I get your point about saying Belichick would be negligent by not wanting to acquire a quality QB. I re-read my post and didn’t imply or say that. I’m sure he does want to, but it has to make sense.
Would he spend the money for elite play? Sure, but I’m guessing he puts guys like Mahomes/Rodgers in that category. I don’t think he’d be willing to overpay for someone like Stafford or a similar player.
Of course he wants to improve the team and he needs a QB for the sake of improving the team. But at the same time, he’s proven he’s not going to overpay someone for the sake of doing that. That’s not my opinion, that’s just based on past history. I mean, let’s be honest, prior to them eventually acquiring Newton, they were seemingly prepared to go into camp with who they had and I’m sure he would have made it work.
I’m sure he’ll make moves to make them better there coming off this season. But what that will be remains to be seen.
I’m not saying you implied that I am saying that’s the end result of what you suggested. In other words if you assumption is correct then I would conclude he acted negligently. I don’t believe he would.
I also would consider breaking the bank for Matthew Stafford to be negligent. Signing a guy with a name who isn’t going to win doesn’t help. But signing a lesser known, perhaps less expensive player WHO WILL GIVE YOU A BETTER CHANCE TO WIN does help.
We need a guy to execute the offense not a guy who put up gaudy numbers between the 30s while losing. I think there are a number of QBs with less name power than Stafford who would do better here than he would.
I don’t think you can use last year as an example because there was no money to get a qb with. I’m quite certain belichick was caught with his pants down because he never believed Brady would leave.
There was no money left to sign a qb other than the one that fell off the turnip truck.
This year he has the most cap space he has ever had. He has one of the highest picks he has ever had and he had a team that’s got holes.
I can’t imagine a scenario where his plan is anything but using the most buying power he has ever had to address the most important pieces.
We have observed 20 years of being in a position where every season they were net personnel losers. Meaning the contracts it would have taken to keep their players exceeded what they had to spend, so they had to accept replacing players with cheaper ones and try to make the mix fit together.
This is the first time he is a net buyer and in a big way.
When you look at a belichick team and understand his philosophy he has accepted less than ideal players in many roles because he had no choice.
Something like this: The defense at its best requires (among other things) a beast to stop the run in the middle a shut down corner and an edge player who is equally good in run d, coverage and pass rush.
I think it’s safe to say that If there were no cap belichick would have made those 3 a top priority. But because of the cap he couldn’t always get them. You end up with Danny Shelton, Beau Allen, you rent Revis, you spend many second round picks in corners, you mix and match situational edge players. Those weren’t what he WANTED to do they were what he HAD TO do.
At the same time he drafted wilfork, Seymour, Warren, Hightower, Jones, etc in the first round and broke the bank for Gilmore, Colvin, Thomas, when he could scrape together cap room.
QB is the same thing in the other side of the ball, we just haven’t had to address it for a long time.
If you look at BBs tenure you see 20 years of a dynamic where if the cap was 200 mill and every player became a FA tomorrow it would take 300 mill to sign them. That’s not the case now. Don’t expect a guy flush with money to act like he did when he had to lunch pennies.
