It will be especially funny to hear Fin and Pat fans cry conspiracy considering the NYJ weren't the only ones who benefitted from this. Tannenbaum = cap wizard. Soak it in, rival fans.
The other part I find funny is how did the Jets get the NFLPA to vote to include this in the new CBA, the same one voted on by the owners, including Robert Kraft.
Sure. Most teams don't do that though, even with injured and bad players, just to avoid the dead money. The simpler explanation is that Tanny and Woody had a better idea of how cap negotiations were going to go. In retrospect, it makes sense that dead money wouldn't count. The owners agreed to spend up to 99% of the salary cap this year. Keeping dead money on the books would have made that much more difficult.
Do you really believe they were absolutely sure that the negotiations were to allow the dead money to be taken off? I think they took a calculated risk, based on a CBA that had not been voted on yet and it worked. Every owner was given the same CBA to review when it was in the planning stages, without really knowing if the players and owners were going to ultimately agree to such parameters as this. What if it was changed. Everyone would be mocking the Jets right now for making the cuts.
Yeah, seriously.... That's just blind hatred at its finest. They need to rationalize like that, though. They need to feed their NFL self-concept, and convince themselves they are still the hands-down favorite in the division. However, deep down, they know their reign over the AFCE is over. 2 out of 3 wins last year proves it and splits the previous two seasons is proof that the NYJ can hang with NE* any day of the week.
Oh and I read some of that crap on patsfans.com just to see how worked up they were. They seem to be all up in arms that the Jets will come crashing down after spending all there money on FAs. Truth be told, the core of the team was draft picks, and they are mostly all locked up in long term deals now. MS, Mangold, Ferguson, Keller, Revis...etc. Harris the last one at this point to be signed long term.
Aw man Patsfans.com is another world of crazy. They have a "predict the Pats record, thread" and it is a special kind of messed up. One (apparent) Pats fan said they'd go 10-6 and they went nuts on the guy. Most of their predictions are 14-2. Who the hell predicts a 14-2 record? If you think a team is great and you are the least bit sane, you would predict 12-4 maybe 13-3. They talk like 14-2 is a given, it is just bizarre.
Err, every team's fans are like this. I think we had a thread like that last year, with the most common suggestion being that we were going like 12-4 or something. They went 14-2 last year. Predicting them to do the same again is wrong obviously, but I think that's probably par for the course. Almost nobody expects their team to take a step backward. Just not how fandom works.
Are there any threads on the Pats forums about how the rookie wage scale helps out teams that have a philosophy of stockpiling draft picks? Didn't think so.
Ziiiiiing. The only good part of the offseason is watching the opposing fans try to demean our offseason activity.
haha, great call. They should be happy that these rules fit what they do best, but they are far too occupied watching the Jets make great moves. Once you see hatred like that brewing in opposing bases, you know we are doing something right!
Yeah that whole conspiracy theory is complete bullshit, and some pats fans are definitely overreacting to everything jets related. That said, I don't think that most of our fans are really occupied watching the Jets make "great moves". Everyone expected that you guys would resign 1-2 of your big free agents. The way I see it, you guys still have quite a bit of work to do just to field a team as good as last year's. If pats fans are getting overexcited about Jets' moves, it is simply because we have a more complete team than you guys, and thus are looking forward to a much less 'exciting' free agency.
Why would the Jets, with a QB who is making that jump into his third season and a core that is maturing into its prime, have so much work to do to field a team equal to last year's? And how is it that the Pats are so much more complete than the Jets? They have a few stars in very important positions, but I think they have at least as many areas of concern and weakness.
