Memo to Bob George - eat your wheaties, then wade into a capologist thread here now and then. I was all about trying to follow these guys in around 04 or 05 or maybe earlier... and I never try to claim I'm one of 'em. But I got familiar w/Miguel's page and resources pertaining to other teams I found through that page, and one thing that's obvious is that the Pats aren't "miserly" and don't "misidentify who their core players are." If you spend to the cap regularly, that means there's no more money to pay your "core players."
You really take issue with the Pats' cap management? Really? Then you must have a good candidate for a better team over the last 10 years. There are a couple of candidates, but not many. Even kick out the SB years, and the Pats' strategy looks like a pretty strong one.
Why do they need all this superstar money to spread around, when only Moss, (surprisingly) Welker, and Brady really rise to the level of superstar? Because the Pats maintain that solid middle class of role-players (still.)
So whether you think they "should" have paid Branch, Seymour, or (antithetical to your article) Moss, the question really becomes who they should have underpaid to do it. How many role players should have been cut loose to keep Branch? How many other opportunities to develop a player should have been squandered? Which ones?
"The Patriots are cheap" - at the superstar level. That's a different statement from "The Patriots are cheap." There are teams that don't usually spend to the cap. The Pats aren't one of them. You just disagree with how they cut up the pie.
