Black Monday in the NFL has begun - Rasheem Morris and Steve Spagnuolo fired (thread)

[discostu]

You’re recalling incorrectly. I like the Pats, they aren’t my main team but I always respect a well run team and 21st century Pats are one of the best run teams in sports. And I do remember him running from the shotgun a lot early in the season and when he wasn’t in shotgun things went bad. The general discussion around the league was that’s what happens when a guy isn’t up to the speed of the game, and shotgun is the fix. Now he did improve steadily which is always a good sign, but he never improved to top 5.

The Pats weren’t backed into corner. Yeah sure their backup QB had gained a lot of value before hitting free agency, he was still the backup QB. There was a much bigger play going on. Remember who moved around in between when the tag got applied and the trade happened. Honestly the league should have disallowed the trade. But in the end it was Pioli that screwed himself, he traded away the future and grossly overpaid for talent. They’re paying 10 million a year for a guy that’s never finished a season with a passer rating over 100 and a peak record of 10-5.

[rlmorel]

I do think I had you mixed up with someone else...

Actually, it was more the Pats were against the wall due to Brady’s percieved health. Word around here was that the surgery didn’t go exactly as planned, there were complications. Many observers thought(and I agreed seeing some of the pictures)that something wasn’t quite right, that he had lost weight and looked gaunt. I do believe there were legitimate concerns at the top about Brady’s readiness for the next season, and that concern coincided with Cassel’s entry into the market. Being a business, they had to plan for “what if”, because they didn’t want to start the season with the guy who was behind Cassel.

[discostu]

That’s was the talk, and again given his performance in KC seems it was right.

Just because Brady was still iffy didn’t mean they had to franchise tag Cassel. They could have negotiated something else, 2 months later he signed a 6 year 62 million deal with KC, so clearly the Pats didn’t have to tag him at 14 mil to keep him for a year, or 4 mil a year more than the deal he eventually signed. Of course if you take into consideration the fact that Pioli was already shopping around for somewhere else to go, left the Pats 2 weeks after applying the tag, and is the guy that negotiated the trade AND Cassel’s non-tag deal with KC the whole thing makes a lot more sense. Cassel was never going to get paid 14 mil, the tag was applied just to make sure suitors would have to trade for him, and to keep the suitor list low. Pioli used the tag to shelve Cassel for his next gig. Which is why I say the league should have disallowed the trade (over and above the fact that it’s generally considered dirty pool to trade a tagged player anyway, the idea being that you tagged him because the franchise needs him). But the NFL never voids trades, they can they just don’t.

[rlmorel]

Cassel had the franchise tag applied in early February of that year, and was traded at the end of February.

If I recall, there was a two week window to apply the tag, there was very little time for wiggle room.

In that interval, all the reports at that time were up in the air about Brady’s recovery. Nobody gave a timeline.

The Patriots did what they had to do from a purely business perspective, and most observers at the time felt it was the smartest way for them to handle it.

When they applied it to Cassel, it made two things absolutely inevitable:

1.) If Brady was not ready, they were paying Cassel top money to play.

2.) If Brady was ready to play for the season, they were going to trade Cassel, no question.

A team would have had to give up two first round choices that year as compensation, and nobody, NOBODY was going to do that. That would mean they would have to carry both Brady AND Cassel, and pay them both the big money. It would have killed them in the cap. So once they applied it, Cassel was either going to play as a starter, or be traded.

It was regarded as the best business and football move for the Patriots to make, even though it was expensive to do.

Your point about collusion with Pioli is valid, and intriguing. Maybe it is true, and given the fact they didn’t hold on to Cassel for another month or two to be absolutely sure about Brady lends credence to it. But Kraft is not known for being a buddy for sentimental reasons when it involves business...he is pretty hardcore, by all accounts. He wasn’t going to give Pioli a going away gift for his good service.

As Freud once said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[discostu]

It was leaked to ESPN in early January, made official in early February and is completely unnecessary until the mid March because free agency doesn’t start until late March. And let’s not forget they traded him 23 days after tagging him, so your whole “if Brady wasn’t ready” theory is basically junked there. In 23 days Brady went from so damaged they needed to tag the backup to, never mind trade Cassel? Not out here in reality.

There’s nothing sentimental about it. The Pats came out ahead on the deal. They traded an over paid C+ player for a first day pick. That’s the funny part about it, the whole deal stinks from Pioli being on both sides of it, but the team Pioli was with at the end actually came out behind on the deal. Pioli screwed over his new employers.

[rlmorel]

That is pretty funny, though. Great way to endear yourself to your new employers, eh?

[discostu]

Now that they’ve had a couple of less than stellar seasons out of Cassel they might be figuring it out. But they’re still at the “blame the coach” phase of failure. I’m sure he didn’t think he was screwing over KC, but they’re definitely over paying for talent.