Off-season Choice: pats bring in Byrd, Bills bring in Diggs

[mgteich]

Consider if the patriots had Diggs and the bills had Bryd. Yes, we would have had to extend or restructure Gilmore (perhaps with the idea of trading him in 2021).
Maybe Diggs preferred to play for Buffalo.

My point isn't that we would have been SB or even division favorites. It is that Belichick made conscious choices in the offseason, during camp, and before the trade deadline. Belichick chose not to use $20M of cap money to improve the 2020 team. Some would say more than $20M with a Gilmore extension, but $20M is good number to work with. The "norm" is to be competitive in the current year, and sign players with some probable dead money a couple of years later. Belichick made the choice. He didn't choose "no playoffs". He couldn't have known that Guy, Gilmore and Edelman would contribute relatively so little.

but, the BOTTOM LINE
is that belichick had cap money available to go out and get help at least one of the key positions that were bare: NT, LB, WR and TE. At very least he could have traded for this help before the deadline.

 

[upstater1]

Consider if the patriots had Diggs and the bills had Bryd. Yes, we would have had to extend or restructure Gilmore (perhaps with the idea of trading him in 2021).
Maybe Diggs preferred to play for Buffalo.

My point isn't that we would have been SB or even division favorites. It is that Belichick made conscious choices in the offseason, during camp, and before the trade deadline. Belichick chose not to use $20M of cap money to improve the 2020 team. Some would say more than $20M with a Gilmore extension, but $20M is good number to work with. The "norm" is to be competitive in the current year, and sign players with some probable dead money a couple of years later. Belichick made the choice. He didn't choose "no playoffs". He couldn't have known that Guy, Gilmore and Edelman would contribute relatively so little.

but, the BOTTOM LINE
is that belichick had cap money available to go out and get help at least one of the key positions that were bare: NT, LB, WR and TE. At very least he could have traded for this help before the deadline.

But it wasn't only cap money.

The Bills sent a 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th round choice for Diggs.

So the question is draft choices & cap money.

What would it have gotten you given our QB situation?

A better question might be, given the price, what would have happened if we traded for Deandre Hopkins? He came much cheaper than Diggs.

I can see a much better argument for Hopkins.

 

[oldrover]

Really doesn't matter either way, if you don't change the guy under center.

 

[Sciz]

Why are you talking about a March trade in context of cap room that appeared in August? Who was available to trade for after that cap room was created?

And "extend or restructure" is completely contradictory to "trading him in 2021." Extensions or restructures that create immediate cap room make it harder to trade a player later because there's more dead money.

 

[mgteich]

Why are you talking about a March trade in context of cap room that appeared in August? Who was available to trade for after that cap room was created?

And "extend or restructure" is completely contradictory to "trading him in 2021." Extensions or restructures that create immediate cap room making it harder to trade a player later because there's more dead money.

1) we could have restructure or extended Gilmore to produce the cap room.
2) you believe that there wasn't an available player that would help us in the entire lead from March through the deadline; not at WR, not at Te, not at DT, not at NT and not at LB. I am NOT the personnel expert. Also, I don't know who was available. That was, and is, the team's job

 

[luuked]

Belichick chose not to use $20M of cap money to improve the 2020 team.

There were not 20M in cap space when there was a chance to improve the team. Otherwise Cam Newton would have not signed for a 1M APY contract with incentives at the end of June.

It was obvious where this year was going in terms of available depth when they traded Harmon away to create some room to navigate.

I don't understand why you'd think it would be a good idea to go the Saints route and leverage the future by doing restructures in year when you transition to another QB. You'd do that if Brady was still the starter the same way BB had been doing it the last couple of years to keep the window open.

 

[Sciz]

1) we could have restructure or extended Gilmore to produce the cap room.
2) you believe that there wasn't an available player that would help us in the entire lead from March through the deadline; not at WR, not at Te, not at DT, not at NT and not at LB. I am NOT the personnel expert. Also, I don't know who was available. That was, and is, the team's job

I can only say who was available by looking at who was actually traded, and we know that one WR and no TEs were traded after the opt outs opened up that cap room. That one trade was the Patriots acquiring Ford.

I swear we had this same conversation about a year ago about how surely there must have been offensive tackles for the Patriots to acquire, when in reality the only tackles that were traded were Tunsil, the guy sent back to Miami in the Tunsil trade, and Eluemunor and Cunningham both going to the Patriots.

 

[Peachhead]

Even the best WR is useless if the QB can't even hit a short pass without one-hopping it half the time.

 

[bresna]

On March 16th when the Bills traded all those picks for Diggs, the Patriots had $1.75 Million in cap space. Diggs' cap hit is $14.8 Million. You can do math, right?

The only way they could've posibly done this was by letting Thuney walk. They chose to not do that. Maybe they were wrong but I think they were right, especially with that 1st round pick in there. I thought and maybe still think that the Bills overpaid. You never know how a WR is going to work in your system. A guard? Yeah, you know.

 

[amfootball]

Bill would never give up that haul for any receiver. He just does not believe the position is that valuable. Mostly because Brady made so many average to below average receivers look great.

 

[upstater1]

Bill would never give up that haul for any receiver. He just does not believe the position is that valuable. Mostly because Brady made so many average to below average receivers look great.

Stephon Diggs had already showed he's better than Brandin Cooks at the points in their careers where Belichick traded a #1 for Cooks. We were also willing to pay Cooks if Belichick had evaluated him highly. It was a miracle someone even gave up a 1st to take him off of our hands.

We also gave a 2nd for Sanu--so don't be surprised if Belichick makes that move at some point.

 

[RIpats88]

Brady may have stayed if Patriots made a move for Diggs or Hopkins. Once brady saw the trash he would be left with this year he bolted.

 

[Nehalem]

In retrospect the smart move would have been drafting AJ Brown over harry. And then trading up slightly for jefferson.

Unlike the comparison posed in the OP that would have been possible.

 

[NG Pats Fan]

We traded for Sanu instead of Diggs

 

[203Pat]

Who needs Diggs when we have Sanu tearing it up?

 

[DaBruinz]

On March 16th when the Bills traded all those picks for Diggs, the Patriots had $1.75 Million in cap space. Diggs' cap hit is $14.8 Million. You can do math, right?

The only way they could've posibly done this was by letting Thuney walk. They chose to not do that. Maybe they were wrong but I think they were right, especially with that 1st round pick in there. I thought and maybe still think that the Bills overpaid. You never know how a WR is going to work in your system. A guard? Yeah, you know.

This is not entirely true. They could have made adjustments to Gilmore and Mason's contracts to free up money. The Problem is that there would have been no way to keep Brady without getting Thuney restructured or let go if they'd added Diggs.. And Thuney is such a huge piece of the offensive line. More important than Andrews, imho. Especially if moved permanently to Center.

 

[VJCPatriot]

But it wasn't only cap money.

The Bills sent a 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th round choice for Diggs.

So the question is draft choices & cap money.

What would it have gotten you given our QB situation?

A better question might be, given the price, what would have happened if we traded for Deandre Hopkins? He came much cheaper than Diggs.

I can see a much better argument for Hopkins.

If we had kept Brady, then trading for Diggs makes sense. But if you were dumping Brady and going straight into a rebuild year... well you don't move draft picks for an "improve us now" player.

But yes you can make an argument that Bill could have kept Brady, traded for Diggs, and drafted DK Metcalf instead of Harry and we would be contending for the Division title today. But he didn't. did he?

 

[TheRainMaker]

In retrospect the smart move would have been drafting AJ Brown over harry. And then trading up slightly for jefferson.

Unlike the comparison posed in the OP that would have been possible.

While risky, Metcalf was my choice. AJ Brown was next followed by Samuel (who I thought the Pats would've taken). I'm not a huge fan of Samuel as his "RB" mentality is going to cut his career short. Bill should've gone offense in rounds 1-3 in 2019 and not take a damn DB in the 2nd round who still barely plays. Go offense again depending on how 2019 went in rounds 1-2. Not a good use of draft capital in recent years.

We traded for Sanu instead of Diggs

Should've traded for Sanders. The popular take (wrong take) is that Sanu was in demand, hence the 2nd round pick. You can ask for whatever you want, doesn't mean that player is worth it. 49ers said no thanks when Atlanta asked for a 2nd and went after Sanders. Bill didn't know the 49ers bowed out and took the bait. Dimitroff won that negotiation (a token victory before he got fired).

Bill's second mistake was hanging Sanu out to dry fielding a punt he's only done ONCE in his career. You're already thin at WR and he gets his newly acquired WR injured. Now they don't have any WR's. SMDH. There's an SI article that Sanu said he should've shut it down after that, but felt the pressure to play as he was traded for a 2nd round pick.

 

[luuked]

Brady may have stayed if Patriots made a move for Diggs or Hopkins. Once brady saw the trash he would be left with this year he bolted.

The only scenario in which BB would have not moved on from Brady is if he had accepted a lower APY and made himself value. There was no reason to keep Brady given the situation while paying him 25M. He would have been not much more successful than last year and effectively just cap dead weight for another year.

By moving on both sides won. The Pats got a nice salary cap reset year and Brady a stacked offense.

 

[borg]

1) we could have restructure or extended Gilmore to produce the cap room.

When playing keyboard GM, it is very easy to make definitive statements like the above.

Or claiming the Pats would simply have to restructure players to turn $1 million in cap space (pre Covid quitters) into ample space ($25 mill) to keep Brady and his wife happy.

Easy peasy

These declarations never account for the mindset of the assumed restructurers.

For all we know BB approached Gilmore and/or Thuney and/or McCourty and/or Hightower and they told Bill to pound sand.
Gilmore had the mindset of regaining 'top of the CB market' salary status.
Thuney and his agent might have been more inclined to use their franchise tag leverage that Cousins and Prescott latched on to.
McCourty and Hightower could have responded "Your going to need to overwhelm us veterans with significant long term financial appreciation"

Who knows?

Assuming any team-desired restructuring will be a mere formality is simplistic internet fodder