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Will the Patriots go Undefeated? (And Other Useless Questions) By TimRuddy@footballdialogue.com I wanted to wait to pen my next article until the Dolphins won a game, and I was starting to think I would have to wait until next year. I have to bring my thoughts to the table on the Patriots season, as well as some other developments in the NFL as I see them. First let me set the table (pardon the Christmas/Thanksgiving pun). I have the utmost respect for Bill Belicheck and the Patriots. I believe that he and his team deserve all the accolades of being where they are today. Belicheck was the first, and one of the few, to realize how the game changed when the salary cap system transformed the league. He realized that most teams run roughly similar offenses and defenses and have to compete for the same big name stars that might help them win. Belicheck took a different approach. His systems, both offensively and particularly defensively, were unique in that, for the most part they required players with slightly different skill sets than what most other teams were chasing. This allowed them to get good players at cheap prices. He was also able to get more of them, leading to much greater depth. Look at Junior Seau, Rodney Harrison, Mike Vrabel and others. His originality was rewarded in this copycat league. Plus, with an established system, players are more likely to take a lesser salary to get a shot at a Super Bowl. Now, certainly, drafting Brady in the sixth round was a bit of dumb luck, but every team has some of that. My only surprise is that more teams have not followed this protocol in forming their squads. It is to their own detriment. That brings us to the current predicament of the undefeated season. I have no doubts that they are capable of it. My only question is what does it mean? I have long said that the salary cap constraints would lead to more records being broken, and that these records should probably have asterisks beside them. I am certainly no psychic. Anyone can see that most defenses are one injury away from having an untested rookie cornerback facing off against one of Peyton Manning’s passes. Is that the same as in the days when teams could stack their rosters with skilled veteran players? Unfortunately, I would venture that most don’t mind seeing the records broken. As I’ve written before, most teams have ten to fifteen “stars” who fill the seats and are supposed to be making the big plays, ten or fifteen mediocre players, and the rest are the fill-in’s, first and second year guys who are in the NFL because they are cheap labor. You might consider them the illegal immigrants of the NFL because they have no business being out there. This system leads to many problems, but one of the most grievous is the ‘hollowing out’ of the rosters. Since there aren’t many real players besides the stars, and the fill-in’s last roughly 1-2 seasons, there are very few instances of players developing while in the league. In the past you had guys like La’Roi Glover, Norman Hand, and Jeff Christy, who were cut and bounced around before developing into great players. Today, these players would have little chance of making it for more than one or two seasons. So teams are left to compete for aging ‘name’ players that will fill the seats. Unfortunately these same name players are more likely to get hurt, thereby forcing more and more fill-in’s into full time play. This scenario, by the way, also gives rise to the news stories at the beginning of each year as to why there are so many injuries now in the NFL. In the end, as with most professional sports questions, the answer is all about money. First, fans want to see records be broken. Every fan loves when they have a player on their team chasing a record. And the NFL knows that fans are more likely to buy seats, jerseys, memorabilia, etc., when the record chase is on. So why change? The integrity of the game was sold out long ago, leaving a flashy shell that makes a boatload of cash. My only surprise is that not many people realize it. |
