Ballards plan. IndyStar

[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by Chaka

Interesting article regarding the Patriots philosophy in going hog wild in free agency this offseason - much different that the Colts:

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...gency-splurge/

Basically, Kraft is saying that the pandemic / cap reduction created an inefficiency in the system - less teams competing for free agents - and because they had lots of cap room they were in a unique position to exploit it.

While it sounds logical to a degree, I don't know if I agree here. First, it doesn't look to me that they got many bargains in free agency, which is kinda what Kraft is suggesting. Nelson Agholor 2 year / $22 million? Jonnu Smith 4 year / $50 million? Hunter Henry 3 year / $37.5 million?

Second, I really don't buy into the idea that this year it is more difficult for teams to sign free agents. Regardless of their available cap space this year, the teams have a toolbox of financial engineering instruments at their disposal, and can still fit a large contract into their cap this year if they really want to - at the expense, of course, of cap impact later down the road.

The inefficiency he was exploiting, and did so quite heavily, was the ability to offer market value level contracts due to the large amount of cap space they had. Most teams had to lower the first year of the contract because of cap constraints. They didn't. That's the inefficiency.