Hey um, Disco, or whatever your handle is:
Your post is just this side of illiterate. And mine was stupid?
It was reported that Moss gave financial concessions to facilitate the trade to New England; and that he did so for the chance of winning a super bowl. You dispute it; but it was reported and I provided a cite.
The point is, had the Patriots not cheated for several years to compile an artificially good record, guys like Moss would not whore themselves out at below-market rates.
The NFL has a carefully crafted parity system based on revenue sharing and a salary cap. The Patriots' cheating undermined this system and we are still seeing the consequences.
Of course he gave financial consideration, given the last few years for Moss nobody was going to pay his old salary. Remember when this trade happened the pundits were evenly split, this was either one of the greatest trades ever, or one of the stupidest, Moss was either going to be inspired back into his old form on the field, or continue his team poisoning ways off. Given what a 50/ 50 proposition Moss was a 4th round pick and a pay cut was the right call. So again, how was this “below market value”, and the market value for a guy that totaled 31 starts, 151 receptions, and 24 TDs in the last three seasons combined isn’t very high.
The point is you’re wrong. Prior to this season it looked like Moss’ glory days were behind him. He was a 29 year old discipline case that had lost a step, had missed games in 2 of his last 3 seasons, punished with a missed start in the other, and had all around had a dramatic drop in productivity. His market rate was low, he was being shown the door from the discipline case team. While it’s easy now, AFTER his best season ever, to say he was a steal, but when the trade was made his most recent season had resulted in 42 catches, 3 TDs, and 553 total yards. The post 2006 version of Randy Moss was a possible washup looking for one last gasp at a good career.
And that kind of kills your whole premise. Pretty much anybody you can complain about the Pats getting cheap actually DESERVED to be cheap. Welker had had a total of 3 starts, 97 catches and, 1 TD for his entire 4 season career. Pick a guy they’ve picked up, any guy any year, look at their career before the Pats, especially the last 2 or 3, every last one of them there’s a good reason they were cheap. Their success isn’t built on a stilted win percentage getting them players below market value, their success is built on understanding why some players aren’t playing well and figuring out that they’re actually worth more than their market value.