Quote:
Originally Posted by tony hipchest
thanks for the link.
on the surface it looks like 2 patriot players are accounting for nearly 40% of the patriots total salary cap.
im sure thats what most players who score a 10 on their wonderlic test think and goes a long way in showing that the d. branch and a. samuel situation may only be the tip of the iceberg for the pats.
no matter how creative a team gets, thing always catches up. as has been shown throughout history, no team is bigger than the NFL.
when you dig deeper you see the patriots are pushing money into the future and relying on 1 year discount, character pickups and rookies to plug the holes.
a risky gamble, yet a calculated one.
on the steelers side, i dont see any risk of mortgaging the future. infact, with the way the salary cap is scheduled to rise theres a small chance we could even persue deangello hall after 08, if such desperate measures were needed (i dont think they will be) and land him at a contract friendly deal similar to adalius thomas (without further mortgage of the future).
of course trading players like faneca and ward for high round picks are the way to ensure you can make manuvers like this work.
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I would hope even guys with a low wonderlic scores would be able to comprehend the difference between salary cap charge and actual paid salary.
I would even go as far as saying that the Patriots would go out of their way not to sign (rookie or otherwise) a player who couldn't get their head around such an elementary concept.
Without over complicating the issue with wonderlic scores, I would suggest that the Deion Branch/ Asante Samuel situations are caused by the typical pro/con scenario of winning consistently in the salary cap era that any team would face.
Its simply that the Patriots have been more successful than any other franchise this decade - and in particular during a time when both Asante and Deion have been starters for us.
They obviously want to be compensated for that.
You want to clarify how the Patriots are 'pushing money into the future'?
Asante has not been re-signed to this point to avoid just that scenario and Branch left twon without the deal he wanted.