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.
Who said anything about prior to 1994 when Kraft bought the team? Nobody.
The Patriots were near dead last in cash spending under Parcells and Carroll, which is exactly what I said.
The NFLPA voted the Patriots the cheapest franchise multiple years, Pete Carroll outright called Kraft cheap. How's that my fault?
The fans have nothing to do with it, stop blaming fans for noticing what players and former employees are saying.
By the way, for over two decades of posting on boston.com sports forums, patriotsfans.freeforums.net and finally this one... I have maintained that spending to the cap annually and not exceeding it was smart business. That history showed throwing money at said team and signing every overpriced free agent annually was poor cap management. For saying this I was called a
"Bill Belichick apologist" a
"honk" a
"homer" and worse. But it never had anything to do with Bill, and I believe this now under Vrabel as I believed it then.
And to clear something up, the Patriots under Bill always spent money, it's just been so long since the early 2000's that you've forgotten what a luxury it is to have a rookie QB taking up 3% of the annual salary cap instead of 20-30% of it.
The Pats aren't spending more now because Bill is gone, they're spending because they have the money and cap space. From 2005 to 2013 Brady as one of the highest paid players in the league, he didn't start taking less until 2014... and we saw how much easier it was to build a roster over that period.
As a fan I don't care about cash spending, I only care about cap spending... the only thing that annoyed me was things that could affect player performance on the field. Facilities, weight room, antiquated plane seats... there is absolutely no excuse for skimping on that as the 2nd highest valued franchise in the NFL. There's no salary cap on coaches and amenities.
