Unbearable Lightness of “Agressive“ Narrative

[PP2]

@long distance, did you steal the thread title from Milan Kundera?

 

[venecol]

I really dont know what is so hard to understand here. Its economy 101.

1. Patriots are one of the very few teams that managed to sign multiple young vets at/near the top of FA on multiple year contracts.
a) they signed them below top of the market or projected market price and well below expected market (if Cap would go up to 210M+)
b) they signed them on multiple years contracts. with cap projected to rise to 260M over next 3 years (and that could be conservative) you can do the math what the contracts for similar players will look like next year or in 2023 and how low these contracts will look in comparison.

Some 90% of contracts signed this year will be 1y contracts. This means teams will be hunting on the much more expensive and much more competitive market (more teams w enough cap space) for these same players again next year.

Signing 14 players on multiple year contracts in this market is major achievement and major value no matter what you think of certain players.
5 x 4y contracts + 3 x 3y contracts + 6 x 2y contracts w most players well under 30 will make this FA class a major bargain in 2022 and beyond.
For players who will end up producing as expected - the bigger question will be if their contracts are not too much “under value“ like its happening with Gilmore for two years now. I bet you didn't think his contract was a bargain then

Its not just Pats. Everyone who managed to sign top young players on 3-4y contracts is a winner in this situation.

This is not economy 101.

Almost all of what you're saying assumes the team will keep these guys through the end of their contracts. How many recent FAs have seen a year 3 or 4? What I'm looking at is the amount of guaranteed money ($147M missing some players) which is the only real part of the contracts.

We just disagree on this.

 

[long distance]

@long distance, did you steal the thread title from Milan Kundera?

Steal is un ugly word. Milan's a bud so to speak so i borrowed

 

[1960Pats]

I agree for the most part except I think if a rookie QB impresses him, he'll start the kid. He just won't force it to please the masses.

Thing with Cam is he's firmly around the 14th-16th best qb (middle of the road) when healthy and ranks in the 20s when not (or when he's surrounded with what he had last year). While that isn't good, it's still a tough benchmark for a kid to beat in his first year. Some manage it, but it's really uncommon and those guys are normally picked near the very top of the draft.

I would still rather see a rookie growing on the job than see Newton ever again.

I'd rank Cam in the mid 30's.

 

[Brotherblues]

I'd rank Cam in the mid 30's.

I mean, in almost every full or near full season he's played he's ranked between 12 and 22 among starters. I had a graph on that, I'll look it up. Bottom line is objectively he's a middle of the road guy. He will have some good games, some terrible games, and a lot of games where he's a mixed bag. It's what he's always been. Better than half the starting QBs in any given season. Worse than the other half.

Edit: Here's the graph.

 

[Brotherblues]

I mean, in almost every full or near full season he's played he's ranked between 12 and 22 among starters. I had a graph on that, I'll look it up. Bottom line is objectively he's a middle of the road guy. He will have some good games, some terrible games, and a lot of games where he's a mixed bag. It's what he's always been. Better than half the starting QBs in any given season. Worse than the other half.

Edit: Here's the graph.

View attachment 31527

Now, last year was pretty bad, with him ranking around 30th-32nd across the board. Lotta things contributed to that dip, as we're all very aware here. Still, it means he hasn't been a top 20 guy since 2015. Defnitely a trend there, so... I'm gonna reasses a bit and say he's not a middle of the road guy anymore. Heading into the 2021 season he's a mid 20s guy. Basically a bottom tier starter.