why don't people think they will spend on CBs/DBs this year? We have cap space and is our biggest need next to WR. They need a impact player. And have to spend to get it. Anyone that wants an impact players has to spend and we have the $$
I see this year as the 07 of the DBs like it was the year for numerous big time WRs
A couple of thoughts come to mind:
-Belichick typically has not chosen to pay big money at the position of CB. Maybe it's his philosophy, maybe it's a coincidence? He prefers to draft those CBs and to try to have a deeper corps at the secondary positions themselves. The problem is that lately that has not worked due to inadequate play at the safety position, and due to one of his top young CB's being injured 2 years in a row. Despite what people here on the board feel about Dowling, Belichick and Kraft picked him at #33 overall for a reason, and they expected him to contribute more both years.
-There are 2 realistic ways to approach the secondary, the draft and free agency. We don't know if he'd rather choose to take a player like Desmond Trufant (or player of your choice), Elam, etc in the draft or prefer to pay in the free agency market. My guess is that he'd prefer to get the player on the cheap. He may however choose to do both, or he could simply take a draftee or two and add a reasonably to higher priced 5-6-7 million dollar a year player also. That would be my choice. Ir would also be Belichick's version of "spending big" at the same time.
-Just because we have cap space doesn't mean that they are going to change their philosophy of assessing the individual specifics of a player in the typical "value" pattern that Belichick has always chosen. In other words, maybe they don't see anyone worth their asking price. In my opinion you better be a hell of a player to warrant 8-9 million a year. We see overpriced free agents that they don't even blink at every single year.
-They may also want to use some of that money to sign several of our own, to carry 6-8-10 million or so into next year's cap again (although not all of that money will come from the current 24 million pool, some of it may), and they also may even want to re-sign one or two of our future players on top of that.
We saw all of the GM exercises with the 24 million. Once you take away 4 for the rookie pool and another 6-7 for Welker you're already down to 13-14 remaining. If they want to re-sign some of Arrington, Edelman, Woodhead, Thomas etc then you'd likely be down to about 9-10 pretty quickly (assuming a combination of two or three of those players).
Out of that 9-10 million we'd still need a veteran OT, a replacement CB (or two), a pass rusher, and a guy or two on the defensive line. That isn't even bringing up a WR or two.
