Patriots Dynasty Podcast - Bonus Episode: Patriots Salary Cap

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

This was supposed to be a quick chat with the infamous Twitter user @PatsCap about the history of the Patriots salary cap. Instead it turned into its own full blown bonus episode. This is what happens when you get nerds together in a room and leave them unsupervised.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/patriots-dynasty-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Christine Brown and while I have to listen to this podcast, as my motherly duty, you have the choice not to. My sons sometimes say some naughty things when they're trying to be funny. But really, they're just being stupid. You still want to listen? Go right ahead. I am not your mother. All right, welcome back to the Page of Dynasties podcast. We're back again, believe it or not. This is 2004 week four. Page is traveling to Orchard Park to play Buffalo. In a game I had never watched on TV because I was actually at this game, believe it or not. I flew up. It was the only thing I remember really about this game was flying from Manchester, New Hampshire to

Buffalo, New York. It's one of the few times I thought I was going to die because. Wow. Rain ride was terrifying. And everybody else on the plane, completely normal. They didn't seem bothered by it all, but it was the most turbulence I've ever felt because it was a little tin can with wings. But we have a full house joining me today. We got both brothers, Brown, Steve and Greg. How you boys doing? Great. Fantastic. You sound like you're on the top of the. I'm excited to talk numbers, baby. All right. I'm talking salaries. We're talking dead money. We're talking cap hits. So we're spoiling the surprise. Thanks, Greg. Joining us as well is. I'm probably going to push this. Miguel Benzon, I think is that all nailed it.

First try. Yeah, you nailed it. Yeah. Better known, I think, to people on the internet as the Twitter account, Pat's cap who has been doing this for as long as I've been on Twitter, I think. So thanks for joining us. I've been doing this in like 2000. I've been on Twitter since 2009. Wow. So you've just been tracking the Patriot salary cap since 2000. Yeah. The success since then, I'd say it's always a coincidence, no correlation, but it just happened to think it's funny that I started doing it and I started wanting. So as somebody who's been doing a podcast, tracking the Patriot since about that same time, hats off to you, sir. I think we need to get kind of the elephant in the room. How did you get into

following the Patriot salary cap? Basically, came down to one day, I read a story that had Ted Johnson's cap number as whatever it was. Next day, I read a story in the Boston Globe with a different cap number. As a person who's always been pretty good with math, that didn't make any sense to me. Decided to do it. Decided to, hey, I could keep track of it on an Excel and in a workbook. And I asked my fellow and back in the day, I asked my fellow Patriot fans, like on news groups, back and use, use net news groups, folks, you have to Google that, what that was. And forums like KFFL forum and Patriots Bosco net mailing list, I asked them, have you seen anything about the salary cap? Just let me, let me know. And I kept track of it.

Like I had like on my salary cap page, I had like cap footnotes. And we're talking about 2004. That back in a day when I was doing this, back then, then NFLPA would actually publish documents, PDFs, they would talk about contracts. They wouldn't name the players, okay, per se, but they would say this linebacker with the Patriots who had six years experience got this deal. So if you knew, I could figure it out, reverse engineer knew, figured out who they were talking about. So back then, that's why I started doing it. It started, I've been, since then I've developed sources. I would say I looked back at my, when you DM me, I looked back at my 2004 page. Boy, I'm not sure, but I got, now I'm very close, I'm very close to numbers. And I look back then,

I'm not sure that my numbers, as I know for a fact, they end as close as they are, as they are now. And that just happens to be with, comes with being more experienced and having better sources then than I do back then. It was to say, that's why I started doing it. And I just realized I could do a better job of the, of covering, covering this outcap than beat writers. I mean, yeah, I think there's a different skill set too though, right? Like a numbers driven guy is going to have a different approach than like interviewing players guy, you know? Right. I've never interviewed a player at that time. I have interviewed a player since then, one player. Which one? Was it Troy Brown? No, it wasn't Troy Brown. Troy Brown is my favorite page, but it wasn't Troy Brown. It was

spot. Oh my gosh, it was Stephen Anderson. It was after the championship parade. I asked him a question. I don't even know if it's still on my phone. He asked me a question and I was supposed to be putting it in an article, but I never did. My kind of beat writer. Yeah, I'm not a beat, like I say, Amora. I consider myself a fan who has a niche territory. I have sources, so I know what about the salary cap. Sometimes I hear about things that might, it's going to happen with the pages, but I never tweet it out because the people who tell me those things ask me to keep it a secret. So I don't fall. I don't break those. I'm not breaking a story. That's fair. But if it comes to the salary cap, I will break stories because I figured stuff out.

And so that if it comes to like breaking news, like transaction wise, and somebody's told me, it gives me how I'm not breaking the confidence. But if it comes to the salary cap where I figured out something, I will say it on Twitter. It is a tough job being a journalist because it's covering the football now because you've got to be a numbers guy. You've got to be a legal guy. Now you've got to know about medicine and COVID and all that sort of stuff. I don't know if you knew you were signing up for that in 2000. I don't know if you knew you were signed up for that from the beginning. No, no. And it's crazy like what they guys got to do. And you got to, like for me, I don't have to write a story, don't have to tweet unless I want to.

I don't have to come up with anything. I don't have, and I got a mission statement where I basically tell people that it's kind of true to my life, where I say what I mean, mean when I say I'm not going for clicks. I don't, I don't have a problem when I'm wrong. I'm not making, and therefore, you know, I'm not making stuff up to get clicks or to make, it is what it is. I'm just, it cracks me up that people will make stuff up. Oh my God, yeah. To get people to follow them. Yes, I'm talking about you, Mo Channel. Among others, I would say. Yeah, but I can't believe that people,

he still follow him when he tells people he is making the stuff up. He told you what he is, and people still follow him. And I just, and I thought about how that relates to some people's relationship. Like, why do you stick, you think you could change a person when he's told you what they are? Stop. Because people want to hear what you want. People believe, follow them, because they want to hear, but he's taking advantage of their willingness to believe anything. Right, yeah, yeah. Or wanting to believe. So who is this? Is this?

Some guy, the emotion. This is the rival. We got the. It's not a rival. Sounds like a rival to me. Oh, no, it's not a rival. It's like, how does somebody. He's not really as famous though, because how much money did you raise for the habitat humanity? Because I remember.

I've raised over $30,000 so far. I donated a couple of bucks to you just because I was checking your Twitter all the time. I don't even play the same. Thank you. I don't know how much money I've raised for the brother life and the food pantry in Malden. I just, I, I know people have sent them money. I just don't know how much I, because of me, because they would have to tell, the brother life would have to tell me this. They would get notes and stuff like that. But if somebody would give them a donation out of the blue, didn't mention my name,

I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't get credit for that. That's true. You know, that's one reason I did it the way I do. I'm doing it right now. If I have it at any means, so now I could keep track of at least what I've done. Yeah, kind of raise money. That makes sense. I'll spread awareness too. Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have noticed one thing when you do every once in a while get something, not necessarily wrong, but maybe slightly off, you talk about doing a lap. Do you actually go do a lap? Yes, I need to lose weight. I put on a little bit of weight during the pandemic. So actually do do a lap. What are you doing a lap around? It's actually, it's more like I add, I say a lap because I think that's like a minute to my walk.

I'll take it. Okay. And then the days I go to, yeah, so there's a days to go. There's a high school and where I live. And then if I do it like on right before Saturday, never remember it, I'll do a lap around the track. An actual lap around the track. I love it.

I love it. That's so good. So, I mean, you're talking about being good with math. Did you do that sort of stuff for a living as well? Or is this just kind of like? No, no. So I majored in economics. So I started, yeah.

So like after I majored, then I got a job with the FDIC. Okay. And then they had an open, I just learned I had an affinity with working with computers. And so I switched over from being in the credit department to being an information technology department. And then since then I've been in that, in information technology. People think I'm an accountant by trade because I'm good with numbers, but I'm not. I tried a double major in economics and accounting when I was in school, but they wouldn't let me

because economics was in the college of liberal arts. And I forget this accounting was in a different school, a different college, but they wouldn't let me. I couldn't double major because you couldn't double major if you had two different colleges. At least everyone's going to know where you're from because your accent is ridiculous. I've been told that. I've been told that. Yes.

I get told that only on this podcast. Apparently my Boston accent comes out more talking to you guys about football. For sure it does, but we got nothing on Miguel right now. See, yeah, people, I'll never forget. I went to San Francisco once and I asked for directions to the basketball arena. And with the one minute, one sentence, the guy says, you must be from Boston. One sentence doesn't take much. And the Warriors came back to cost me $5 ago.

This was before they were, this was way back in the day. They were not good. Cost me $5 ago to the game. Nice. Awesome. That's the way to be. Or maybe he guessed that because you're wearing a Celtic jersey or something. No, no, no, no, no, I wasn't wearing a Celtic jersey back then.

What the heck was I wearing? I don't remember. If you had pulled that out, I would have been super impressed. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because I know it wasn't wearing my reserve uniform. All right. Because it was after the training. I don't know what I was. I wasn't wearing, I didn't bring any Boston stuff with me.

Yeah. I know that. Probably for the best. When I was taking my trips for the reserves, again, we've talked about this. It's not true. You bring your accent with you. So that's just, that's true.

I highly have a weird, when I was a kid, when I was not a kid, I was in the 20s. When I was, I highly have a war with Boston sports power for Nalya. How I do. I tend not to wear it outside New England because we're not particularly well-liked. But when you live here, you have no choice. That's true. Yeah. You guys have both moved away.

So you'd have to leave New England, Andy, to venture out that far. I'm leaving this weekend, thank you very much. Well, I hear it. So you get asked a lot of questions on Twitter. Is there one that you get asked the most? Right now? Over and over again, just in general. Justin, since I've been to 2009, there was a guy who used to be how much cap space they had.

Then a guy told, the guy in Twitter suggested you should just put that in your handle and that stopped being the question. Now it's more about who's the player in, right now it's all about Gilmore. So that's now. Once he signs his deal, hopefully he'll go to something else. I bet you, in the next couple of weeks, he'll be, how come the draft picks haven't been signed? How come the draft picks haven't been signed?

You know what I'm saying? Now the other most frequently question is when I talk about the roster, is how come they haven't processed Patrick Chung's retirement? I have no idea. That was one thing I got wrong. I said they would process it on June 2nd. Makes sense to me. I have no idea why I haven't.

And what, to be something cap, I want to be embarrassed. I might be embarrassed if there's a cap reason for it. I'm sure you've already done a lot of forums, so don't worry about it. Yeah, thank you. He has Bill Belchuk talking to you through the cap, by saying, I actually know a little bit more than you do. He's been messing with me this year. Signing all these players and, oh,

keeping me busy. And then he signs a whole bunch of five draft picks right away, and then they stop for a month. Nothing, yeah. Yeah, nothing. He's been messing with me. I'm like, oh my God. And now we got the July 2nd opt-out deadline.

Oh, right, right, okay. Which we just learned about today, folks. Hopefully no Patriots opt-out. I just can't imagine it. Yeah, I don't feel like it'll be the same as last year. Yeah, over 60 players opted out last year. I'd be shocked if it even comes close to 10. Unless the big boys do it.

Yeah, I don't see that happening. I mean, the big, oh, I'm talking about the offensive linemen and defensive linemen who most likely qualify for the high-risk thing. Oh, that makes sense too, yeah, yeah. Yeah, defensive tackles and such. Yeah, but the guys will really overweight. I mean, yeah.

Although, I mean, you look at videos of Vince Wilfork playing basketball and, like, he may be overweight, but the Duke could still move. Oh my God. It's unbelievable how athletic they are. It's, they play at a different level, like way beyond us, like the regular person. We even looked it up, and Vince Wilfork

ran a faster 40 at the combine than Tom Brady did. That, I believe. It's not that shocking. That's not that shocking. It's a little shocking. No, no, Mike. He's like pushing for 100. He's a better athlete, though.

Mike, I have a niece who runs cross country. She was in shock when I showed her the Tom Brady video, the 40 videos, like, he's an app. He being like that. I said, yes, and he trained for it. He trained for it. He took months. He probably trained a couple of months,

and that's how fast he went. And this is in his 20s. This is like, you know, he's probably in, he's in better shape now, but he's in his 20s. Was he threatening to run it again, see if he could run it faster? He probably could. I think it was probably good, yeah.

Yeah. But he, he's like, oh my, I was like, I know people second, like the thing about the 2000 team is like, he, I don't think the Patriots would ever come in close to put them on the roster on the field because he was so skinny. And I'm wondering, I'm thinking, maybe does Mac Jones have that too?

Yeah, yeah, I had had similar thoughts. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I don't know. See, I'm, he, because he looks like a guy who's going to, whose body's going to change between this off season and next off, next training camp. Yeah, absolutely.

He's a little older than Brady was, and he was drafted though, right? I don't actually know. Statue? Actually, no, wasn't Brady a senior as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The same age. Although they were saying the other day that if, if Brady and Mac Jones play each other this year, it'll be the biggest age gap in starting quarterbacks ever. Yes. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is. Another record that Tom Brady has. Oh yeah. He's got them all at this point. He's got them all. Yeah. He's terrific. He's unbelievable.

It's the best. So you don't hold any ill will against Tom Brady for leaving? No. No. I just, it's for me, for me, I think of it as when you learn some, a couple has been married for like decades, and then they get divorced.

I think they just do, for whatever reason, the little, the things that used to, the little things that used to get us, you used to, you let your husband or wife, those little things now driving absolutely crazy. And I think that's what happened with those, with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. See, but.

So, so asking for a friend, what happens if your wife already thinks those things drive her crazy? I've been married for a long time, so my wife puts up with a lot. I'm not pushing, I'm not pushing my luck in asking her. She's got nothing on Greg's wife. Hang in paintings in the bedroom, put your foot down. Oh, God.

All right, guys, listen to a podcast about the pages, and you get marital advice. Oh, yeah, you get all sorts on this podcast. Yeah. But speaking of football, since we are a historical past podcast, I'll probably ask you a bit about that. So your favorite player you said is Troy Brown, correct?

Is Troy Brown? Yes, as it should be. And it cracks me, and folks, it cracks me up that people on Twitter will say, it should be Tom Brady. I'm like, it's my favorite play. It's your favorite play. It's a good play.

That's not a cool opinion's work, but yeah. It's just an opinion. I'm like, okay. I'm sorry, I know you share the same opinion. It's just an opinion, folks. No. So why Troy Brown? There he is.

Troy Brown. Great contract. He was, for me, the original petriates in the terms of the Bill Belichick area, era, excuse me, plus, I am 10 feet away from where I'm pointing to my left, where I predicted he would score a touchdown on a punt return, and it happened.

Which one? Was it the AC Championship game? Not the championship game, but it was during the regular season because my friend David was here with my wife, and he scored a touchdown on that play, and I looked like the awesome thing. I was like, I forgot, during the snowball game,

I thought to myself that Tom British should be able to run it in a ball near the end zone. It didn't happen in the next play, but it happened two plays after, and I was like, oh my God, I called it, but I didn't really call it. Yeah, you had to call it in your head, which nobody believes.

Yeah, exactly. I called it all the time. No, because I was way in the back. I was up, my friend and I were in the top of the arena, a stadium, excuse me, so no one heard the idea. Exactly. I could see people. The best thing about that game,

you could see people leaving and then trying to come back. That's brutal. Wait, you were at the snowball game? I was at the snowball. Oh, awesome. Barry in the lead there. God. Right?

We've talked about this on the podcast, about whether that's the best Patriots game you could pick to be at. Yeah, if you had to pick one game to go to. Last game in Foxborough, the snow, the kick, Brady cementing his legacy. There's a lot going on there. There's a lot going on there.

The uniforms coming back from the two touchdowns, the Ravens and the playoffs. Yeah, that game was awesome, too. Yeah, it's definitely in some classic. I was at the snowball and then I'll never forget that because I could watch people leaving and then just try to come back. That's the funniest thing ever.

I can't believe it. Imagine if you went to that game and then left. After the talk rule happened, they didn't. You know people did it because I could see them. Yeah, yeah. I bet none of them will admit it, though. No, we were there the whole thing. I swear to traffic.

Traffic. It took me two hours to get out of a stupid parking lot. It's true. We're talking about that, too. Traffic after that game. Oh, my God. That's what you really get after that. You just fire up the grill again and just wait.

I should have waited. I should have waited. You were sleeping in your car. My friends said they came out of the hangout and I was like, ah, nah. I was soaking wet. Even though I was laid. Didn't matter.

I was soaking wet. I wanted to get out of the car. I literally took off most of my clothes in the car. It's like I literally drove home with a T-shirt in my underwear because I was so wet. Oh, thank God. We've done that, right, Andy? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. After that Jets game. Oh, like a Thursday night Jets game, too. That was such a bad game. And Andy's driving home shirtless. I remember thinking, wow, Andy's hating this. That was a tough day. Well, let's talk about the 2004 cap.

I just want to talk about it a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me some 2004 numbers. 2004 numbers. Like, obviously, Brady was the head to one of the highest cap numbers. The funny thing about the 2004 cap is that I actually kept a spreadsheet

where I tracked how much money they pushed out into the next year. They did like, so they pushed out money for eight players to keep that team together. And so like, and they did something. So Brady redid his deal in September, which gave him the cap space to operate the next, the rest of the during the during the season.

I mean, obviously, you don't need to replace injured players during the season. Back then, the Patriots weren't using per active roster bonuses. They didn't have that consideration back then. For me, I was trying to remember what I learned about the 2004 cap. For me, it was how many, how few free agents they re-signed.

They had a ton of free agents last in 2000. And they let most of them go, sign some players, and they still, and they re-peed. Interesting. I said, that's pretty good. So I was like, I didn't, man, looking back, I'm like, wow. And then the other thing about the league year, it started on March 3rd.

Like now the league year starts in mid-March, all right? So that was interesting for me looking up my numbers. It was the other thing that was happening during 2004, and they got to keep Thai law. Oh, right, right, yeah. And that was a big discussion. I must, on the past fans, I kept on saying they could have kept Thai law.

They should have kept Thai law. I thought they should have kept them. Obviously, it was wrong. That was one of the things. Hey, they moved on, and I kept on saying. But it was cap-wise 2004 was kind of an interesting year because they had, because they were coming up to 2006, was the ending of the CBA.

They had this kind of quirky rule for Vince Wilkbrook and Ben Watson. It took me 2000. It took me until I learned about the rule in 2001. It took me until 2004 to get it right. What was the rule? It was because they were coming up at the end of the CBA. And the rule doesn't exist anymore.

So they're coming up to the end of the CBA, and it's how much signing bonus operation you could have, a rookie could have. I was like, oh my gosh. Oh, NFL making stupid, complicated rules. That doesn't sound like the NFL at all. All right, there you go. Yeah, and they got rid of it.

Thank God. I was like, oh my gosh. Because I got it wrong the first couple of times. I didn't try to figure these numbers out. And that's why I think when I went back and looked at it, my 2002 and 2003 numbers, they're wrong. Because like, so I shouldn't, like in 2008, there was, let's just say the NFLPA site was open

to the public for a while. Which means you could download any report you wanted to. Really? Okay, yeah. On purpose? I don't think the security, somebody screwed up on the security. Okay, that's all. Yeah, fair enough.

Fair enough. So I was able to download the reports for every, we were able to, the guys, the people who were the capologists, all the images, we were able to download every cap reports for every player in the league that year. And then they had history. And I'm like, man, I went back and I'm like, man, I had some numbers wrong with these guys.

And then it was, we're fucking watching was being one of them, was being the one of them because of that stupid rule. I was like, oh, that's why I wanted to bring it up. Because it's like, oh, I'm so glad the rule's not in the CBA anymore. I can't find, and that's the interesting thing is, I can't find a copy of the CBA that was in effect of 2004. I'll say this about the NFL and the NFLPA,

they really need to do a better job of putting this stuff out. It's online, the public, like, for example, the CBA is now online. It wasn't online back in the day when I started doing this. The bylaws are not online, period. Period. I mean, the version that used to be an old version, now they took it down, but they haven't put the new version on.

Right, right, right. Aren't that Green Bay Packers, like, publicly held too? They should be. Exactly, exactly. So how do you get all your source information on, like, how do you put together your Excel sheet? Is it all publicly available stuff,

or are you pulling from sources, or are you digging online? Okay, so some stuff is public. Like, for example, Aaron Wilson does a really nice, who used to write for the Houston Chronicle, and doesn't write, I don't know what he writes for now, but he does a great job of tweeting out numbers, all right? He doesn't do, he has been covering this NFL for years, and still interprets the numbers incorrectly,

but at least he puts out the numbers, and I can figure it out that way. So Tom Palisaro, Ian, Adam, they'll tweet out the things, contract details, like, if you give me enough contract details, I can figure it out, all right? I have a couple of people, sources, who have access to the contract database, and so if I have a question,

I'll ask them to give me the clarification, all right? I, and since I'm a cap geek every day, for one of the first things I do in the morning after I go to the bathroom, is I go down and I download the spreadsheet from the NFL public salary cap page. That helps me figure out the changes in that change. I can figure out if the page has done a deal recently,

all right? And if they did a deal recently, what the percentage of the cap was? Because, so that's the answer to the question. I'm not going to name the sources, I have sources. Yeah, yeah. Are there other fan versions of you? Like, do the Cowboys have a...

The Cowboys used to have one? You name the guy, AdamJT13? He used to do it? Shout out AdamJT13. He was the, he, for example, back in Seoul, Nick Quartet, who worked, worked, right for the over at thecap.com, he's now the Compic Gordo, Compic Gordo.

He's just building off the work that AdamJT13 did, okay? So like, when you were talking, when in the early 2000s, AdamJT, he had a source that had access to the contract database. He would post numbers out there and I would use his numbers. All right, I always gave him each other.

There are, out of, so there's 32 teams I think there's 20 of us? You guys are like a capital of just brotherhood? Brotherhood, I would say. Do you guys have like a whatsapp group and stuff? There's four of us who DM each other all the time. All right.

No, five. No, five. Me, Troy, who does the Texans. Ian, who does the Steelers. Jason, who does the Jets. Brian, who does the Ravens. This is the five of us who DM each other. We've been doing DMs for years.

This is awesome. We don't, so the other guys, and unfortunately there's not one woman out there, all right, who's doing this. The other, they DM us sometimes. They ask us questions. They, you know, we tweeted at each other, but there is not like,

they used to be back in the day, I started a Yahoo group. I don't know if it's still, they still have, Yahoo still has groups. I forget what it called. App, AM, CAP, NFL. That was his name. AM being short for amateur,

CAP being short for Capologist, NFL being the obvious, all right. It used to be back in the day. So like Jason Hurley, he does the 49ers used to be in that group. Rice Johnson, he used to be, was Eagles cap in it back in the day, who now works in the Eagles front office.

Oh, that's great. Was it in that group? Oh, man. So like, you know, like Spo track, I mean, whenever I'm like trying to figure something out, I go on a Spo track. Is that accurate? That's, stop that.

This is what I need to know. No, we brought the expert off. Okay, so I literally, hopefully, because I'll say this, they do a good job of mirroring over the cap. Okay. So okay, that's all I got to say. That's what I need to be.

You need to be at overthecap.com. Forget Spo track. And then you can eat, and I'll tell you this, Spo track still gets their numbers wrong. They still don't understand the cap, but people, because they have a nice, they have a better constructed database.

People go to them. Yeah. Like the interface. Yeah, the interface, their interface is better than over the caps, but then go for the over the, you want accuracy, go to over the cap for every team, but the pavius.

Me, you can stay, follow me for the pavius. That's all I got to say, because I have an umbrella insurance, but I really can't afford to get sued by them. I give you your opinion on Corey Dillon, because he was the trade, not the agent. Yeah. I love, oh my gosh.

I love the trade. I love his deal. For example, he had incentives up the ying-yang in his deal. So that was, so it was one of the things like I would go out and post, and he just made this money, how much money he had.

I don't know. The other thing I do on Twitter right now, is like, when a play has earned his incentives, I'll tweet it out. I used to do that big time for Corey Dillon at the end of the 2004 season. It was, it was so fun. What about Ricky Williams?

Remember that contract he signed? Right. His rookie deal. See, literally, Master P screwed him so bad. Like, literally, I wanted to, like... See, all the benchmarks were like NFL, like rushing records. Yeah.

It was like when he had to hit to get his incentives. Yeah. So like, you know, so back in the day, so when I started doing it, when the rookies got the top rookies, when they get the deals, people would have big numbers, right? Adrian Peterson had a big number,

big rookie deal number, right? People didn't realize how much money, what he had to do to get all of his money. He had to run the 2,000 yards every season and be the NFL MVP to reach his whole deal. Age is just to fluff up the numbers big time. That was one thing I'm so glad they got rid of the rookie deals because I'm so tired of saying,

yeah, well, this rookie got a $60 million deal over five years. He's never going to see that $60 million. No. Yeah. So that's a question I had, right? So all the rookie deals are like kind of like hard lined in there, right? So the number, the number, the first year number is hard lined in there.

So it's everything after the... Like, what are they negotiating with rookies? Okay. So let's just go by round. Yeah. Okay. That's for the seventh round. All you're negotiating is when you get...

If and when you get injured, when are you at the split salary? Because folks, for rookies and undrafted free agents, right? The NFL screws them over when they get injured. They lower their salary, all right? So these guys right now making $660,000 as a rookie salary. But they get injured. It goes down like $415,000. I'm just going to have to top my heads.

I don't know it, all right? So that's what they're negotiating is like, hey, if I get injured, when do I get... Is it throughout the entire first year of my work year and throughout the first year, entire second year? Or sometimes, sometimes just the preseason of the second year. Most NFL teams, like if you get hurt, if you have a seventh round pick in the first year,

you can guarantee your salary is getting lowered. Okay. So the metal... So their only leverage is I could just like sit out or not play for this team? No seventh round pick. Right. So they have a no leverage. They're kind of just being like...

No leverage, Sean. You are not wasting... Right. Because the second contract is so much money, you are not wasting that year. You were just saying, hey, I'm just going to put up with it. I'm going to go, hey... Give me the piece of paper I'm signing it.

I'm signing it. They're not dead. There's no way. None of... No rookie's leverage is going to hold out anymore. Can a first rounder? Okay. What do they have for...

I was going by round patience. Patience, my fellow. Okay. The brace, Brownie. Okay. Sixth round, the same thing. The only negotiating about when the salary kicks in. Fifth round, same thing.

All right. Fourth round, same thing. Now we're talking about the third round. This is where it gets tricky, folks. All right. So in the CBA, it says a rookie's salary can only increase by 25% of his total salary and his signing operation of the first year. So we know the rookie's salary is $660,000.

Okay. If he gets a bonus of a signing bonus of a million dollars, that's $250,000. $660 plus $250 is $910. Divide that by four. That's 25. That equals 25%. That amount is how much the salary can go up each year.

All right. So for the third round picks, they're negotiating how much this salary was going to be not in the first year, because we know it's going to be $660,000. All right. We also know in the second year, it's going to be whatever the maximum possibly is, depending on what signing bonus they got. All right. They're negotiating how much the third year salary is.

Wow. Yeah. And then therefore, by negotiating the third year salary, you're also negotiating your fourth year salary. All right. So for Ronnie Perkins, he's the third round pick for the Patriots. He happens to be a comprehensive comp pick. There's 10 of them.

10 comp picks in the third round picks. They all have quirky rule. They all going to get the same amount of money. What? Because they're a comp pick? Yes. They're a comp pick. Everyone has to get the same amount.

The same. They're going to have the same cap number in 2021. Both 10 players are going to have the same cap numbers. So even one guy is 96, and the 106, they're all going to have the same cap numbers. All right. Yeah. But the NFL is like on odd numbered years only. So the thing is, so this is why Ronnie Perkins deal hasn't been done.

All right. The last, every fourth round picks, every fifth round, seventh round, that bell all been signed. I should look it up really quickly. I think the last 16 picks in the third round haven't been signed because of this quirky rule. And it's going to be somebody in that 10 has to be the first one to go forward. Yeah.

Because that sets the rest of them. This sets the rest of them. For example, this team's like, I think, Chip Bay, who signed every pick, but the third round pick because, yeah. So that's the third round pick. That's the third, we talked about the third round. The second round pick, all right, they're getting the maximum salaries. All right.

Throughout the deal. Okay. Okay. What they negotiate in the first year salary is guaranteed. Okay. Oh, all right. Yeah. Second year salary is guaranteed.

Okay. Well, that's what they're really negotiating. It's how much of the second year salary is guaranteed. All right. And how much the third year salary is guaranteed. All right. Because when you get salary guaranteed, you get cut, you get the money no matter what. All right.

For the first round picks, for most of them now, all the salaries guaranteed, the top 27 right now, every part of it is just going, and this just gets negotiated. Each year, the number of picks who gets fully guaranteed deals goes up. All right. Back in the day, when it was in 2011, when this new rookie, this new rookie slot came in, very few had guaranteed deals. Now it's up to 27, 28.

All right. So they're not negotiating about the money. They're not negotiating about guaranteed salaries. They're negotiating about when they get their money. For example, they have a signing bonus. All right. Folks, if you're getting a $15 million signing bonus, some teams don't pay you the $15 million right away.

So they either, they're looking like doing an installment plan for them. Look up Google Layaway. Okay. You know what I'm saying? I understand Layaway. If you understand that, okay. Do the players get interest on those installments? I'd be like, yeah, you can.

26% interest. They don't get, they don't get, they don't get any interest. Can be the, the owners are always about, that's why they're billionaires because they, they take care of their money to the, they ain't giving up the place any money. They don't get interest. So they're negotiating when their thing,

they're negotiating what, what would cause them to forfeit the guarantees. So last year, Rockhand Smith, like there was a crazy rule about the helmet. All right. Where you could hit someone and you could actually lose, be suspended. Oh, right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He's afraid.

His, his, his agents were afraid. Well, if I get suspended for that, I'm losing my guarantees. Oh. Okay. So like anything, if you work for, Tim, Tom, Tom Conflin, if you're late for a meeting, like why should I, why are you late for 10 minutes? If you were on time for a meeting,

but if you were on time, not just five minutes early for a meeting. Yeah. Yeah. You could lose your guarantees. Yeah. Wow. That's a dickhead. Okay. So then, yeah.

So then the other thing people would say on my, some guy on would say this, but the offsets folks, that's not true. But it's only four teams who has ever used, have offsets. And what I mean by offsets is like, Hey, you cut a player with guaranteed money. He goes to another team. He's not doubled. He doesn't, if you have an offset, he doesn't, he's not double dipping.

I got you. All right. For example, Steven Kokowski, he got cut last year by the Patriots. He had $2 million guaranteed salary. All right. Patriots got a credit on the 2000, this year's cap, because it got paid more than $2 million last year by the Titans. Right.

So he didn't double dip. So the offset, if you have an offset, a guaranteed offset, you don't double dip. The Jaguars, the Rams, they don't care about double, if they don't care about the offsets. The Bears, Justin Fields, doesn't have an offset in his deals, because Mitch Trubisky didn't have an offset in his deal. And I just forgot the fourth team is going to kill me.

Oh, the Raiders, the Raiders, Marcus Moriola, Marcus Moriola. It's always a quarterback. And the other thing you'll notice that the quarterbacks, because they play the most important positions, sometimes they get more money. Like, for example, if you're on a fourth or fifth round pick, you sometimes get an off, if you're a quarterback, you might sometimes get an offseason workout bonus.

All right. So you get $15,000 more. But if you're a center, same team, same team, you're a fifth round pick, center, you're not getting offseason workout bonus. Quarterbacks sometimes do. So does that, I think that answers your question. Yes.

All right. When talking to your other salary cap expert friends, is the Patriots the one that's the hardest to follow, or all of this intricate? They, the Patriots hardly ever do, until the last couple of years, really difficult deals to figure out cap-wise, okay? They hardly, they weren't using voided deals. They weren't using escalators.

They weren't doing any paying, buying back of years and stuff like that. Is that unusual in the league? Yeah. Is Belichick better or worse than his peers at managing his cap? Another question. Is it Belichick or is there some sort of like lawyer slash someone who waits for the works of the Patriots? They have a cap guy.

There's a cap guy who does the contracts. So I know that he's not the guy who signs the contract. I know like Nick Kisario used to sign the contracts. Now it's Patricia, all right? But he's not the guy, like my Patricia and Nick Kisario weren't figuring out the cap thing, all right? Right. Why isn't that guy new?

So there's a guy that works at, his job is to manage the cap and tell you. The Patriots front office, if you listen to this podcast, right? I'm so sorry I forgot the guy's name, all right? I am so hungry right now. Dude, I'm hiring you right now. Yeah, that's all right. If you're listening, Patriots front office hire Miguel. That's right.

He knows he's talking good about. Oh, yeah, yeah. You can do this forever. They follow, they, the Patriots follow. I know the Patriots follow me on Twitter. That's it. No kidding. And I know that the players know about me.

Know about my team. I could imagine, right? Yeah. Have you ever met Troy Brown then? I have met Troy Brown at a training camp. I asked for his autograph. He was the nicest guy. Some guy cut in front of a kid.

Oh, God. You know, to get an autograph and Troy said, no, I'm going to sign the kid. You know, and the guy was upset. I'm like, are you serious? Come on, decency bud. Yeah. He was like, come on, let the kid. You know, so, but I mean, I know some, I mentioned,

as it cracks me up, I mentioned on, on Twitter, Dave Roy is my favorite guy, right? And I guess some of the people say he was a jerk to me one time. I'm like, okay. Yeah, we wasn't. I mean, literally, you know, people, people might sometimes have bad days. If Troy Brown is a jerk to you,

I'm going to guess it's your fault. Yeah, I'm going to say it's Twitter. Literally, I mean, you're judging, you're judging a man on one interaction with him. Yeah, with 30 seconds of his life. Yeah, 30 seconds of his life. You know what I'm saying? Allegedly.

So I have met Treadbond. The Patriots don't do how they, how they ever do really complicated deals. I mean, that's. You get the feeling that they're, they're good at cap management. Or do you, I mean, is it, is there other teams where you're like, evaluating the plays to what they, they, to the,

they're very good at evaluating the play, what the player is worth to them, right? Yes. Okay. To them, some, some team, I, you know, and what I mean by that is that something for player Calvanoi, he went to the, to the, to the Dolphins. They paid him a, they paid him one year,

a good year salary, but I didn't think it's worth the next, that much money. All right. He comes back to the Patriots. Same, same player, same talent, same abilities. One team thought he was worth, worth, was worth, was worth much more. Right.

But after, after, after he had us on the team for a while, they said he wasn't worth that money. Comes back to the Patriots. That's where they, that was the advantages. And they have a value system and they stick with it. I feel like that's like a rare thing in the NFL, because it's such like a results-driven league that it's hard to stick to a value system,

especially if it's like one that isn't splashy and doesn't like, wow, the fan base, because if you have a limited time for that to like work out in your favor before fans are like, get this guy the hell out of here. I mean, but that happens when you win. Yes, exactly. True, true. Yeah.

Yeah, more of a leash. If he, like Bill Belichick could not have afforded, he went 10 years without winning the Super Bowl, but he still made the playoffs every year. He's still in contention every year. All right. His worst, what was his worst team from 2014 to 2000, 2004 to 2014, maybe the 2009, 2010,

and he still was in contention. He still made the playoffs. It was like, there are teams who don't, who have to miss the playoffs, be a two and 14, three and 15, three and now, three and 14 team now, the 17 games. They don't see that in the pictures. So, you know, this last year was their reset.

It was the worst. Yeah. It was the first losing record they've had since 2000. And basically, you know, you could say it was, and yes, they lost the greatest player in the history of the front NFL. But I also had eight octouts more than anybody else's team, more than any team in the league.

And they lost a bunch of guys too in the off season. Yeah. And they had, this team is for sometimes, is not a, doesn't stay healthy. So I had like 15 guys, they had a bunch of players going, I am, if they could stay healthy, like in, you know, they say healthy this year with their improvements on the team.

And I think an easier schedule, you know, I've said like before, I'm an optimist. I can, they could go from seven to nine to 12 and five if they catch a couple of breaks. Absolutely. And actually, we actually saw that in the 2003 season where the Patriots led the league in the number of starters. Yeah.

40 something. And they showed a list like in one of the games we're watching, they showed a list of all the other teams that led the league in injuries. And I think the best record was like six and 10. And the Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl that year. So. But for me, I, do I think the Patriots, it cracks me up

when people say to Bill Belichick's a bad GM, right? Because, well, okay, okay. Oh, he didn't draft well. Okay. So you literally, so you could, you could throw, throw the players, he didn't draft. He missed on. All right.

Go back and do a comparison from each player, each team. And then you tell me that he's really either, there's either there are people who either draft well or no one drafts well. Or is it everybody? This is the average. And it just ends, evens out. You tell me which one you believe in.

And then if you believe that the people can draft well, then who are the people who have drafted well, who are better than Bill Belichick? All right. But if you believe it's average, if everybody's average is the same, then why do you care about the, what, what he drafts? Right.

You know, literally stop being upset. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It just, evens out in the end. Yeah. Yeah. As for the, as for the free agency, I mean, he's got a value system. Yeah.

He's always, the Patriots have typically, except for last year, have usually always in the end of the year, with very little cap space and compared to the rest of the league. All right. It is what, it cracks me up. I don't know what to say to people. You think Bill Belichick is a bad GM? God bless you.

I mean, I just, I literally stopped talking to people who said, who have, that's what I said. Who say the cap is crap, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't mean anything. I'm like, Lily, this year, the two sides who know the salary cap the best, agreed to prop it up this year. All right.

Just because the salary cap is soft, doesn't mean it's meaningless. Right. I mean, and if you're going to tell me the, the cap is crap, soft and blah, blah, blah, blah, it's meaningless. It's not real. I just not engaging you anymore.

Cause you have fallen, you listen to that sports station and you've fallen to the, you've stopped thinking and critical thinking on your own. Yep. You listen to that, Greg, stop harassing them. 95. So like my friend Russ, I hate 90.

Russ Goldman, like, like literally, I don't know why he spends this time listening to sports radio. Yeah. I don't, it's the worst. They're just being antagonistic to get people to call. They're the exact opposite of what you were talking about earlier, where you don't pull it for clicks. So you don't do it for headlines.

You just do it for the numbers. They are the opposite. They are the others end of that continuum. There's no accountability for whether they're right or wrong. They just throw shit at the wall and see if things will stick so they can talk about it. It's piss people off. You know, so like, what's they saying?

Like what they said, oh, I can figure out the cap on a napkin. Really? So like, so this is felt like, and so that's insulting. That is, that is insulting. Like, but no, but I'm like, there's like one continuous napkin. He just, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, some people good.

I don't think Felger good. But literally, I'm like, literally Felger, like, literally you were covering the Patriots when I started saying, I thought I could do better than you. He is one of the guys who's beat brothers. I said, I think I could do this better than you. Surprise, surprise. You have.

But I mean, they get paid a lot of money to do it. So they're obviously doing something. Yeah, he's paid way more than I did. Yeah, but he doesn't have his morals at the end of the day, Andy. Yeah. And you know what? He's not going to have all the money in the world. But Miguel can come on here and say he doesn't do the job for the clicks

and he's not lying to us and never say that. So I rate higher than Felger and Mass any day of the week. Yeah, I ain't lying. And like when I'm wrong, I'll say I'm wrong. You know what I'm saying? Like these guys don't go back and say, yeah, the Patriots won six, six, six, six Super Bowls. I was wrong about them.

The only one is ever that standard is Skip Bayless's like Cliff comment where he his problem is he made the little motion with his fingers. And people screenshot of that and get back up. Yeah, yeah. But there's still a bunch of like this. There's a cottage industry about hating the Patriots. Yeah, it was the other guy that did the cliff. Yeah, but I mean, that kind of like that's so like sports.

Like I understand fans that hate the Patriots. Like, yeah, but like commentators that I feel like are being intentionally disingenuous to drive clicks and like make money off people getting angry. That kind of like frustrates me. It's it's condescending. It's insulting. It's demeaning. Yeah, it is.

It's it's just not who I want to be. Yeah, like so like literally one reason I used one reason I stopped writing for website is I just want to go back to being considered a fan. I no longer wanted to be considered a part of the media because they just got dick. I just said some of those guys just I don't want to be considered like that. Be part of that group. Yeah.

So like I literally so when I my mother-in-law had had had had had heart surgery, I had to take it, you know, I basically had to take care of it. So I stopped writing. And then I'm thinking I guess I could go back to start writing. Do I really want to be a journalist? Let me just go back to being a fan. And I said that's I'm just happy that way. It's like literally some of those guys.

Nah, I don't want to be with them. Yeah. I know fans are some I rather be associated with the fans because there's much more of us. Oh, yeah. So people don't expect us to be with fans. We're short fanatic. We're not supposed to be known. I've been saying that forever because I keep getting shit on for putting on the rose-colored

glasses and saying bell effect. I'm just checking you, dude. I'm checking you to make sure you know that you're crazy. We're fans. We're fanatics. Yeah, exactly. So but you're in an industry where you have stand-its. Well, at least I think you should have stand-its.

I got to disagree, Miguel, because technically, I think we are both fanatics and journalists because we're doing a podcast, which technically is journalism. Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough. Amateur to no standards or morals either. Are you in a journalistic group? No.

Okay. Well, we all talk about that. Could you get a media credential for the Patriots game? Oh, I was actually going to ask you that, could we? I can't. What do you think the odds are if we get a little more of a Patriots-typed podcast? Can you let us into this thing? I got some questions asked, Bill.

No, no, no. Well, the Patriots know who I am. The chances of me getting a media credential, the way I... The problem I am and my inability to keep my fandom. That's the best part. Yeah. We've had that conversation as well behind the scenes about this podcast of where do we draw the line of we do it because we think it's fun and we have to hang out as brothers.

But there's certainly a line where it's like where it becomes a job as opposed to us just meeting up once a week and shooting the shit. I love what I'm doing. Yeah, I'd rather just do the fun thing and take it for what it is. Yeah. If you... You know that phrase, you love something you're doing, it's not really your work.

I love doing this. The fact that I'm a fan and that I'm better at this than some of the media who look down on fans gives me so much pride because I literally... I'm not... I'm honestly... They can never say... No one in the Boston sports media can say that the fans know... They know more than the fans about the salary gap because I'm around.

Yeah. Damn right. It's true. It is true. It's 100% true. And the 40-something thousand followers that you have have your back. 45. Keep it right.

Keep it real. They gotta say? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm talking about numbers, guys. I should have known that. Yeah, right. I can't be 45.1. I can't be bringing ballpark numbers.

How many fans do we have on Twitter? We don't have that many. We have 171 followers. We're getting that. Okay. I think how fans are going to be. And Miguel, read T-plus or whatever it is that works. I'm sure that's how it works, yeah.

Actually, I was going to do this. You should have Ed Bryant. I'll say this. Like, you guys is going over old games. You should have this guy named Ed Bryant. Ed Bryant. Who's on your show. He sends out to a mailing list a song in a week.

So, he brings up references to old games. So, he should be on one of you guys. I should tell him. I should text. I shouldn't say that because I should text him first. Yeah. No, we love having people on. And he can cut it out for you, apparently, sometimes.

No, no, no. Don't cut it out. Don't cut it out. I say I'm going to cut a lot of things. Don't cut stuff out. He doesn't anyways. No, leave it in. It's a crap shit.

He's a really nice guy. But he knows his previous games like there's no tomorrow. Yeah, we've had a few people. And we've had Brian Mori from the Pages Hall of Fame on. Yes. And he's he can give us a run for our money, too. He just remembers this shit like off the top of his head that we have to like rewatch the games to remember.

Damn. Like he's I remember. So like when I go to training camp practices, right, I yell out the names of the people I know, the sports media name. And I yell out one time, Brian Mori. And he didn't know. He was like, how does people know who I am?

You could just look. He's looking around. I'm like, all right, like he did not expect to do that. Like so there's a running gap. Like I use I love doing that. Like like just yell out the like the person's name. Like I'll like, hey, it is Bob Socie, the voice of the Patriots. I mean, that sounds a lot like Greg at a football game.

Greg has some. He loves yelling. Actually. Oh, yeah, I'm a yellow. I'm going to bring the best Greg ever had at a game was when we went to the Redskins in this is post-RG3. He had left town at this point. And he goes, Robert Griffin, the third string quarterback.

Oh, I still remember when the three of us went to a Lowell spinners baseball game with dad and Greg was heckling so bad. Heckling somebody in minor league. It was literally everybody. It was mostly the umpires. But then he turned on the mascot. He turned on the mascot after a while. And dad literally left us to find our way home from Lowell

because he couldn't be at the game with us anymore because Greg was so bad. I got my tires slashed in Buffalo. Did you? Yeah. That was a group effort, though. There was like four of us. Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh. So I was like, have I ever heckled? I would, I would, I would heckle an umpire. I wouldn't play. Buffalo is the best because they're, they're not like Philly. They're like angry fans, but Buffalo, they're like, they pretend to be angry, you know? So they'll chirp you back and they'll give it to you

as much as you give it to them. But at the end of the day, they're usually like 95% are just like good people. Yeah. Most of the Bill fans who follow me on Twitter are good people. Yeah. I think Patriots fans are like that, that, especially the ones that live maybe in New England,

outside of it. It's a little different. Most people, most people are good people. I just, I just, like you said before, I get a lot of, I get a lot of questions. I don't answer everyone. And folks, I mean, if you have like two or three followers and I probably am not going to answer you to, to be mean.

And like literally, I don't know, especially one that's like, that, but it seems like you want me to say something that's controversial. Oh yeah. You know, like, yeah, baiting me. I'm like, ah, I, I'm like, you're not going to use me to get more followers. Yeah.

You got to have at least 171. Wait, but you don't, you replied to Andy who has 170. This is what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you think that's more than, that's more than two. That's more than two. That's more than two. Like some people have got two, have been on Twitter

for 2009 and have two followers. That's me. I think I have a Twitter account there. I don't know what it is or whatever, but it may exist. And I probably have two followers. Okay. Okay. Same.

Okay. Okay. But I'm also not tweeting at you because I couldn't even get into it if I wanted to. It's like, it's like college idea or some shit like that. Oh God. Yeah. Now if I had to, um, yeah, it's been crazy.

That like Twitter is like crazy because I have followers all over the, all over the world now. Yeah. What is your like general show in July? What's your general thoughts on like the Twitter environment? Cause like every time I'm not a Twitter guy either, so every time I go on there, I'm like, whoa, this is just a whole lot of angry people yelling.

Yeah, it's a lot of angry anonymous people. Yeah. Um, cause you seem like a really nice media came out. Sorry. Yeah. When social media came out, I just used my name. First name, Miguel. I didn't think that like use the hiding behind a moniker or anything like that.

I just hate my name is Miguel. Um, a lot of angry people out there. It's easy to be a keyboard warrior. Say stuff you would probably on a keyboard, you wouldn't probably say to someone to their face. Oh yeah. So Twitter is, um, it is, you know what I'm saying?

So if you're willing to, and it is what it is. I'm like literally something like, I'll never forget the guy, some guy blocked me on Twitter. All right. Cause I corrected them. And then he, after he blocks me, then calls me insecure. I'm like, what? I'm like, I'm like, what?

Typical Twitter. I'm like, okay. Okay. You blocked me on Twitter because I corrected you about a number. All right. And then you calling me insecure and it didn't tag me. Somebody else told me that. I'm like, really, like, like, like in real life, that doesn't happen.

Like literally you would say, Hey, it's up to my face. You would say it to, you know what I'm saying? You would think. Yeah. At least you would just keep your mouth shut the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, it's like, my friends would probably know that that wouldn't

probably happen when my friends, because they just know I would just leave. Like literally I've told my, like I, you know, I told one of my friends, like one time he was going to, he was the drive drunk. I said, are you getting that car? I'm going to punch you in the face. So like, you know, you have that argument with, you have that thing with, you know, the, that five minute thing discussion. Don't get in the car.

Don't get in the car. Don't get in the car. So I was like, no, you get, you take another step that I kind of want to punch in the face. That was, and he knew I was real. Oh yeah. Yeah. So it's like, don't like, we can't have that, that you'd leave here drunk and kill someone. Yeah.

And I was, it was obviously he didn't care, but I said, like, I can't have that happen on my conscious. I'd rather punch him in the face and have something kill someone. Set him home in an ambulance. Please. I had a thought, Andy. Uh-oh. Nothing good starts.

Fantasy, because you saw that news thing about fantasy football puncher that set a waffle house or something. Yes. Yeah. You know, it'd be a great fantasy football punishment for someone who's like a Bill's fan that lost is to listen to all of the Bill's episodes of this podcast. Because you're going to have hours of content. And yeah, we are reviewing Bill's games and the Bill's always lose.

Always. Yeah. Always lose. Tom Brady. He's like, I think he's in the top 10 list. I think he's like five or six of most amount of quarterback wins in Buffalo. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. Josh Allen just passed him this year. Yeah. I was dead wrong about Josh Allen. I didn't think that he would be this good. I'm expecting aggression. See, I put a hot take out there and I stand behind it no matter how wrong it might look.

Before last year started, Steve said, Josh Allen and Ryan Tannehill. In Ryan Tannehill, we're going to like seriously regrets. So every week I brought it up to him like that's another 400 yards for Allen. Did you pick Josh Allen in fantasy football? No, I just, I just thought. No, but Steve, I'm a Steve. Oh, no, no.

So you didn't, like you stayed, you say truths of yourself. Oh, I'm, I'm doubling down next year. So you're not picking Josh Allen this year. No, no way. I think both of them regress. They're not good. I stand on that. Can I play fantasy football with you?

Like taking money from a baby. It's a very, very stupid baby. Really? But why do you think he's going to regress? I'm drafting Cam Newton again. Let's go. Why do you think he's going to regress? Who?

Josh Allen? Yeah. Oh, I'm just, when I make a hot take, I stand behind it. You stand behind it so you don't admit you're wrong. No. No, that's not his style. Good luck with you. It's not good luck with me.

It's good luck with Greg and Andy. Those two have to put up with this, dude. Are you kidding me? I love you. Do you ever say you're wrong? Uh, my hot takes? Definitely not. Definitely not.

Hot takes a lot of things in life. Sure. Other things in life. Oh, thank God. Are you sure? Not to me, you don't. Well, yeah. Not things you guys say right here.

Okay. Oh, boy. All right, guys, because you have to say you're wrong. You have to be able to see yourself as wrong. We're not perfect. This is true. Nobody's perfect. Unless we're talking about Tom Brady, of course.

Tom Brady, or Troy Brown. He's perfect. Oh, yeah, Troy Brown. There you go. There you go. Minds the two fumbles in the snowball, but we don't talk about that. We don't.

It didn't matter. I don't remember those we were talking about. Larry is on the punt return. See, fumble two of them. Larry is on the cover of both. Yeah, Larry is. What are you talking about? So, yeah.

Steve. Larry is almost. He's an original special teams guy. And that cracks me up because the other thing about the Patriots, people like, oh, my gosh. The Patriots have so many people on players on special teams. So I went and looked it up.

I never wrote an article about this. Like every team has players who just do special teams. Oh, yeah. But people just think. Just they don't take the time. What for every reason, they are full. Because the Patriots, maybe because the Patriots, they don't focus and look at that.

Because the Patriots pay those players more. That's gone. It's going to say. They pay them more. It's what they're paying them is in. In. Pathlet in material, the difference is practically immaterial to the cap.

Yeah, yeah. When you're talking about $200 million cap, you paying someone $1 million more is kind of immaterial. I mean, I guess they're paying the three or four players more money. All right. But at the end of the day, it allows them flexibility. I mean, I do think.

Sorry. I was just going to say that that's a question I had. Because we've always kind of been told. Well, or maybe I've just garnered this from reading stuff. But it feels like some teams will focus on paying their big name guys, the big money, and then surrounding them with lower paid people. Whereas a Patriots kind of try to have a higher paid middle class with no huge salaries.

That's true. So that is an actual thing. I used to back in the. I used to do this starting in 2001. 2000, right? When the Patriots from every year have been tracking it, they always had the most players with a $1 million salary cap hit. All right.

And this is back in the day. So it's 2000, 2001. That's still been true till this day. All right. Except for this now. So one thing the bills did, they copied the Patriots. That's going to ask anyone else doing that. Yeah.

So they started doing that. Now, the bills started doing that. Okay. So they finally learned that the team was like, Hey, maybe we should do what the Patriots are doing. I could not believe it took a team to learn. Let's try to strategy what the Patriots are doing and building a depth. Like right now they have, let's say they have 48 players.

I'm going to say 47 or 48 players over with a million dollar cap hit. All right. I am willing to bet that's probably in the top three on the NFL right now. All right. It's in the people that we haven't finished doing the rookie signing deal. So that's like, so my number is going to probably be off, but that's going to be in the top three. I'm willing to bet that.

All right. That's something they've been doing the entire time of the Bill Belichick era. That's something I think that it's a cap thing. All right. That's, but the Patriots don't, the Bill Belichick, the GM doesn't get credit for that. All right. All right. Because, because when you're paying a Larry Izzo, you're paying a Larry Wiggum or a

Justin Bethel or Matthew Slater, those are not big names. All right. But you, you sign a big name style like a Roosevelt Colvin or an Adelius Thomas. That gets, that gets the fan base up and, oh yeah. They signed a big name for, you know, like, but those guys were just as, just important to the Super Bowls as those Adelius Thomas and Roosevelt Colvin. Do you hear that, Greg? Now he's advocating for all three phases.

Oh, yes. And that's the other thing that the NFL has done rules to take away the Patriots advantage. Really? Yes. Like for example, like Patriots used to play the practice squad, players more than the minimum. Now everyone has the same salary. You can't do that anymore.

Okay. You take the kickoff rules. Yeah. Okay. Patriots used to have, used to focus on, on all three teams. All right. The kickoffs are now less important. Okay.

Who's that hurt? Who's that hurt the most? A team that, the Patriots, if you didn't give, if you didn't care about special teams, that, that kickoff rule benefited you. All right. Um, I'm trying to take another cap thing that's related. Okay. Patriots used to use the, um, had used to have option bonuses.

All right. And used to qualify for compics. That took, got taken away. So when Daryl Vivas left to get better compics. Yeah. So, yeah. So Daryl, when Daryl Vivas left, the Patriots got a compic for him because they had an option for them.

That's no, there's no one, they can't do that anymore. It was like a team option or a player option. It was a team option. I mean, we went the first ones to, we might have been the first, we might have been definitely one of the first couple of teams to do it. All right. I'm not sure we were the first team to do it. I, I, maybe the Ravens beat us to it.

Yeah. All right. But we were definitely one of the teams that did do it a lot of it. I think because the Patriots gotten, got a, did it with Rivas, I'm not surprised they got rid of it. Yeah. That big game. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Yeah. Because they made it, they put it out there. Thanks Jets. Yeah, idiots. You know what I'm saying? So they, there have been rules that the, the NFL has done to minimize the better the chances of winning one of the Patriots.

They're just closing loopholes to the Patriots for finding. Yeah. So I was, I was just looking through over the cap about the million dollar cap hit thing. Yeah. And I was like, uh, what, which team should I look to compare? Should be the Rams. I picked the Jets. And there's like a 20 player difference between the Pats and the Jets,

as far as like where that cutoff is. Yeah. You should go with the Rams because the Rams is so top heavy. I bet you they don't even, yeah, the Rams are so top heavy. And they just trade away all their picks for, yeah. I don't know how they're still managing. That's right. Do it for some.

I don't know how they still have a first round pick because they feel like they need to throw a first round picks at every problem they have. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like the NFL has somehow managed to make the NFL draft a big thing while some teams are saying,

I don't really care about draft picks. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Which is amazing to me. It is. You know, we'll see, we'll see how, I don't know if the Rams, they have their shot.

I don't know if they'll ever get back to Zubal. Yeah. I'm with you on that one. The Jared Gough, they're gonna regret that Jared Gough throw. Which Super Bowl did they, which one are you talking about? Yeah. Which Super Bowl last are you talking about to the Patriots? Well, no, that's Mike Maas, the first one.

He should have, like, I see, he, I, I could not, like, I read afterwards that they, they were, he was, people tell him to run the ball, run the ball, run the ball. And he wouldn't do it. He just didn't. Yeah. They wouldn't at all. That game shouldn't have even been that close. To put, they would help.

They would, Patriots were so big on the dogs. It's crazy. And that's just ego. That's just ego. Bill Belchek, we're not, I mean, I was, I used to say Bill Belchek wouldn't do that. Then Michael Butler was benched. Who knows? Who knows?

No one knows. David Dante doesn't know. How the hell do we not know? Yeah. Huh? Yeah. How is Malcolm not saying anything? How is no one said anything?

Yeah. That's crazy. That is crazy. Yeah. We'll eventually find out, you know. So when Belchek retires, he comes on this podcast and tells us. Exactly. He wants you to know.

Thank you. Miguel, just hit him up and let us tell him to come on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Troy Brown. Sure.

That's what he wants to do once he's finally retired. And it's a. It's a rehash at all. So we're on a 2006 week 12. You remember this one, Bill? It was a Thursday Night Gamer as the Jets in the Rain. Great times, right? Oh, yeah.

I ended up driving home without a shirt on. Bill, why were you doing it on 4th and 2nd? But you don't believe in analytics. We'll see if that can smell great or not. Yeah. But it cracks me up when people were saying that Bill, you know, because he guess he was on this thing. And I'm like, the 4th and 2nd thing tells you that he is kind of into analytics.

Oh, yeah. I just don't think he. It's like an end all be all to him. I think there's analytics and everything else. I think he also regarded Peyton Manning as a special player similar to Tom Brady. Yeah. Especially in those years. As much as there is a circumstantial variables that you have to take into account.

You can't just be like, here's the number. It says 52% of the chance time I should do this. Like, well, yeah, there's 2% variable with other factors that aren't included in your algorithm. You dummy. And everyone needs to talk about the we'll take the wind over time game again. That was stupid. That was stupid. That word I can't defend now.

It worked out. That was the dumbest shit I ever seen, dude. The wind was a huge factor in that game. The dumbest shit he's ever seen. Have you not lost a judge play? Look, I was at that game. I was at that game and they announced the Patriots have won the toss. And then we were we were kicking and they never told us why.

Everybody in the fans of the stand is like, what the hell is going on? That's also the game you saw a bunch of people leave, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Freezing that game. Yeah, it was a rough one. It worked out, Greg. It did.

But I still think it was the wrong. I still think that works out like 10 times out of 100. So the fourth and two is the right decision. Didn't work out. Maybe that was the wrong decision. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

That's what I think. It's like when you're going all in with a pair of aces and you get sucked out on, you know what I'm saying? They're called odds for a reason. I mean, there's a guarantee every time. They'd be called evens. Sorry. Let's see myself out.

All right. Let's go. All right. I got to go. Yeah. Yeah. Let's wrap it up. This has been amazing.

Yeah. I think this is just going to be its own episode because we got so much out of this. So we'll touch on the bill's game next week. Yeah, I tend to talk a lot. Sorry. No, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. And actually, in honor of having you on, what I've decided to do is for every listen

to this episode we get between this episode and the next one, I'm going to donate a dollar to your habitat. I got 45,000 followers. You're going to put up some money. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Because there are people who listen to me even though I'm on a Jets podcast. There are Jets podcasts? Jets podcast? Yeah. It's a guy, like he, the host, he's a really nice guy and you guys got like the same kind of setups, like the boom things, right? But he didn't. Like, my gosh, he really didn't understand.

He didn't, I had, he didn't really understand the cap at all. So I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, no wonder you asked me to go on this show. Like some people like, oh, like, what's his name? Mike Traggs. Mike Traggs, you remember him? He used to cover the pages. Like he's the, to me, of all the beat writers who have a cover, who he knew with,

he understood the cap the best. He doesn't have the, he didn't have the cap. He doesn't have the access that Mike Benvolin or Mike Viz has, but in terms of knowing the cap and how it works and, and he, I think he knew the cap the best. He, I love going on his podcast just because it was like, all right, I don't have to explain anything. You can get nerdy with him. Yeah, you can get nerdy.

I can get nerdy. I can get nerdy. I try not to get nerdy on these podcasts. Same. Yeah. But like, so like literally when I, I talk about that 25% rule, I actually used a stupid number, a million dollar number. I should have used like, when I tried not to be nerdy, I should have used a $560,000

number because that's much easier to divide by four. I love it. Well, thank you very much, Miguel, for coming on. This has been fantastic. All right. Thank you for having me. I've learned a lot. I'm pretty sure we all have.

All right. When you get to like the 2013 season, yes, you know what I'm saying? Cause that's one of the new CBA. Hit me up again. Oh, all right. Okay. Cause then, okay. Because before the season episode, so you can say what happened in that last off season in the cap.

Oh, any time, any time I love, I love, I love being on podcasts just because I like talking about the salary cap. I love it. But yeah, if you're talking about the off season, I'll come on. I don't work, for example, like I, I don't work the fee, the one, the league year, the one the league year begins. So I can go on a podcast anytime. Beautiful.

Um, so the, so the league year is going to be March 16th. I forget what, I don't even know what day of the year, the day of the week it is. So let's, let's, let's try it for then until you get to, unless you get to 2013 before that. No. We tried to do a game this week and we didn't even get to it. Take care guys. All right. I'm Miguel Benzane, everybody at Pat's cap on Twitter.

Give them a follow if you probably already do. If, if you listen to us, I'm guessing you already do. Um, other than, unless you're mom and you don't have Twitter or Steve. Yeah, mom, go follow him on Twitter. Actually, just never mind. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, we don't.

You think he's on TikTok? We should ask him that. Oh, missed opportunity. We'll ask him next time he comes back in 2013. Yeah. Five years from now. Five years of games, dude. That's what I'm saying.

So all right. Um, yeah. So that was Pat's cap.com. If you're not on Twitter, there is a Pat's cap.com. I don't think it's, uh, necessarily updated. I meant to ask him about that too. Maybe we'll ask about that on, on Twitter and see what he says. There you go.

But, uh, we will touch next week on the Buffalo game that we were going to talk about today and got sidetracked. Yeah. Tom Brady's still on this. So I'm guessing it's not up to date. Yeah. Induction there, Greg. Thanks for that fact check.

Nailed it. But if you want to look at 2016, 2015, this might be kind of interesting. It's the last update in September 22, 2017. Oh yeah. That's in the middle of the page, Steve, you know. All right. On that note, uh, until next week, we will see you later.

See you later.