I was a huge Milloy fan back in the day, but what people have to remember was that in 2002 his stat line looked like this:
Picks - 0
Forced Fumbles - 0
Fumble recoveries - 0
Sacks - 0
To put it another way, for the 2002 season Lawyer Milloy had ZERO impact plays for his team....and his tackle numbers were down over by over 20 and his lowest since his rookie year in 96
So really Bill wasn't being at ALL unreasonable to ask him to take a pay cut. He was coming off his worst year as a patriot and turning 30. According to curran, Bill was still offering him over $3MM for that year, which was still big SS money back then.
To his credit Milloy did play 8 more seasons in the NFL, 3 each with Buffalo and Atlanta, and 2 with Seattle. But there were no more probowls or all pro selections, and after his initial pay day in Buffalo, he got less in Atlanta (2MM/yr) and less in Seattle (800K/yr).
What Bill did was shocking to us fans, and a lot of us believed Tom Jackson when he made his now infamous remark. I happened to be in Philly. for that game and was severely worried. It turned out I didn't need to be as they rolled over the Eagles and had the Philly crowd booing their own team at the end of the first quarter. And the rest is history.
I no longer question Bill's overall running of the team.. He's not been right on all his tough calls, but even the GOAT isn't perfect. History has proven he was right with Milloy. Hopefully he's going to be right about Brady. Bring Tom back for another 2 years would be postponing the inevitable and tempting fate. And Tom wasn't going to come back for just one year.
I think Tom will do very well next season, providing the media with tons of content in comparing TB, with the Pats. Meanwhile if you are pessimistic the comparison could be Bill's first team in 2000. If you are optimistic I would look at like the 2001 team. Zero expectations, but a team that has .500 talent, and could squeeze another 3 wins out because of great coaching. In 2021 the Pats will reportedly have 100MM in cap room and the long term rebuild begins again.