I just want to know why Rex gets a pass and Idzik gets all the blame. Rex makes the same in-game mistakes he made 5 years ago e.g. wasting timeouts is the most glaring one I can think of, also blitzing far too much and from an org. perspective spending far too many 1st round picks on defense. Then everyone complains we have no offensive talent...where do you think those picks come from. Yes Idzik is responsible for selecting the actual player but you know Rex is telling him what he needs. Getting back to salary cap space...the Patriots have far less talent on Defense than the Jets and they are 14 million under the cap so why don't they go out and spend more?
Patriots have better CBs, better safeties, better linebackers (with Mayo not hurt) then the Jets. Stating they are far less talented is asinine. Maybe other then receiver, the Pats are pretty loaded. Surprised the Jets stuck with them last night.
We're closer to about 5m under the cap, something like 9m was required to be set aside for NLTBE incentives during the season. It's phantom money right now.
You don't think if the Patriots stood at 1-6 today that the media would be killing them for having all that unused cap space? I do. I mean, damn... they were playing poorly but were 2-2 and the sharks were circling. But either way, Belichick's track record gives him a lot more slack than Idzik's does for him. It's all about results. If the Jets were in this you wouldn't hear much about that cap space. If the Patriots are going to try to lock up Revis long-term after this season they'll need that space anyway. They also have a lot of incentive-heavy contracts and may end up paying out something like $4M in bonuses by the end of 2014.
They'd be wrong though, because the Patriots' don't have a lot of unused cap space. Miguel@PatsCap.Com@patscap 1.) The Pats do not have $14,426,250 in cap space 2.) The Pats have over 9 million in NLTBE incentives For an explanation of where it comes from: http://www.patsfans.com/salary-cap/?p=855#.VEFjE_nF9e4 Edit: Miguel knows his stuff when it comes to the cap, it's pretty easy to take most things he says as fact, he's very rarely wrong and will acknowledge when he is.
5-2 gets you less criticism than 1-6. If we were 5-2, we'd all think idzik and Rex were geniuses to have this cap room and still win the division. We're not, they're not.
If we were 5-2 right now, Idzik would be the next greatest thing. Putting together a team with cheap lower market guys and saving $20+ million in cap to roll over. But that's not the reality. The reality is we fuckin suck. We have massive holes at CB, OL, and WR. We have a QB who throws an interception almost every game and who finished games with a single digit qbr. We have lost 6 games in a row. And yet we have $20+million that we never touched. That's reality.
Belichick and the Patriots absolutely get a lot of crapola for having that much money under the cap and not spending it... God knows we have holes in our defensive front 7 that could use some more talent.
Kraft (Jonathan) was talking about this on pregame a few weeks back. I knew they had a lot of incentive-driven contracts so thanks for posting some numbers.
