This offseason is a watershed moment for the Pats - make the wrong moves with Samuel, Colvin, Moss, Stallworth, Gay, etc., and this team is headed for the mediocrity of salary cap hell. I can live without the grinding, ugly despair of a team falling apart from the inside out. Our team is already feeling the strain of the cap - why else would we have played the SB with our best, and second best, ILB and SS all on the far side of 30? This is on top of the question whether Thomas has been, or will be worth the big money the Pats committed to him.
I hope the Pats do not sign Samuel. 'Worth' the money or not, $25mil+ is not an amount this team can afford to pay one player without the noose of cap disaster tightening around it's neck. Besides, chunking out big dough to FA's is not how the Pat's got to the top. Paying up to Asante at this point would be like having that extra drink when you know you're already so toasted it won't matter but you're so dopey you'll let yourself believe you can stretch this most fantastic of buzzes just another hour or two.
Keeping a steady but unspectacular dude like Gay would be more in line with the methodology our hometown team employed to be so good so often. Welker was the first significant Vrabel like signing in a while. the front office could pull off 3-4 moves like that this year on the defense for what it will cost to keep Samuel.
Asante also was covering Tryee's TD pass which Asante tried to pick instead of making sure it wasn't caught in the endzone. I though he put himself before the team on that play. Plus, any player that says, "the fans love me," has a serious ego problem. He'd fit right in Oakland...
