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2 years ago.They've been doing this for literally 10 years. Mickey Loomis became GM in 2013. When have they gone through cap hell?
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CLICK HERE to Register for a free account and login for a smoother ad-free experience. It's easy, and only takes a few moments.2 years ago.They've been doing this for literally 10 years. Mickey Loomis became GM in 2013. When have they gone through cap hell?
According to Andrew Brandt, he thinks teams are doing it all wrong with signing players other than QB's and delaying their salaries. So by the time it may turn out to be a bad signing, there's a big dead cap hit when they want to get rid of them.
Also, he debunks the myth that you can't build your team after paying your QB top dollar. He used the strategy in GB to pay as you go with players surrounding Brett Favre.
He also indirectly said Tom Brady was a bad negotiator during his time in NE and could've been paid among the top QB's in the league and not take the "home town discounts". He was Tom was only helping Bob Kraft rather than the actually salary cap.
Brady, IMHO and from more than arm's distance (like all of us), was just overwhelmed by the celebrity/billionaire life that Giselle offered him. He's one of very few athletes with a spouse who outdistances them in fame, money, attention, potential, etc. So his financial negotiations with the Pats were a small detail in his life. He was always more focused on building the Brady business brand, and that was about winning, not about salary.
The two contrasting views of Saints and "cap hell":They've been doing this for literally 10 years. Mickey Loomis became GM in 2013. When have they gone through cap hell?
Creating cap space in the NFL is the literal opposite of using a credit card. It's taking money due in the future, converting it into a signing bonus and paying it up front. Which is why the limitations for owner expenditure are cash based, not cap based. Which is why the whole "the bill comes due" stuff is silly, the money has already been paid, the bill has come due, they just deal with the cap implications of having given out the cash (and if you're the Saints, you deal with it by restructuring other contracts)."The Cap is Crap" is a slogan for people who use credit cards as bank loans.
Creating cap space in the NFL is the literal opposite of using a credit card. It's taking money due in the future, converting it into a signing bonus and paying it up front. Which is why the limitations for owner expenditure are cash based, not cap based. Which is why the whole "the bill comes due" stuff is silly, the money has already been paid, the bill has come due, they just deal with the cap implications of having given out the cash (and if you're the Saints, you deal with it by restructuring other contracts).
Of course the Loomis way of doing business is on the extreme side and presupposes both that the cap will rise indefinitely (which it likely will save for another pandemic) and that the players you restructure won't get hurt or just start sucking. But you don't need to go the Saints route to realize cap constraints are incredibly lax and that you can create a whole lot of margin to make moves by spending cash.
Creating cap space in the NFL is the literal opposite of using a credit card. It's taking money due in the future, converting it into a signing bonus and paying it up front.
I agree.
My view is that the Patriots have this rap about "not spending" when they have been tight against the cap under the entire Belichick regime.
We remember the Lawyer Milloy situation - the Patriots could not afford one of their key players because they were right against the cap - 20 years ago.
I think the "Pats are cheap" myth is driven by the focus on the middle class. I think Belichick really pushes the next-man-up strategy, expects unpredictable injuries, and wants better-than-average replacement players. So he has 'overpaid' for the middle class - in that he has three or four starting safeties, four or five starting defensive tackles, and so forth. At the expense of fewer elite players.
Brady made this work because he just took less than he could have at QB all those years - so they had an elite QB, the elite QB, at middle class cost.
And he always attracted a few late-career vets who were willing to take a below-market salary to compete for a Super Bowl. Now you see Buffalo and Kansas City playing that same move.
And the Patriots famously had a lot of really solid Nov-Dec-Jan records - partly because their replacements, wherever they were on the field, were a little better than their opponents' late season replacements.
But without an elite, low-cost QB, and without that player attracting high-end vets at middle-class salaries, the model doesn't work.