A vote of confidence for the painful philosophy of: "Better to let a player go too early than too late"

[stcjones]

I still don't have a problem with the Pats letting Brady go early at least from a cold hard football standpoint. The Pats were not in a position to get past KC this year with or without Brady. Hell, I think they would have struggled to get into the playoffs and if they did, they would have been one and done. This team had too many holes and not enough talent.

Personally, I think Belichick screwed up was giving Thuney the franchise tag and at least not trading him. I think the Pats should have gone into this year looking at it as a lost year and looking to rebuild for 2001 and beyond. And if you take that approach, you cannot bank on Brady being a viable option in 2001 or 2002 even 10 or 11 months later with Brady going to a Super Bowl. We still have no idea if he will hit the age wall hard next season.

I wish Brady would have retired a Patriot, but I think the timing was right for the divorce (for both sides).

As for Vinatieri, I think wanted to leave. The Colts were the perfect place for an aging kicker. Kicking in a dome. Didn't have to do kick offs. I think going to the Colts probably extended his career by anywhere from 3-5 years.

Kinda wished they kept Chandler Jones, but he shot his way out of town and his price tag was probably too high for the Patriots.

Going to colts and dome extended his career more like 12 years!!!

 

[Tony2046]

I don't. You're the one going around telling people their take is dumb without any reason why. I was simply asking why you are so triggered over two people saying Brady was bad in the 2nd half?

That's fine you don't think Brady was bad in the 2nd half. 3 consecutive turnovers and Rodgers got 6 points.

Again, you can't answer why.

Ty Law - Did Samuel do much before to show he was ready? Ellis Hobbs was a 3rd round rookie. Duane Starks was bad with the Cardinals.
Vinatieri - Letting him walk for a rookie 4th round K was a risk for a team that won off of his big kicks.
Seymour - Who did they have to replace Seymour? Couldn't use the pick until 2011.
Mike Vrabel - You think he was good in 2008?
Chandler Jones - Jones wasn't any good?

I'd love to hear an explanation why I'm wrong.

I'll just say that you must be a "cap is crap" guy.

Have you ever been wrong?

 

[Doctor DDS]

If you want to maintain a long run of success you absolutely need to move on early as it is the only way to manage the cap. Not easy to do as you need to continually find quality replacements at better salaries. Will be interesting to see how TB handles their moves this offseason. They appear to be a win now team and I suspect they will go all in for the next 2 years they take a hard fall. The Saints and Steelers are about to find out what happens when you go all in and cripple your cap.

 

[captain stone]

...Will be interesting to see how TB handles their moves this offseason. They appear to be a win now team and I suspect they will go all in for the next 2 years they take a hard fall. The Saints and Steelers are about to find out what happens when you go all in and cripple your cap.

The Bucs are projected to have the 7th-most available cap space this off-season, so they're not even close to being in the same situation as NO & Sh!tsdirt, and there's no reason to believe that they'll be so in the future either:

2025 NFL Team Salary Cap Tracker

A real-time look at the 2025 salary cap totals for each NFL team, including estimated cap space.

www.spotrac.com

 

[Doctor DDS]

The Bucs are projected to have the 7th-most available cap space this off-season, so they're not even close to being in the same situation as NO & Sh!tsdirt, and there's no reason to believe that they'll be so in the future either:

2025 NFL Team Salary Cap Tracker

A real-time look at the 2025 salary cap totals for each NFL team, including estimated cap space.

www.spotrac.com

Agree they are not in the same place as the Saints or Steelers but they still have a ton of decisions to make. They have by far the fewest players signed with 30 (next lowest is 41) and have decisions to make on players like Godwin, Gronk, AB ..... how many do they resign and for what type of contracts? Do they delay some of the bigger cap hits for a few years to win now or try and replace someone like Godwin with a cheaper version?

 

[amfootball]

If you want to maintain a long run of success you absolutely need to move on early as it is the only way to manage the cap. Not easy to do as you need to continually find quality replacements at better salaries. Will be interesting to see how TB handles their moves this offseason. They appear to be a win now team and I suspect they will go all in for the next 2 years they take a hard fall. The Saints and Steelers are about to find out what happens when you go all in and cripple your cap.

I have not always liked the move on early philosophy. Seymour had multiple good years left, Ty Law as well, Jones, Flowers, etc. I get the whole idea of trying to save money and find the next guy but those were game changing players, well worth the money. I also have come around to think that perhaps paying Butler and not signing Gilmore might have been smarter as he was the cheaper option and is still playing at a high level while Gilmore is declining. I am not saying I would not have wanted Gilmore but these are those tough decisions that can make or break a champ team.

 

[Doctor DDS]

They moved Seymour as they made the decision to keep Wilfork. Did not think that Jones was worth a massive contract due to the other roster holes that it would create. I assume that if the cap was not an issue BB would have kept most of the players he let go but we saw it as early as Milloy that once a player exceeds what BB believes their contract value is he moves on. Not every decision worked out perfectly but the length of the run certainly validates the overall philosophy.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

I think what's tough about saying we should have just kept a veteran guy is naming the couple good players who wouldn't have been on the team as a result. And it's hard to prove because we don't know who they decided to keep in order to get rid of the older guy. I am not sure if this is true but I think I had read somewhere that if we kept Brady, already being over the cap so much we would have had to cut most of our other good veterans to make it work for Brady.

 

[crawhammer]

As much as I like Vinateri, Gostowski was a better than average successor..

No he wasn't. Do you remember the AFCCG in 2015? SB 51? V was clutch. G was NOT.

 

[lancerman]

No he wasn't. Do you remember the AFCCG in 2015? SB 51? V was clutch. G was NOT.

Vinatieri was clutch in one run. In 2003 he went 1 for 3 in kicks and was just lucky the one he made was at the end. That game wouldn’t have even been in doubt.

 

[yukon cornelius]

Agree they are not in the same place as the Saints or Steelers but they still have a ton of decisions to make. They have by far the fewest players signed with 30 (next lowest is 41) and have decisions to make on players like Godwin, Gronk, AB ..... how many do they resign and for what type of contracts? Do they delay some of the bigger cap hits for a few years to win now or try and replace someone like Godwin with a cheaper version?

just for point of reference:

2024 NFL Free Agents Tracker

Tracking the status and signings of all 2024 NFL free agents.

www.spotrac.com

2022 NFL Free Agents Tracker

Tracking the status and signings of all 2022 NFL free agents.

www.spotrac.com

 

[DropKickFlutie]

just for point of reference:

2024 NFL Free Agents Tracker

Tracking the status and signings of all 2024 NFL free agents.

www.spotrac.com

2022 NFL Free Agents Tracker

Tracking the status and signings of all 2022 NFL free agents.

www.spotrac.com

Thanks. In looking at this there appear to be a couple older 32+ year old guys who play good DT and could maybe be had cheaper since they're older. Kind of like when we got Ted Washington in 2003. Pats run defense was a major problem this past season.

2024 NFL Free Agents Tracker

Tracking the status and signings of all 2024 NFL free agents.

www.spotrac.com

 

[Doctor DDS]

No he wasn't. Do you remember the AFCCG in 2015? SB 51? V was clutch. G was NOT.

AV was 26-34 in the post season for the Pats while SG was 39-44. SG could actually kick off throughout his career while AV could no longer do it. AV had the 3 big kicks and I give him a ton of credit for them but SG never missed a big late game kick in the post season and he did nail the game clincher against the Rams.

 

[DarrylS]

In 24 Seasons Vinatieri was 599 for 715 for an 83% Field Goal Rate
in 15 Seasons Gostowski is 392 for 454 for an 85% Field Goal Rate

As mentioned before the transition was seamless.. and their stats are comparable.

 

[crawhammer]

AV was 26-34 in the post season for the Pats while SG was 39-44. SG could actually kick off throughout his career while AV could no longer do it. AV had the 3 big kicks and I give him a ton of credit for them but SG never missed a big late game kick in the post season and he did nail the game clincher against the Rams.

The game-tying Snow Bowl FG and the game-winner in SB 36 far exceed the degree of difficulty of any postseason kick made by G. The PAT miss in the 2015 AFCCG came back to haunt the Patriots like no other postseason kick missed by V. That's about it in a nutshell.

 

[Doctor DDS]

The game-tying Snow Bowl FG and the game-winner in SB 36 far exceed the degree of difficulty of any postseason kick made by G. The PAT miss in the 2015 AFCCG came back to haunt the Patriots like no other postseason kick missed by V. That's about it in a nutshell.

By the time they let AV go his kickoffs were landing at the 10 yard line and he never made another memorable kick again in his career. The Pats would have needed to carry someone to do kickoffs if they kept him. Ghost missing an extra point in the 1st quarter is not bigger than missing 2 FG's like AV did in the Super Bowl just because the rest of the game played out in a certain way. What was the big kick that SG missed late in a playoff game?

 

[Dr Pain]

Brady would have won more games and who knows what might have happened if they made playoffs....it’s Tom $&@*% Brady!!! But I don’t think Tom wanted to be here anymore....he and Bill were at odds and the marriage was over.

the much Bigger Blunder was of course Sham Newton.....worst “quarterback” to ever play for New England and one of worst quarterback stats in history of the game!!! BB really whiffed on this guy and the team was a laughingstock.....oh well I’m sure sham will be gone and let’s hope they draft well and sign a decent vet

Cam was an odd experiment. The team showed spark early, came so close with the Seahawks and then even with Hoyer trying to give the game away played so tough in Kansas City. I wonder how the season would have gone had Cam not gotten covid?

 

[crawhammer]

By the time they let AV go his kickoffs were landing at the 10 yard line and he never made another memorable kick again in his career. The Pats would have needed to carry someone to do kickoffs if they kept him. Ghost missing an extra point in the 1st quarter is not bigger than missing 2 FG's like AV did in the Super Bowl just because the rest of the game played out in a certain way. What was the big kick that SG missed late in a playoff game?

The sample size is small but G's PAT and FG percentages are markedly lower in Super Bowls. He missed his first PAT in SB 51 which came late in the 3rd quarter but nobody gives it a second thought because of the historic comeback. He missed another PAT and a FG in SB 52 but that gets lost in all the craziness going on in that fiasco. I don't see the point in your harping on the late-game FG bit because he never really had the opportunity... the SB 53 FG was nice but it's not in the same class of at least 4 FG's made by V in signature postseason moments.

I hold the missed PAT in Denver against G. But maybe that's just me. I was pissed off to begin with because the team (i.e. beLichick) had horribly butchered the end of the season which cost them the 1 seed. Even with Manning on fumes I knew the Patriots had a steep high to climb in Denver and right off the bat G misses a friggin PAT. When they miraculously converted the 4th down for a TD with only 0:12 left in the game, and needed a 2-point conversion to tie, how could you not think back to the missed PAT. We know how the game/season ended.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

So, here are some thoughts, but they're dependent on media reports. After all, all of this speculation on the team is. Very little gets actually proven, and there's no incentive against muddying the waters. But let's allow a the widely accepted plot point below from the "People say" department, with the caveat that people say things that are wrong sometimes. We don't really know when that's happening.

- people say that BB was actually surprised that the negotiations did not work out. Well, this would be interesting, because it would just be BB making the wrong call, rather than making a year early/year late call specifically.

If we allow that BB was surprised that negotiations with Brady would tank this time, then this is also Tom saying, you know what Bill? I don't need you. I don't need the never-solved "Who's the GOAT" riddle. Maybe Brady, at 43, is now like "I want the full credit for what was always my thing, I don't want to carry this old guy anymore. Maybe he was actually pissy about staying.

- people also say that 25M would have kept him in NE. Ehhhh I dunno. I'll believe that when I see his name signed on a contract never countersigned by the Pats (after validation of same, of course.)

But the main problem with the "Belichick sure is stupid" view of this ("He thought Tommy was done ha!") is that...

- Tom in Tampa is not equal to Tom in New England. The two teams provided different stables of weapons. I think it's fair, without too much recourse to "people say," to therefore conclude that this isn't a simple binomial equation.

It's not "a year early v a year late" without regard to where. In NE, he doesn't have the 2020-21 he had in Tampa.

So the assertion was never "Nobody can win with him, he's 43." It's more "We can't win with him, given who else is here."

Cue "Bill the GM" argument.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

The sample size is small but G's PAT and FG percentages are markedly lower in Super Bowls. He missed his first PAT in SB 51 which came late in the 3rd quarter but nobody gives it a second thought because of the historic comeback. He missed another PAT and a FG in SB 52 but that gets lost in all the craziness going on in that fiasco. I don't see the point in your harping on the late-game FG bit because he never really had the opportunity... the SB 53 FG was nice but it's not in the same class of at least 4 FG's made by V in signature postseason moments.

I hold the missed PAT in Denver against G. But maybe that's just me. I was pissed off to begin with because the team (i.e. beLichick) had horribly butchered the end of the season which cost them the 1 seed. Even with Manning on fumes I knew the Patriots had a steep high to climb in Denver and right off the bat G misses a friggin PAT. When they miraculously converted the 4th down for a TD with only 0:12 left in the game, and needed a 2-point conversion to tie, how could you not think back to the missed PAT. We know how the game/season ended.

Well said. Also Belichick never made moves in key moments that suggested low trust in Vinatieri as the kicker while I feel we made multiple play call moves with Gostkowsi due to lower confidence in certain situations.