Salary Cap Era / Free Agency Fallacy

[Reaser]

Have read it for years, again after this Super Bowl and still seeing it daily. "Patriots are the greatest dynasty in pro football history" with "because they did it in the salary cap/free agency era" as the usual first and main reasoning. I went on about this topic on our old forums once before, however long ago, but feels like time to bring it up again.

Moving past that the other choices for "greatest dynasty" that the media brings up are: 90's Cowboys, 80's 49ers, 70's Steelers and sometimes they'll acknowledge the 60's Packers. Yes, the late 40's through 50's Browns evidently weren't a dynasty? To me they're the clear choice for best dynasty, to date.

(side note: even in the rare times the Browns do get acknowledged, why does their undefeated season never get mentioned?)

Besides the point, greatest dynasty is an opinion so not overly concerned with it. The point of this is the reasoning for the Patriots. Their accomplishments stand on their own, they shouldn't need to be aided by the misleading "did it in the salary cap/FA era" reasoning.

"Did it in the salary cap era" and usually said with the implication that it means that for good teams the salary cap is some crippling talent stealing plague. No. Teams that know what they're doing rarely lose core players they want to keep because of the cap, not to say money isn't an issue but if a team is willing to pay for all intents and purposes they can keep who they want. Maybe when the cap first was implemented it was difficult but by this point smart teams know how to work around it.

Like the Seahawks, people have kept saying once they have to sign Wilson then they won't be able to keep their other best players. I've argued against that for the last couple years and surprise surprise, Wilson is about to get paid and Seattle will still have Sherman, Chancellor, Thomas, Wagner, Bennett, and still have room to give Lynch a lot of money should he decide to play. So much for the the salary cap taking away all the all-pro/pro bowl players . . . Or can use the 2013 AFC Champions for example, "oh no the salary cap!" you would think that for Manning being paid so much and for their success that it would mean they would be losing half their roster and all their other best players. Instead for 2014 they signed Talib, Ward, and Ware. Lot of millions in those signings. How is that? They were good and "the salary cap era!" Not as big of a deal as made out to be. They did lose Decker though, but (we'll get to FA) surprise surprise, replaced him and arguably upgraded from him with Sanders.

"Did it in the free agency era" usually said with the implication that for championship teams Free Agency is a one way FA street where you only lose players. Nope, can't sign anyone, good teams only lose players in FA. Except, no. Lose a player in FA you're free to sign a replacement and if you choose not to you can even end up getting free/extra draft picks (compensatory) to help stock the roster. Free Agency isn't the one way street it's implied to be when tied to the "Patriots Dynasty" ... "What makes the Patriots better is that before free agency the 49ers/Steelers/Packers teams could just hold onto their players ... ", completely ignoring the other side of that, being that they couldn't sign the other teams best players back then.

I'm not going completely in the opposite direction and saying Free Agency makes it easier for NE, I'm saying that FA is essentially a wash, and that the cap isn't the hindrance it's painted to be.

By what means did NE add Rodney Harrison? How did they get Mike Vrabel? How did they end up with arguably the best CB in football in Revis, and furthermore how did they have cap room to sign him in the dreaded "salary cap era"? How did they end up with Chung after he was with the Eagles? How did they get Brandon LaFell? How did they get Brandon Browner? How did they get Danny Amendola?

It's almost as if, in the "salary cap era", they were magically allowed to sign players? Thought as a great team that they only lost players in FA and had no cap room? Weird.

The Patriots deserve a LOT of credit for their roster moves over this period, but the credit they're given for doing it in the "salary cap/FA era" is a fallacy, especially with how "salary cap era" is implied in relation to their dynasty.

I want to see the list of players they've specifically lost during this run due to the salary cap. In other words, not players they let walk, traded or released, but all the all-pro/pro bowl players they literally could not re-sign because they didn't have salary cap room. Once all those players are listed I'd like to see it taken a step further to show of all those great players lost strictly due to the salary cap, how many were not replaced by free agents NE signed?

The "salary cap era" is definitely different from say how the 70's Steelers built their teams, but it's not harder or easier, it's just different and that's not a good enough reason to place one dynasty above another. If someone thinks NE is the greatest dynasty to date, then great, but if their reasoning is because "they did it in the salary cap era", I don't buy it.

[Reaser]

Another part of the "salary cap era" argument is that the cap and free agency makes it 'impossible' for teams to stay good.

That also ignores reality. Colts have made the playoffs 12 of the last 13 years (actually one better than NE over the same period). Seahawks 9 of the last 12 (to be fair, that was really two different teams and there was 3 non-playoff losing seasons in that time), Packers 7 of the last 8 years and only missed the playoffs Rodgers first year as a starter, Ravens 6 of the last 7 years in the playoffs and no losing seasons in that time, Steelers haven't had a losing record since 2003, Broncos 4 straight years in the playoffs, even the Bengals have made the playoffs 5 of the last 6 years. The 2000-2010 Eagles only missed the playoffs twice in that 11-year period. Since 2004 the Chargers have only had one losing season.

Of course the Patriots have been better, hence the "dynasty", but let's not act like (other) good franchises don't stay good in the "salary cap era" ...

[Veeshik_ya]

(side note: even in the rare times the Browns do get acknowledged, why does their undefeated season never get mentioned?)

Yeah, I always think of the Browns when people start comparing dynasties. Pretty much hard to top. Press making a big deal about Belichick tying Chuck Noll and Brady tying Montana and Bradshaw.

But what about Brown and Graham, and Lombardi and Starr for that matter?

[oldecapecod11]

Matt, that is absolutely fantastic.

Despite a threat of being accused of over-the-top back-slapping, let me reach as high as I can and slap away.
Whether one agrees or disagrees, that is exactly the type of article that deserves to be seen by far more than
the thirty or forty of us who lurk here. It should be - at least - a Page 5 column in the Coffin Corner.
If someone as stylish as our BC prosecutor or the potato soup guy offered just a tad of editing, it is the type of column that could sweep the nation.
Hopefully, it is exactly what our soon-to-be President-elect will be looking for to increase interest, readership and, eventually, membership.
It can lead to something we have not experienced for a while - healthy growth, instead of decline by a display
of a lack of respect for the rules of an organization one feigns to represent.

The cry could be deafening: Reaser Speaks - Read About It!

Great effort; please keep it up.

[Ken Crippen]

I agree with OCC, although I would have left out the last part of his post. If course, I will probably be ripped for saying that you did a great job. Why would we tell people that we liked what they wrote?

This is exactly the type of thing I would like to see in CC. We do not need to have articles. We can also have columns talking about specific items in football history.

[James]

Great article, Matt. I love it. My opinion, I HATE free agency. It has ruined the game.

[Reaser]

This is exactly the type of thing I would like to see in CC. We do not need to have articles. We can also have columns talking about specific items in football history.

I brought up before when the CC was asking for articles that there was stuff on the forums that could be turned into articles (by people who write much better than myself, too) ... Specifically I mentioned threads/posts by Jagade (I now think his forum name is "Saban"?), he's had a couple running threads about the 50's over the years, 2-3 of them have been fantastic. No reason that they couldn't have been compiled, reorganized and turned into a CC article/column.

I was just doing my late night reading and kept coming across articles saying "Patriots are the best dynasty ever because they did it in the salary cap era" so decided to use this forum as my outlet to 'respond' to that. If a CC editor wants to take it, clean it up and put it into article/column form, that would be fine with me - always stand behind what I post.

Thanks for the kind words, fellas.

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

You're raising two separate but related issues, each probably worth their own discussion.

The dynasty issue probably stands or falls on whether two (or three or four) teams that only had one guy continuously on the roster can be called a dynasty. It's almost as stupid as saying that the Cowboys from 1972-1995 are the greatest dynasty. But I guess they talk about the 81-94 49'ers, and I don't think they had anyone who was a member of all five championship teams.

As for whether the salary cap and free agency make it easier to keep a championship team together, I disagree with your analysis.

In all salary cap sports, you get to the championship stage when the value of the performance greatly exceeds the money spent on salaries. Usually that means players on entry-level contracts who are greatly outperforming them. Those teams are always -- always -- hurt when those contracts expire and the players have to be paid fair market value.

Sometimes there are inefficiencies in a team's cap that can be remedied to compensate for the raises they have to give those players. You specifically mentioned the Denver Broncos, and they're a great example. In 2013, they had nine players who counted for a total of over $33 million in cap space that they let go for 2014 -- Champ Bailey, Domenique Rodgers-Cromartie, Robert Ayers, Chris Kuper, Matt Prater, Wesley Woodyard, Knowshon Moreno, Mike Adams, and Joel Dreessen. Each individually counted 2 million or more against the cap, Bailey was $10 million. (Decker, by way of contrast, was only $1.5M.)

So it's true, they were able to add Talib, Sanders, DeMarcus Ware, absorb Welker's increased cap hit, Ryan Clady's $10 million cap number coming back from IR, and some others. But are they going to be able to do that again? Other than Wes Welker, there doesn't appear to be much easy fat to trim from that roster to make room for the raises they'll have to give the two Thomases and whoever else is due for a bump.

The tasks that teams face are, on one level, the same as they were back in the day: find talent, develop talent, and keep talent. The first two are essentially the same now as then. But keeping talent within the confines of the cap isn't just different, it's harder. When your Pro Bowl QB with two Super Bowl appearances is making $750K, and now you have to pay him $20 million, that's bad for you. There's no other way to spin that. It's bad, and it makes everything else harder. Maybe Seattle can find room elsewhere without losing core players, I haven't looked at their cap figures for 2015. But it's bad news for them.

[Reaser]

As for whether the salary cap and free agency make it easier to keep a championship team together, I disagree with your analysis.

The tasks that teams face are, on one level, the same as they were back in the day: find talent, develop talent, and keep talent. The first two are essentially the same now as then. But keeping talent within the confines of the cap isn't just different, it's harder.

... it's bad news for them.

It's about sustaining success. Which is where the cap/FA era is different. The Patriots lose Talib, they sign Revis and Browner, etc. It's different, as you said the old way: find, develop, and keep talent. Now you can add replace talent (via FA), say in the 60's you couldn't just let your old declining stars walk in FA and go out and sign potentially equal, younger or better players from other teams to replace them and keep the train moving. Free agency is NOT a one way street, keeping talent in the confines of the cap is harder, and replacing that talent - via the same means/FA - is easier, making it a wash. Making it just different. Teams had to build through the draft and through trades, cap/FA era the same thing but add FA which you both lose and gain players (you don't ONLY lose players and it's also not some mythical "steals all your best players" era.) ...

re Seattle: Again, who are they losing? They aren't cutting Sherman so they can sign Wilson (and Wagner and Lynch - if he plays), they aren't losing Thomas, Chancellor or Bennett. They've even locked up players like Wright. So who are these core players they're losing? Some fringe guys will be gone but that's natural roster turnover and they are replaced via the draft or - gasp! - in free agency.

Keeping it specific to the Patriots run of success (I agree about the "dynasty" definition, but that's a different topic): Who are the players they lost specifically due to the salary cap? Again, not players they chose to let walk, traded or released, but all the all-pro players they literally could not re-sign because they didn't have salary cap room? Of those players how many were not replaced by free agents NE signed?

Teams rarely lose players they want to keep due to not having cap room, they make decisions and may use the cap as an excuse but for practical matters, there is - as the era has gone along and now teams have mastered the cap - 'always' room. Once more, teams also do not only lose players in FA, they gain them. Lose a backup OL, sign a backup OL in FA. It's just different, it's not harder to sustain success, it's just different, and if anything you can prolong success via free agency because you're not tied to the one specific group of players that made up the 'dynasty'. Though I'm not making an argument that one era is easier or harder, I'm saying that they're just merely different.

[Terry Baldshaw]

I prefer to view this in two seperate ways ....

1) It is as wide as it is long. The Pats would not have obtained Darelle Revis without free agency. Today, a team may lose a top notch player at one position but sign two quality players at other positions. In the pre- free agency days, a team was limited by what it had. Trades were quite uncommon and usually a team had to rely on the draft.

2) A differentiation between team and franchise. Perhaps the Patriots, with six AFC titles and four Super Bowl championships in fourteen years, are the best franchise of the Super Bowl era. As for a team, the Steelers of the '70s, with four Super Bowl titles in six years, are nonpareil.

Like many others here, I must include the total package and laud pre-Super Bowl era teams such as the Packers, Browns, Bears and, by gosh, the legendary Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs of '22-'24.