The Patriots were toast before the season began- a casualty of the salary cap.

[Ring 6]

The Pats suck because their QB sucks, the money is irrelevant.

Spending on AJ Brown is what you do once you know you have a franchise QB, great lines on both sides of the ball and a shot at winning it all.

Mac Jones was in his development/job application stage, you don’t make big ticket purchases if you’re not convinced you have the point guard to run the offense.

The Raiders spent their wad on Devante Adams without all the other elements in place… didn’t work nearly as well.

Actually if you build a great OL everyone at every position looks better.
If the patriots had the best OL
in the NFL Mac jones and the receivers would look fine, especially with a good defense complementing it.

 

[Ring 6]

how do you get a good qb who is coached well without the other things?

The fact that anyone thinks they can quantify that is laughable.
If I coach the qb to play well and coach all of the players around him to play well, then it’s all the qb and the coach doesn’t matter.

 

[Wozzy]

Actually if you build a great OL everyone at every position looks better.
If the patriots had the best OL
in the NFL Mac jones and the receivers would look fine, especially with a good defense complementing it.

Mac has had decent O-Line play since week three, last week Mac and his weapons posted the most point the Buffalo defense has allowed all season. When your QB is an inconsistent mess, expect the results to be inconsistent.

The weapons en masse can't be great one week and bad the next, it's far more likely the one player who controls their production is up and down.... especially since he has been for the last three years.

 

[raduray]

A couple more points to add to the discussion:

The Patriots are 4th amongst NFL teams in annual revenue- $684 million estimated for 2023 only behind the Cowboys, Raiders and Rams. They are second in operating income only behind the Cowboys at $206 million a year or 30% of their revenue.

How Rich Is Your NFL Team?

See how revenues and profits compare for all 32 teams.

www.gobankingrates.com

2025 NFL Team Salary Cash Tracker

A real-time look at the 2025 salary cash totals for each NFL team.

www.spotrac.com

But, they’re only 30th in cash spending for 2023 at $194.8 million or 28.5% of team revenue. Yes, their percentage of player payout is less than their percentage of operating income. In a league where the players revenue split is 48%, the Patriots are spending only 28.5% of their revenue on players in 2023.

This has been going on in some measure for 20 years. It didn’t hurt them competitively for most of it because they had superior coaching and Quarterbacking which are the two most important elements in pro football. They also had a steady stream of veteran free agents willing to play for them on the cheap in hopes of rebuilding their careers and future earnings.

Now, the QB is gone. The HC is 71 and giving off a “you kids get off my lawn” vibe when yelling at officials on the sidelines. And, no one wants to play for them on the cheap any longer.

No wonder Bob Kraft gave Bill Belichick a “lucrative “, “long term contract last off season coming off a 8-9 season and Bill’s disastrous decision to allow his cronies to coach his offense and destroy his promising young QB it seems in the process. “ Follow the money”.

I don't have a grasp on the details, but doesn't cash and cap money have to ultimately be equal in the aggregate over a period of several years? I just don't get this Kraft is cheap talk. Any cash he saves today, he ultimately has to spend in the future to maintain his minimum cap requirements. What am I missing?

 

[venecol]

I believe the cap should have some relationship to reality. Example- Last season the Eagles signed Fletcher Cox to a one year deal- fully guaranteed- for $14M. Because of four void years- the cap hit was $4M. This makes no sense.

or- continue as is- a giant shell game. When you have a quarterback capable of taking you to the Super Bowl - go for . The Eagles have eleven players making $10M or more. They can afford it because of void years on contracts. The Eagles can delay dead cap problems for at least six seasons. In the meantime- chase the super bowl.Teams that worry about dead cap will be left in the dust.

I would rather teams win- loss record be determined by play on the field- not in some dusty office in the bowls of some stadium based on the design of a contract.

Rules are the same for all teams, no different than the ones on the field.

Some GMs like creative acct and risk taking. Others are conservative and front load their contracts. Some HCs like to go for it on 4th down w/ success. Other HCs are conservative and like to punt.

In the last 4 seasons, some of the creative GMs walked away with a ring. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[n1997y]

how do you get a good qb who is coached well without the other things?

You‘ve hit on the fallacy of that analysis. Those are not uncorrelated variables, yet the results are presented suggesting they are.

 

[Ring 6]

Mac has had decent O-Line play since week three, last week Mac and his weapons posted the most point the Buffalo defense has allowed all season. When your QB is an inconsistent mess, expect the results to be inconsistent.

The weapons en masse can't be great one week and bad the next, it's far more likely the one player who controls their production is up and down.... especially since he has been for the last three years.

I didn’t say decent OL play, I said good ol play that makes everyone better. We haven’t had close to that.

The situations that you put that qb in goes a long way to dictate the results.
If you run the ball well, get into good throwing situations, make the defense defend the run and respect that the rush won’t eat him up, the qb looks far better and the receivers are open. (Although jones biggest issues is find them and delivering on time).

 

[venecol]

I don't have a grasp on the details, but doesn't cash and cap money have to ultimately be equal in the aggregate over a period of several years? I just don't get this Kraft is cheap talk. Any cash he saves today, he ultimately has to spend in the future to maintain his minimum cap requirements. What am I missing?

It boils down to the amount of guaranteed $ in a contract. Patriots are not known for dishing out a lot of guarantees, opting for incentive based contracts. The guaranteed $, I believe needs to be paid out in cash or escrowed (same thing). In 2021 the Pats had an NFL record in guarantees ($140M+) which was the talk that year. Pioli said the Pats dished out more guaranteed $ that year than in all the ones he was there. Kraft stated he never had to write so many checks.

That's probably why we lose out on FAs like DHop, Meyers and so many others. If you recall, JJSS contract was similar to Meyers aside for the guaranteed amount of $. At the end of the day, the guaranteed $ is the real money to the players.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, not an expert, but that's my simplified understanding of it.

 

[Zuma]

If the patriots had the best OL
in the NFL Mac jones and the receivers would look fine…”

But that’s part of the problem. Mac needs to “look fine” without the best OL in the NFL. He has to be better then that.

 

[venecol]

But that’s part of the problem. Mac needs to “look fine” without the best OL in the NFL. He has to be better then that.

There are many QBs in the league playing behind below avg OLs, some worse than ours, doing better than Mac. This is the NFL. NFL QBs need to be able to perform under pressure.

 

[Patriot Missile]

Sad that they are in this situation. Hard to gauge the overall suckage of the team due to the Judon/Gonzales injuries relative to the defense at least.

We know pretty much the oline sucks and noone can’t properly asses the qb,rbs and wrs because of it. Doesn’t seem like any phase of the offense can bail anyone of them out so they lazily get they all suck tag.

Biggest question is how does this happen when you have a qb on a rookie contract? Where the hell is the money going? It’s not going to the rookie shutdown cb. Barmore is still on a rookie deal. Judon is modestly paid so you can count him as part of it. Nothing gross about his contract. Even Juju and Parker although bad contracts are anything near crippling. I mean obviously I asked a question I already knew the question too. It’s poor mismanagement of funds all the way across the board. Imagine if Mac was actually good and they had to pay him top 10 qb money? They’d have to make money appear out of thin air which according to some who call it dead years could probably happen.

 

[Zuma]

It boils down to the amount of guaranteed $ in a contract. Patriots are not known for dishing out a lot of guarantees, opting for incentive based contracts. The guaranteed $, I believe needs to be paid out in cash or escrowed (same thing). In 2021 the Pats had an NFL record in guarantees ($140M+) which was the talk that year. Pioli said the Pats dished out more guaranteed $ that year than in all the ones he was there. Kraft stated he never had to write so many checks.

That's probably why we lose out on FAs like DHop, Meyers and so many others. If you recall, JJSS contract was similar to Meyers aside for the guaranteed amount of $. At the end of the day, the guaranteed $ is the real money to the players.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, not an expert, but that's my simplified understanding of it.

Not paying players guaranteed $ guaranties we won’t be getting difference makers. It’s time for a philosophy change…top to bottom…now.

 

[Ring 6]

But that’s part of the problem. Mac needs to “look fine” without the best OL in the NFL. He has to be better then that.

I never disputed that, I am disagreeing that it’s all the QB and nothing else matters so you start with the QB.
If you start with the OL a hell of a lot more QBs are going to be good enough to win with and if you don’t build a team around a qb you end up with Rodgers, Herbert, Allen, Burrow, etc etc who never win SBs but everyone says you need a QB like that to win SBs.

 

[Ring 6]

Not paying players guaranteed $ guaranties we won’t be getting difference makers. It’s time for a philosophy change…top to bottom…now.

The philosophy has worked better and for longer than any other.
Nothing would every single time. Foolishness is having the best plan in an arena where the best plan doesn’t work 100% of the time and at the time it is working so week, abandoning for a worse plan that happened to hit this time.

 

[Zuma]

The philosophy has worked better and for longer than any other.

And I agree it has worked with help from TB…but that’s no longer the case.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Mac Jones was in his development/job application stage, you don’t make big ticket purchases if you’re not convinced you have the point guard to run the offense.

By that logic, WTF were Miami and BUF thinking bringing in weapons for Tua and Allen, who didn't look any better than Jones did in their first years?

 

[ctpatsfan77]

I don't have a grasp on the details, but doesn't cash and cap money have to ultimately be equal in the aggregate over a period of several years? I just don't get this Kraft is cheap talk. Any cash he saves today, he ultimately has to spend in the future to maintain his minimum cap requirements. What am I missing?

Yes, in the long run, they have to be the same, unless a team deliberately removes some of it by failing to roll the excess over. But the Patriots aren't doing that.

This is also why the teams in the top quarter of cash spending since 2021 are all in the bottom third of cap space in 2024.

 

[Wozzy]

I didn’t say decent OL play, I said good ol play that makes everyone better. We haven’t had close to that.

The situations that you put that qb in goes a long way to dictate the results.
If you run the ball well, get into good throwing situations, make the defense defend the run and respect that the rush won’t eat him up, the qb looks far better and the receivers are open. (Although jones biggest issues is find them and delivering on time).

Mac makes his offensive line look worse than it is, the Bengals offensive line makes Burrow look worse than he is... there's a difference.

We've seen Burrow look exceptional, even with one of the worst lines in the NFL, he brought them all the way to the Super Bowl.

Mac has never looked exceptional... ever.

When he has looked simply "good" we've jumped for joy, but he can't maintain that consistently.

It's about time we've stopped embracing excuses and stared the truth in the face... Mac's simply not very good.

 

[captain stone]

And I agree it has worked Because Of TB…but that’s no longer the case.

fify

 

[Wozzy]

By that logic, WTF were Miami and BUF thinking bringing in weapons for Tua and Allen, who didn't look any better than Jones did in their first years?

Tua and Allen improved from year's one and two before their super weapons arrived... Mac didn't.

Superweapons can enhance an already good QB, they can't turn a bad QB good.