 2023. With a good draft and no lousy FA signing (bad FA hinders a team like bad drafts) the team will be positoned in 2023.

This seems like an accurate assessment. The Patriots could play cap gymnastics and free up cash to make a big splash signing, but to what end? I look at this roster, and see a team that is 4 - 5 big time players away from legitimate contention (and that assumes that Mac Jones' develops into at least a top half QB). Were Allen Robinson or Von Miller going to take this team beyond the 8 - 10 win range?

The problem with kicking the cap can is that, at some point, the bill comes due. We did this from 2015 - 2019, and it left us handcuffed for the 2020 offseason. We're in fairly rough cap space now due to last year's spending spree, but we can cut Godchaux, Agholor and McCourty from the books next year, and Smith after 2023. This leaves us in prime position to make a couple of splashes in the upcoming offseason.

Now, I am not claiming that I understand some of this offseason's moves. Mason was a bargain at his price point, and Jackson signed a very team friendly deal with LA. I would have supported moving some cap space to keep them on the team. Otherwise, dumb money is being spent on a poor quality FA class.

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

This seems like an accurate assessment. The Patriots could play cap gymnastics and free up cash to make a big splash signing, but to what end? I look at this roster, and see a team that is 4 - 5 big time players away from legitimate contention (and that assumes that Mac Jones' develops into at least a top half QB). Were Allen Robinson or Von Miller going to take this team beyond the 8 - 10 win range?

The problem with kicking the cap can is that, at some point, the bill comes due. We did this from 2015 - 2019, and it left us handcuffed for the 2020 offseason. We're in fairly rough cap space now due to last year's spending spree, but we can cut Godchaux, Agholor and McCourty from the books next year, and Smith after 2023. This leaves us in prime position to make a couple of splashes in the upcoming offseason.

Now, I am not claiming that I understand some of this offseason's moves. Mason was a bargain at his price point, and Jackson signed a very team friendly deal with LA. I would have supported moving some cap space to keep them on the team. Otherwise, dumb money is being spent on a poor quality FA class.

Great post. I do not completely understand the Mason or Jackson moves either, unless the Pats did not think that highly of them (PatsFans thought more of them than the Pats), or the Pats want the money off the books for 2023 when they plan to make FA moves. Guys like Gilmore I understand with him coming off a major injury and being on the wrong side of 30, and I was never a Winovich fan - disappointing in the Ohio State game and never wanted to draft him - more hype than substance. Onwenu can replace Mason at right guard, and replacing Karras is not tough - his deal is really nothing as there is no guaranteed money - he was at Miami who cut him after 1 year for a reason. It will be interesting if the kid from Canada can walk on and replace Karras. The OL, especially the tackles, are still in flex which is disconcerting but it is March. After the OL started slowly in 2021, I am not sad to see Bricillo gone, not sure we can do worse. Lots of money available in 2023, so we need two good drafts and the kids we have need to develop. Let's hope it all goes in the right direction.