The NFL has long been accepted as a copycat business and thanks to their shiny new Lombardi Trophy from February, the Rams’ all-in way of doing business is all the rage these days.
The Rams have spent money like crazy, mostly to acquire talent from outside the organization, and traded away first-round picks like they play in the NBA.
Los Angeles hasn’t made first-round pick since Jared Goff in 2016 and their last first-round pick that’s still on the roster is all-world defender Aaron Donald from 2014. They aren’t scheduled to pick in the first round again until 2024.
A year ago Los Angeles traded a pair of first-round picks to the Lions to acquire Matthew Stafford and unload the ill-advised contract they’d given Goff. A couple years ago they traded two first-round picks to land current $100 million cornerstone cornerback Jalen Ramsey.
It’s an aggressive mentality that now seemingly permeates the rest of the Super Bowl-seeking NFL.
So far this offseason the Browns sent three first-round picks to the Texans for Deshaun Watson. The Broncos shipped two first-round picks, two second-round picks and a pair of players for Russell Wilson. The Raiders gave up a first-round pick and more for Green Bay’s Davante Adams and the right to make him the highest-paid receiver in NFL history. Highest paid, that is, until Miami gave up a first-round pick and much more for K.C.’s Tyreek Hill and threw an even bigger bag at the game-changing Cheetah.
It’s been fantasy football season this spring across the NFL, apparently no trade too crazy to talk about or even execute as teams display a willingness to do whatever big move it may take to give themselves a chance to win big.
Meanwhile, in Foxborough, Bill Belichick’s team that was blown off the playoff field by the Bills in January is patiently going about its business re-signing its own aging, slowing veterans and bringing back former Super Bowl heroes who were out of the game altogether a year ago. For the second time in three years the Patriots are apparently in the midst of an offseason approach intended to reset their finances, a characteristically cautious course sandwiched around last March’s “uncharacteristically aggressive” spending spree.
It may look like the Patriots are falling further and further behind the competition in the AFC as rosters across the conference are adding talent, but Friend of Bill Belichick and former Patriots Vice President of Player Personnel Scott Pioli did his best to explain away the fears of Patriots fans this week by spinning things positive on NFL Network.
“Player acquisition isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon,” Pioli said. “Just like the season. Last year the entire league was in a depressed market, so the Patriots went out and spent two years’ worth of free agency money and they received tremendous value. You look at the financial terms a year later and they look very good.”
The costly contracts given to first-year disappointments Jonnu Smith and Nelson Agholor by Belichick last spring look very good? Really?
Sure, Matthew Judon and Hunter Henry had good years, but they were paid very well for those years.
Pioli went on to emphasize that sometimes you have to “tap the brakes” in team building and display patience. That’s certainly been the Belichick way of doing business for more than two decades in New England, more often seeking value-based talent and roster depth over the swift, sexy additions like Stephon Gilmore.
ESPN.com explained a portion of that approach this week, in particular why the Patriots have not been able to land additional wide receiver talent, despite the fact that guys like JuJu Smith-Schuster and D.J.
Chark settled elsewhere for seemingly miniscule money. Having lost J.C. Jackson to a huge contract with the Chargers, New England should be in line for a possible compensatory pick after the third-round of next April’s NFL Draft. Belichick, according to ESPN, doesn’t want to “jeopardize” or “compromise” that possibility by adding talent in free agency that would alter the compensatory pick formula.
There you have it. The Patriots are taking a marathon approach to rebuilding their roster while the rest of the league is seemingly sprinting to try to get to the Super Bowl. The Patriots are fixated on retaining a future mid-round draft pick while many other teams are willing to trade first-round picks and spend elite money to add elite talent.
And a Patriots playoff team from last fall looks to be anything but playoff-caliber at this point in the process.
Two different philosophies on display. One all-in style that’s won the last couple Super Bowls, loading up to land a Lombardi. The other style one that brought six Super Bowl wins to New England over the last two decades, an unprecedented run of consistent NFL winning that had never been seen before and will never be seen again.
And those thinking that teams like the Rams will be in “cap hell” in the coming years may have another thing coming given that the NFL’s salary cap is expected to balloon as much as $50 million or more in the next couple offseasons thanks to injections of revenue led by new TV contracts.
Maybe there is no right or wrong in this, just different ways to skin a pig. But the activity across the league, the way business is being done by so many including Belichick disciples Josh McDaniel and Dave Ziegler in Las Vegas, shows which approach most think is the best way to do business, the best way to win in the world of the NFL in 2022 not 2002.
For years, endless Belichick defenders have supported his at-times curious moves and approach by declaring that the future Hall of Fame coach and team builder plays chess while everyone else is playing checkers.
Maybe that’s true. Of course chess is also a niche, elitist game played by fewer and fewer people these days.
So maybe Belichick is indeed still playing chess.
Meanwhile most of the world is getting instant daily gratification playing Wordle on IPhone 13s.
