so here is my last post (i promise) about ndomukong suh, because i think it's related to the above discussion. people are arguing, persuasively, that trading up for j.j. watt in the draft, even if we had had the foreknowledge of his greatness, would have been a mistake given the cost. i agree with this assessment given the loss of other draft choices and the opportunity cost involved. but would any of you argue that the texans ought not to lock watt up going forward despite what will be a near record contract? i'd be surprised. the entire league, for reasons that are actually quite rare, might have the same opportunity with suh next year. he's unquestionably a transformative defensive player, in his prime, with no injury issues (and built to handle abuse), who may be available next year. and as i've tried to argue in the "blueprint for the defense" thread, exactly what the patriots need going forward. so let me address the counter arguments:
1) we lack sufficient cap space: i'm not sure that this is true and i haven't seen anyone prove it. again, there is lots of savings for the team in 2015 if we wish to whittle away while affecting the core, from longterm deals to mccourty and revis, dumping salary with amendola, browner, gostowski, et.al., savings from brady's deal going forward (a key) and the 7.5 million for hernandez coming off the books. i think with an appropriately structured contract we can afford both revis and suh. this would require a below market deal from brady, to which he is already signed. will he honor that deal? i don't know and that would be an essential, but suppose for a minute that he will. we'd be paying revis top dollar, brady "aqib talib money", and then the question comes down to whether we can afford another elite contract. i think lots of teams already have proven that this is possible without ruining your future (denver, seattle, others). we look to have additional draft capital to fill in some of our areas of weakness from the salary cap casualties and with some good drafting and a little luck, might suffer little from the pruning noted above. we have an excellent, young team with an underpaid qb. who else is better suited to go after suh, and who else can make a more compelling case to a player who wanted to win?
2) we have good young players we need to lock up in the near future: this is true, but let's say that we signed suh and find out in a year that chander jones is back healthy playing great and we can't afford him. would anyone argue that suh's future wouldn't be an acceptable trade for jones's? i sure wouldn'nt. and for a year we'd have both. how about hightower or even collins down the road? rather have them? really? we fall in love with our own guys, but this is the second best defensive player in football. of course there would be a cost, but isn't it worth it?
players like suh very rarely come along, and even more rarely come on the market in their prime. we should very carefully consider going after this guy if we can. we can't draft these guys because were always good, and as you all have articulated, even if you could figure out who was going to be great, the cost of obtaining them via the draft is exorbatant. so this might be a rare opportunity to get that nearly unique talent and would be, imho, just the situation to reach for. this would take the patriots defense from very good to great.
