interesting take on media outrage so far on the pats

[SVN]

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/

"The word "cheap" is thrown around quite a bit when it comes to the Patriots. However, is it that hard to understand that when you overpay one player, it means you have to underpay another guy on the roster? An ambitious reporter would do well to pour over the NFL rosters and see that the Patriots pay the middle to lower end of their roster as compared to the league average at those slots. It's not too hard realize that their numbers for those players are likely going to be higher than other clubs. They may pay their "stars" a bit less, but the overall depth of the roster can be better because they can pay those players more than other clubs do."

thats probably true

 

[patpatriot]

They make me tired.

The NE "media" covering the Pats are:

1. Lazy good for nothings

2. Drunken good for nothings

3. Plagerizing scum suckers

4. All of the above

You have 12 seconds to answer

 

[Bill's Girl]

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/

"The word "cheap" is thrown around quite a bit when it comes to the Patriots. However, is it that hard to understand that when you overpay one player, it means you have to underpay another guy on the roster? An ambitious reporter would do well to pour over the NFL rosters and see that the Patriots pay the middle to lower end of their roster as compared to the league average at those slots. It's not too hard realize that their numbers for those players are likely going to be higher than other clubs. They may pay their "stars" a bit less, but the overall depth of the roster can be better because they can pay those players more than other clubs do."

thats probably true

Dale and Holley were talking about that last week after Adam signed in Indy. They were saying how 5 or 6 players earn the bulk of their cap. The way the Patriots do this makes perfect sense, but then again I have not been hit in the head with a piece of blue sky lately!

 

[Pats726]

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/

"The word "cheap" is thrown around quite a bit when it comes to the Patriots. However, is it that hard to understand that when you overpay one player, it means you have to underpay another guy on the roster? An ambitious reporter would do well to pour over the NFL rosters and see that the Patriots pay the middle to lower end of their roster as compared to the league average at those slots. It's not too hard realize that their numbers for those players are likely going to be higher than other clubs. They may pay their "stars" a bit less, but the overall depth of the roster can be better because they can pay those players more than other clubs do."

thats probably true

VERY VERY true!!!

 

[stinkypete]

Exactly, look at the Colts, nearly 30% of their cap is tied into Manning, Harrison, Wayne and Vinateiri. In the process of overpaying their high end players, they've been forced to let defensive starters and a top 5 running back walk.

You would think that, after watching the Steelers win the Super Bowl, the media would only be more receptive to the idea of good cap management. In some circles of thought, it is cheap to let 3 big players walk in free agency. Surely, we would be a better team with them, now, in 2006, but long term success depends on sound business practices.

 

[fgssand]

Exactly, look at the Colts, nearly 30% of their cap is tied into Manning, Harrison, Wayne and Vinateiri. In the process of overpaying their high end players, they've been forced to let defensive starters and a top 5 running back walk.

You would think that, after watching the Steelers win the Super Bowl, the media would only be more receptive to the idea of good cap management. In some circles of thought, it is cheap to let 3 big players walk in free agency. Surely, we would be a better team with them, now, in 2006, but long term success depends on sound business practices.

Exactly why is this concept so tough for Cafardo, Borges and so many others to grasp and understand? It is sensible, logical, battle tested and proven to do nothing but bring Superbowls to Pittsburgh and New England.

 

[cubedoggy]

The NE "media" covering the Pats are:

1. Lazy good for nothings

2. Drunken good for nothings

3. Plagerizing scum suckers

4. All of the above

You have 12 seconds to answer

4! Except I do respect the work of Holley, Michael Smith, Reiss, Masarotti, and, to a lesser extent, Curran.

The TV guys know nothing, and the radio guys, by and large, are out to make themselves the story by defecating on the management and coaching of every pro franchise in Boston. Don't even get me started on Borges and Mannix...

 

[Miguel]

Exactly, look at the Colts, nearly 30% of their cap is tied into Manning, Harrison, Wayne and Vinateiri.

An unproven assertion made by CHFF.

\\\\ In the process of overpaying their high end players, they've been forced to let defensive starters and a top 5 running back walk. You would think that, after watching the Steelers win the Super Bowl, the media would only be more receptive to the idea of good cap management. In some circles of thought, it is cheap to let 3 big players walk in free agency. Surely, we would be a better team with them, now, in 2006, but long term success depends on sound business practices.

I get it. When the Pats let Willie, Adam, Givens, Chatham, Fauria, Andre Davis and Ashworth walk in free agency, it is sound business practice. But when the Colts let James, Thorton, and Tripplett walk in free agency, it is because they overpaid their high end players. IMO, that is a double standard.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Miguel, in fairness to the homer double-standard, the Pats were already under the cap before deciding where Givens, AV, and Willie Mac fit into their plans. The Colts, as I understand it, had to re-do Peyton's and Harrison's deals, but were still much closer to the cap ceiling after the Vinatieri move, having been well over prior to the start of free agency (whereas the Pats were right at the cap.)

Part of this is hard for the FO to take credit for - Brady signed for a nice sum, but not nearly the bucks Peyton collected from Indy. And Brady came right out and said, in effect, hey, you can only use so much money. Am I remembering correctly that perrenniel one-man-show Michael Vick is also paid more? Okay, point is, Brady saved us money by being a 6th rounder, then came back and did not shoot for the moon when it was time for his contract to be negotiated. Manning demanded, and got, stratospheric money.

So maybe you're right, maybe they have a good plan in place to deal with James' departure. Maybe they never overpaid James, Harrison, and Manning. Maybe their top-to-bottom structure looks flat, along the lines of the Patriots' model. I was under the impression the reverse was the case, that the Colts had a pretty topheavy salary/bonus structure to begin with (another unproven assertion - but I couldn't find a Coltscap.com!)

We know we're always going to lose some guys to FA, and the same is true of any team. But it looks to me that the Pats preemptively bit the bullet on these three guys, rather than reacting to a panic situation generated by two huge roster bonuses coming due, as was true of the Colts, prior to restructuring of Manning's contract.

I defer to your cap wisdom, o cap guru - but do you really think these are parallel cases?

PFnV

 

[IcyPatriot]

So...whose opinion do we, as a group like. it seems that even when we do grow a bit attached, like Curran several years ago. They go and write a piece just to play devil's advocate and sell some papers. Their job is to sell papers...not to inform us...therefore, they are not really experts at all. Their specialty is fiction.

 

[Miguel]

Miguel, in fairness to the homer double-standard, the Pats were already under the cap before deciding where Givens, AV, and Willie Mac fit into their plans. The Colts, as I understand it, had to re-do Peyton's and Harrison's deals, but were still much closer to the cap ceiling after the Vinatieri move, having been well over prior to the start of free agency (whereas the Pats were right at the cap.)

I do not even understand the point you are trying to make here.

Part of this is hard for the FO to take credit for - Brady signed for a nice sum, but not nearly the bucks Peyton collected from Indy. And Brady came right out and said, in effect, hey, you can only use so much money. Am I remembering correctly that perrenniel one-man-show Michael Vick is also paid more? Okay, point is, Brady saved us money by being a 6th rounder, then came back and did not shoot for the moon when it was time for his contract to be negotiated. Manning demanded, and got, stratospheric money.

And yet Manning's 2006 cap number is less than Brady's 2006 cap number. And yet Manning's 2005 cap number took up a smaller percentage of the Colts' cap than did Brady's.

So maybe you're right, maybe they have a good plan in place to deal with James' departure. Maybe they never overpaid James, Harrison, and Manning.

I do not get it. If the Colts overpaid James in the past, why should they keep on doing so??

Maybe their top-to-bottom structure looks flat, along the lines of the Patriots' model. I was under the impression the reverse was the case, that the Colts had a pretty topheavy salary/bonus structure to begin with (another unproven assertion - but I couldn't find a Coltscap.com!)

I leave it to others to make stuff up.

We know we're always going to lose some guys to FA, and the same is true of any team.

Bingo!!

But it looks to me that the Pats preemptively bit the bullet on these three guys, rather than reacting to a panic situation generated by two huge roster bonuses coming due, as was true of the Colts, prior to restructuring of Manning's contract.

There is no doubt in my mind that when the Colts signed Manning to his contract in 2004 that their plan all along was to convert his 2006 roster bonus into a signing bonus and that all of the cap decisions made since then took that into consideration. There is no doubt in my mind that James was never going to be a 2006 Colt. There is no doubt in my mind that if the CBA was extended in early February and not in early March James would still be a Cardinal.

I defer to your cap wisdom, o cap guru - but do you really think these are parallel cases?

PFnV

Yes, I do. I just find it strange that the Colts are being lambasted for letting 4 starters go when the Pats have let go the same number AND some of their middle-class depth (Chatham, Fauria, Dwight, Andre Davis). Of course, the players that the Patriots let go are no good while the Colts let go of All-Pros. Of course, it was smart for the Pats not to overpay for their lost free agents but it was dumb for the Colts not to overpay for their lost free agents.

 

[PatsSteve1]

Yes, I do. I just find it strange that the Colts are being lambasted for letting 4 starters go when the Pats have let go the same number AND some of their middle-class depth (Chatham, Fauria, Dwight, Andre Davis). Of course, the players that the Patriots let go are no good while the Colts let go of All-Pros. Of course, it was smart for the Pats not to overpay for their lost free agents but it was dumb for the Colts not to overpay for their lost free agents.[/QUOTE]

* Miguel. what are you doing injecting objectivity on a sports team's message board?

 

[PatsFanInVa]

The first bit was supposed to flesh out the idea - media-derived, to be sure - that the Colts were in cap trouble, whereas the Pats could have done deals for AV, McGinnest, and Givens, but saw them as surpassing the amount they would shell out. I.e., the difference between panic-releasing a player, and deciding on a value. From 3/10:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2349505

This is before letting James go, with the Colts over the cap by about 6 mill, and the Pats under by about 17. My point here is that the Colts' moves seem to be by necessity.

But your point on Manning is taken - that this restructuring was something they expected to do, and that this results in a smaller cap hit than Brady accounts for this year. Fair enough; there's always a tendency to root for the home team, and God knows I'm guilty of that as the next guy.

I have a lot of respect for what you do, Miguel, and again, I really will defer to your cap wisdom, not to mention hard work. I don't have a cap page for the Colts, and I don't know how the bills come due for them in the future, except for pre-digested media reports that have them in impending cap jail every year.

So I'll call it a day on the point, unless I get some hard and fast info on the relative flatness of these two organizations. Do they operate on different principals? Were that shown, one could make arguments about the relative merits of the approaches. If not, well, the much heralded "Patriot Way" is really a media concoction. I'm a long, long way out from arguing cap numbers with you.

PFnV

 

[DaBruinz]

The NE "media" covering the Pats are:

1. Lazy good for nothings

2. Drunken good for nothings

3. Plagerizing scum suckers

4. All of the above

You have 12 seconds to answer

Mike Reiss, Mike Holley and Tom Curran don't fall into any of those categories.

 

[DaBruinz]

I get it. When the Pats let Willie, Adam, Givens, Chatham, Fauria, Andre Davis and Ashworth walk in free agency, it is sound business practice. But when the Colts let James, Thorton, and Tripplett walk in free agency, it is because they overpaid their high end players. IMO, that is a double standard.

Miguel -
The difference between the Patriots and the Colts, though, is that the Patriots COULD have signed all of them for what they signed for with other teams. They chose not to. The Colts had no way to sign James, Thornton and Triplett because they didn't have the salary cap money available. They could have signed 2 of the 3, but not all 3.

Also, in the case of the Pats players, just the NUMBER of players you mention shows that its NOT a double standard.

Also, Miguel, I understand you are the cap guru, but unless they did some really fancy book-keeping, I would find it very hard to believe that Manning, Harrison, Vinatieri and Wayne didn't eat up 30% of the Colts salary cap. If you have the numbers, great. I will admit I am wrong.

 

[DaBruinz]

Yes, I do. I just find it strange that the Colts are being lambasted for letting 4 starters go when the Pats have let go the same number AND some of their middle-class depth (Chatham, Fauria, Dwight, Andre Davis). Of course, the players that the Patriots let go are no good while the Colts let go of All-Pros. Of course, it was smart for the Pats not to overpay for their lost free agents but it was dumb for the Colts not to overpay for their lost free agents.

Miguel -
I admire you for attempting to "not be a homer" but in doing so, you are ignoring many salient facts.

1) Edgerring James is a 28 year old 1500+ yard a year RB.
2) David Thornton was the Colts best LB
3) Larry Tripplett was a solid DE for them.
4) Mike Vanderjagt, well "he's just a kicker"

The Pats, in comparison, lost:
1) Willie McGinest - a 34 year old OLB who is still arguable one of the best 3-4 OLB in the game
2) Adam Vinatier - a 33 year old kicker who needed to move to a dome so he could pro-long his football career. His kick-offs were getting shorter and shorter.
3) David Givens is a 25 year old #2 WR who has delusions of grandeur in being a #1. He had plenty of chances to prove himself capable of being a #1 with the Pats and couldn't do it.
4) Tom Ashworth - a journeyman swing tackle. He was forced into the starting role with the Patriots in 2003 when they lost Adrian Klemm and Kenyatta Jones was let go from the team. By the end of the 2005 season, he was only starting because of an injury to Nick Kaczur.

Yes, the Pats have also lost some "middle class players" but the Colts haven't signed any of their "middle class" players. There are conflicting reports of them re-signing Domenic Rhodes and Gary Brackett. They still have a bunch of players they haven't re-signed. Players like Cato June, Rob Morris, James Mungro, Robert Mathis, and Rocky Calmus.

And they have much less money than the Pats do.

 

[flutie2phelan]

....
* Miguel. what are you doing injecting objectivity on a sports team's message board?[/QUOTE]

We all have our frailties.
A passion for objectivity and facts is his.

DaBruinz, and sometimes others, can stay in the same ring with him. But one
rarely catches Miguel in a misstatement of fact. I had
a father-in-law like that. Utterly unbearable!

Since the Colts have emerged as such a consistent contendah for what is rightfully ours ...
we instinctively demonize them. Someday, though, we may have to acknowledge that na-Polian,
unpleasant and perhaps as unsavory as he is, also is a kind of genius ...
not far behind Scott Pioli.

 

[arrellbee]

Well, whether it applies to the current discussion, I don't know. But just some past history info:

2004 salary cap info from USAtoday for Colts; Miguel for Pats
Colts top 4 players = 32.6% ...... Pats top 4 = 27.5%
Colts top 4 were all offense ..... Pats top 4 were 2 offense and 2 defense
Colts top 5 players = 36.4% ..... Pats top 5 = 30.6%
Colts top 5 were all offense ...... Pats top 5 were 2 offense and 3 defense

No USAtoday data available for 2005, but from Miguel's 2005 Pats info:
To Pats adjusted cap: Pats top 4 players = 26.3% ..... Pats top 5 players = 29.6%
To league cap: Pats top 4 players = 25.4% ..... Pats top 5 players = 28.6%

That's not a huge difference in philosophy I guess ??, but ...
In dollars, the Pats had 4.65M more to spread over their bottom 48 players than the Colts did.

In 2004, there was a more noticeable difference in the 'middle' class:
The Colts had 16 players with caps over 1M
The Pats had 22 players over 1M

In 2004, the Colts emphasis on offense also showed up in comparison:
For the Colts 10 of the top 15 caps were offense
For the Pats 5 of the top 15 caps were offense.

The Colts were knocked out of the playoffs by the Pats.
The Pats won the SuperBowl.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Arrelbee, although that's 04 info, I would take exception to the "not a huge difference" characterization, at the top - (now it will come back to bite me when M. says it's the same thing reversed for 06...)

If you have a difference of 32 versus 27%, that's 5% in a range of 32... that's over 15% difference in "top guys."

But knowing that this is 04 info, and knowing my "cap philosophy" argument is already on thin ice, has had a salutory effect on my use of sweeping generalities.

Let's say we find a consistent 15% difference at the end of 06 FA, and for the year 2005 - that would make the point. Otherwise, it seems like we'd need to have a 5-year trend in hand - like, "over the last 5 years the Pats have done X and the Colts have done Y, on average."

Well - the Pats do have Brady's deal, and it's always possible they'll pick up one or more "big ticket" free agents. Plus the Seymour re-up is going to be a big investment. Either way, they will no doubt spend to or close to the cap by the time all is said and done (maybe they'll leave a little more for in-season replacements, given the injury history.)

I did some voodoo math on the 6 year contracts for Harrison and Wayne, and Manning's 7 year contract, and if you add them all up and divide them by the years left, they come out to 30 million a year every year. But that doesn't really work, since the "out" years, as we always note, don't really happen as advertised.

But do they get negotiated into thin air? You also hear the phrase "they'll get their money." That's 66 million, 39 million, and 98 million these guys will eventually get... in the neighborhood of 2 years' caps, over a seven year span, among 3 guys. I don't know the re-do details for Harrison and Peyton though. I always say this - the only thing I know about these numbers is that I don't know anything, and I leave it to Miguel and his ilk to know the dirty details.

But from my layman's point of view, it looks like they had to get rid of James. Well, were this a Pats move, I suppose I would say "no, no, they just refuse to spend x million per year on a single running back, and they're just selling high." So point taken - though I still want to find out that the whole Colts' model is to mortgage the future, pay a few individuals at the top, ignore the middle, and, as your post suggests, ignore their defense. I'm just not sure I can, in an objective way, get to that conclusion. That 10 out of top 15 figure you mention could just reflect the youth of the defense versus the longstanding stature of offensive players.

Still, I'd prefer not to have my media myth exploded this early in the FA period

PFnV

 

[Miguel]

Miguel -
The difference between the Patriots and the Colts, though, is that the Patriots COULD have signed all of them for what they signed for with other teams. They chose not to. The Colts had no way to sign James, Thornton and Triplett because they didn't have the salary cap money available. They could have signed 2 of the 3, but not all 3.

Do you think that the Colts should have paid James what he got from the Cardinals??If no, then it does not matter if the Colts had the cap room or not. If the Colts thought that James was worth the price, he would be a Colt today.
Do you think that the Colts should have paid Thorton what he got from the Titans??If no, then it does not matter if the Colts had the cap room or not. If the Colts thought that Thorton was worth the price, he would be a Colt today.
Do you think that the Colts should have paid Tripplett what he got from the Bills??If no, then it does not matter if the Colts had the cap room or not. If the Colts thought that Thorton was worth the price, he would be a Colt today.

Also, in the case of the Pats players, just the NUMBER of players you mention shows that its NOT a double standard.

Huh, I was the one who first noted in this thread that the Pats have lost some of their middle-class depth.

Also, Miguel, I understand you are the cap guru, but unless they did some really fancy book-keeping, I would find it very hard to believe that Manning, Harrison, Vinatieri and Wayne didn't eat up 30% of the Colts salary cap. If you have the numbers, great. I will admit I am wrong.

I do not know why Adam is included in the discussion since it is very likely that Freeney, Tarik Glenn, Mathis, Ryan Diem, Reagor, Raheem Brock, Jeff Saturday, and Stokley all have higher cap numbers than Adam.

This is what I have for numbers.
Manning - 10.5 million
Harrison - 6.4 million
Wayne - 5.1 million
Adam - 1.68 million
for a total of 23.7 million.

Breakdowns
For Manning see http://www.patscap.com/manning.gif
Harrison - 2 million salary, 1MM proration of 2004 signing bonus, $1.4 million proration of 2005 roster bonus, $2 million proration of 2006 proration.
Wayne - $2.6 million salary, $2.5 million signing bonus proration
Adam - $980,000 salary, $700,000 roster bonus

I might be wrong but I have some numbers to back up my claim. CHFF did not provide any.