Why do you think they went this way?
Kraft.
There is no way he is going to spend money without an assurance of winning.
He doesn’t trust his coach or GM and the QBOTF is a rookie.
He saved $50,000,000, and really if he spent 50 mill in cap it probably would cost 150 mill in cash, if he isn’t going to win.
When we were dominating the league we spent to the cap, but not on an even playing field because we had to spend the cap with a lower cash budget than other teams.
He expected in 2021 that everything would be fixed so he spent money and has *****ed about it ever since.
Mayo thought he was going to make a huge free agency splash and Kraft called him to the principals office and made him retract it.
We went cheap in the coaching staff, cheap on the front office.
There is no competitive football reason to not spend the resources you have to make your team better. None. (The only reason for a one year cap underspending is balancing like the 49ers are doing. They are 40+ mill under because they are 50 mill over next year because they pushed money out)
We have consistently been near the bottom in cash, we asked the GOAT to play for less, we rarely signed free agents at value. We were always cheap, we just found a way to make it work.
Now we are cheapness on steroids because Kraft will not pay a competitive amount if he thinks he will lose.