Can we now start to think the whole “Kraft is cheap” was more of a Belichick philosophy?

Grogan14 said:

However they are mostly signing cheap UFAs, They are mostly filling weak spots with unproven undrafted JAGs former Titans.

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scott99 said:

There’s this thing in the NFL, called the salary cap. You’re only allowed to spend what you have. To blame Belichick for not spending is just not true. Belichick and his staff running the cap did a brilliant job. Let’s face it, the smart ones know how get around the cap legally. To put it simply, Belichick & staff would be able to renegotiate contracts to pay other guys. They basically played the cap game until it finally caught up with them. 20 years and 6 championships, it always catches up to you.

When the Pats had the cap space, they spend the money, when they don’t, they don’t. I think of 2014, what they did in the offseason helped them win their first SB win in 10 years. 2017 when they paid Stephon Gilmore a boatload of money and most people thought they were insane. It got them another SB win in 2018.

They aren’t cheap, they play the cap game smartly. If they had as much cap space as they had last year, they’d be going after higher priced guys this year. Same thing went for 2001-2019 with Belichick /Kraft. Nobody is cheap. I call BS on that.

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Wozzy said:

From 1994 until Bill Belichick arrived year’s later the Patriots were already near bottom of the league in cash spending. Two coaches superseded him. It’s not a Belichick issue when it existed long before he arrived.

More importantly Pete Carroll, one of those coaches, outright called Kraft cheap…. the NFL players union just voted the team league worst two years in a row. The team plane still has the original cramped seats from 1974.

You can't blame fans for noticing something current players voted as fact and something a former head coach said. For me I never cared about cash spending on players, history has proven throwing money at your team does not equate to winning or staying consistently winning for two decades straight. Spending to the cap is smart fiscal policy.

That being said the owners have zero excuse not to put every dime into improving player performance on the field, workout facilities, coaches, whatever. Sometimes a little shame forces their hand... course now the owners have voted to keep the NFLPA voting secret... lame.

There's a salary cap in football, a hard cap... spending wisely on players and smart accounting is more important than spending more.

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Rob0729 said:

Kraft has been getting crap for years for not spending in free agency and only being active in free agency once every three years. But this year is disproving this theory. Sure the Patriots aren’t spending like they did last year, but they have been as active this week signing talent as almost any other team in the league.

Whether or not you like the players they added, you have to admit they have aggressively addressed the biggest weaknesses and needs of the team from last year. And by all accounts, they are not done and are actively seeking trades. They aren’t just sitting back and waiting for the draft and whatever left overs are left in free agency come the end of March as we have seen in other years.

The evidence points to being cheap was more of a Belichick thing. Look at the Belichick coaching staffs and front office personnel as proof. Belichick had one of the smallest staffs and didn’t believe in creating departments like analytics or sports science. Could you image Belichick having a passing game coordinator like Vrabel has? Many years, his coordinators had position coaching responsibilities on top of their own responsibilities. Patricia was OC and o-line coach Belichick’s last year. Granted Thomas Brown is TEs coach on top of passing game coordinator.

Since Wolf took over GM responsibilities, he has been expanding the scouting department where Belichick ran a bare bones operation.

The Patriots could go back next year to their old selves and be totally inactive in free agency after being aggressive these past two years. But I tend to doubt it. Assuming they have another successful draft and these free agency signings are successful, they will have less holes to fill next year. So they may be less aggressive to sign as many players, but they may still go after players.

Belichick had a lot of success. So you can’t trash his philosophy too much. But a lot of years, Belichick the genius coach and Brady the GOAT QB had to overcome lack of talent. But I get the feeling that Belichick was the “cheap” one.

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Wozzy said:

From 1994 until Bill Belichick arrived year’s later the Patriots were already near bottom of the league in cash spending. Two coaches superseded him. It’s not a Belichick issue when it existed long before he arrived.

More importantly Pete Carroll, one of those coaches, outright called Kraft cheap…. the NFL players union just voted the team league worst two years in a row. The team plane still has the original cramped seats from 1974.

You can't blame fans for noticing something current players voted as fact and something a former head coach said. For me I never cared about cash spending on players, history has proven throwing money at your team does not equate to winning or staying consistently winning for two decades straight. Spending to the cap is smart fiscal policy.

That being said the owners have zero excuse not to put every dime into improving player performance on the field, workout facilities, coaches, whatever. Sometimes a little shame forces their hand... course now the owners have voted to keep the NFLPA voting secret... lame.

There's a salary cap in football, a hard cap... spending wisely on players and smart accounting is more important than spending more.

Click to expand...

Rob0729 said:

NFL free agency as we know it didn’t start until the 1993 season. And the first four or five years or maybe even more, it was nothing like we know free agency is today. There really wasn’t a lot player movement or big contracts given out for players to change teams. So to say the Pats were cheap as far back as 1994 is bogus.

And they near the bottom of the market in the mid to late 90s because they were a young team with most of their top players like Bledsoe, Law, Mcginest, Martin and others all on rookie deals. That is what happens when you rebuild a team from scratch after the disaster of the early 99s.

Yes, Kraft did missteps that came back to haunt him like keeping Curtis Martin on his RFA contract rather than extending him, but there wasn’t as many opportunities to spend. He gave huge contracts to Ty Law and Drew Bledsoe.

And you can argue that Kraft gets poor grades for spending too much. Kraft bought his team plane for tens of millions of dollars while every other team except one charters their planes which is cheaper. The players would be more comfortable in chartered jets and Kraft would have saved money. And Kraft is building a state of the art training facilty. And is one of the only owners to build his stadium without public money.

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UGAPatsfan said:

Ok hang on…

Do these look like 1974 cramped seats? Or ANY seats on a commercial flight? Every one of those is nicer than the Delta “first class” seat I literally sat in last week.

Could Bob upgrade the wifi and make the seats a little wider? Yes.

Is this a bit of spoiled-assed athletes *****ing because they have no idea what a commercial flight is even like anymore? Also yes.

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DarrylS said:

Could not agree more, if you ask people what they do not like about something they will find something to whine about... unused ashtrays in the arm rest??? Really???
My guess is many of these folks have not flown in the coach section of the flying cattle cars we call planes...

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Grogan14 said:

However they are mostly signing cheap UFAs, They are mostly filling weak spots with unproven undrafted JAGs former Titans.

Click to expand...

Rob0729 said:

Kraft has been getting crap for years for not spending in free agency and only being active in free agency once every three years. But this year is disproving this theory. Sure the Patriots aren’t spending like they did last year, but they have been as active this week signing talent as almost any other team in the league.

Whether or not you like the players they added, you have to admit they have aggressively addressed the biggest weaknesses and needs of the team from last year. And by all accounts, they are not done and are actively seeking trades. They aren’t just sitting back and waiting for the draft and whatever left overs are left in free agency come the end of March as we have seen in other years.

The evidence points to being cheap was more of a Belichick thing. Look at the Belichick coaching staffs and front office personnel as proof. Belichick had one of the smallest staffs and didn’t believe in creating departments like analytics or sports science. Could you image Belichick having a passing game coordinator like Vrabel has? Many years, his coordinators had position coaching responsibilities on top of their own responsibilities. Patricia was OC and o-line coach Belichick’s last year. Granted Thomas Brown is TEs coach on top of passing game coordinator.

Since Wolf took over GM responsibilities, he has been expanding the scouting department where Belichick ran a bare bones operation.

The Patriots could go back next year to their old selves and be totally inactive in free agency after being aggressive these past two years. But I tend to doubt it. Assuming they have another successful draft and these free agency signings are successful, they will have less holes to fill next year. So they may be less aggressive to sign as many players, but they may still go after players.

Belichick had a lot of success. So you can’t trash his philosophy too much. But a lot of years, Belichick the genius coach and Brady the GOAT QB had to overcome lack of talent. But I get the feeling that Belichick was the “cheap” one.

Click to expand...