Am I the only one worried about...

[Brady85-23]

According to bedard pats lost tonga over less than 400k. Thats tough

 

[Ross12]

1. The Patriots are about to give Gonzo a roughly $35MM/yr contract, and NEXT year give Drake a roughly (we hope) $65MM/year deal. So, say next year's cap jumps to $330MM per team, am I the only one worried we are giving one third of our cap money to just TWO players? As salaries explode for star individuals, I wonder at what point the bottom 2/3rds of the roster revolt as their earning potential shrinks, while their a few of their teammates get ever higher percentages of the cap. It will be harder and harder to justify the ever-increasing number of players to risk their future health for less and less of the pie. Kind of mirrors our current economy, right.

When the players are as good as Drake and Gonzo, I don't worry too much about it. They could be the Colts paying big money to Daniel Jones and Sauce Gardner or something. At least the players are in contention for best in the league at their positions.

 

[Bill Lee]

American football will always be a weird spectacle the more it tries to modernize enshittify itself.

FIFY.

 

[TommyD4207]

According to bedard pats lost tonga over less than 400k. Thats tough

I get so many people have this romanticized view of Tonga - but the reality is that he was only good for about 5 games, and then just fell off a cliff - and then he got hurt.

 

[Brady85-23]

I get so many people have this romanticized view of Tonga - but the reality is that he was only good for about 5 games, and then just fell off a cliff - and then he got hurt.

Got hurt then fell off. He played good football and pats could have had a good player at great value and threw it away for less than a half a mil. Very belicheck like with jacobi and how many others. Even if just for short yardage and goalline plays it was objectively worth it.

 

[n1997y]

According to bedard pats lost tonga over less than 400k. Thats tough NOISE.

He wasn’t in the room, so he got that from someone with an ax to grind. It has no credibility because of that. His only reason to publish it was to stir ****.

 

[The Gr8est]

I wouldn't say I'm worried but I've long been cognizant of the impact of Gonzo and Maye's extensions.

We'll have to see how they structure both of those contracts - sometimes frontloading a contract makes more sense to minimize the cap hit but I'll let the pros do their jobs.

I'm wondering if the back end of Gonzo's contract is problematic, as we've heard rumblings that he wants contract kickers to keep up with inflation at CB. If that's what he's demanding, he's not going to get it given the future cap concerns.

Maye will get what the market dictates too - though that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be the highest paid at his position like Gonzo will on paper at least.

This also highlights the need to draft well and efficiently. I've only half facetiously advocated for drafting OL in the first and 2nd round as they tend to have one of the higher hit rates compared to other specialist positions. Having a bunch of quality guys on rookie contracts in positions like OL that have been getting crazy themselves is probably essential to affording to pay veterans and free agents what the market dictates. Now let's hope Lomu works out as I'm pretty sure that's part of the equation, just as taking Campbell and Wilson on rookie deals - though they too will have to get paid in later years too if they pan out.

On the lack of a real preseason, while I'm certainly open to the notion that veterans don't necessarily need to endure the same training camps and preseason games as yesteryear, that HAS created an NFL where SEPTEMBER is the new pre-season and teams don't even begin to gel until October.

We did see this a bit even in the Belichick era, but now more than ever as you correctly point out, as of Week 1 against the defending Super Bowl Champs, the Patriots starters will not have played a snap together since the last time they played the Seahawks - and of course THAT was a different team too!

So any September wins to me are gravy - all I care about is the team developing, winning enough to make the playoffs, and being healthy in January when the games really begin to count. THAT's when I expect them to peak, and I specifically set my expectations low throughout September.

Teams that retained a lot more veterans can get in some early wins and the lack of film on newer teams can also be helpful (be assured Josh has not shown any of his planned trick plays in camp). But overall it's not great for the game and I've noticed a lot more early season injuries since they stopped compelling players to spend mandatory time getting in game shape, save for contract incentivies.

The best players DO keep themselves in shape, but there's no substitute for playing together.

There are worse problems to have than paying Gonzo and Drake.

Consider the Commanders, they picked before the Pats both times in the respective drafts and took Emmanuel Forbes over Gonzo, and Jaylen Daniels over Drake.

On the bright side for them they won’t be paying those two the contacts that the Pats will, and Forbes is no longer with the Commanders.

 

[Bill Lee]

I'm a retired businessman. My take on Speedy Gonzales (I refuse to call him Gonzo) is to offer him a top 5 deal. He's is not the best at his position. If that doesn't work trade for a 1st rounder him to some team you will have a top 10 pick. Use that pick to draft another that will be just like him.
In the meantime, use that money to bring in 1 or 2 very good players. That makes business and football sense to me.
I'm also old school 2 a day smack each other around training camp guy. But that is not reality in today's NFL. The joint practices fill that void or so I'm told.

I agree with you. If he can only accept a total reset of the market let him go.

Yet we also know that if things end up this way we'll end up with all the "RKK is cheap!" posts.