Belichick said it was obvious the 2-5 Patriots "didn't have any money" to spend this offseasonGETTY IMAGES
Patriots coach Bill Belichick yesterday "doubled down" on comments he made last week suggesting that the reason why the team is playing so many young players this season is because of a "lack of depth that can be traced to salary cap limitations," according to Steve Hewitt of the BOSTON HERALD. During his weekly appearance on WEEI's "Ordway, Merloni & Fauria," Belichick said, "It's pretty obvious. It was an honest answer to an honest question. No more and no less than that. I'm sure you can read a lot into it if you want to. That wasn't the intent." Belichick said in response to the suggestion that he might be making excuses for his team, "We take Cam Newton at $1 million. It's obvious we didn't have any money. It's nobody's fault. I mean, it's what we did the last five years. We sold out and won three Super Bowls, played in a fourth and played in the AFC Championship Game. This year we had less to work with. It's not an excuse, it's just a fact." Asked if this was an "inevitable situation for the Patriots, Belichick deferred to the NFL." Belichick: "The structure of the league is the structure of the league. That's not going to change" (BOSTON HERALD, 11/3).
LITTLE ROOM TO SPARE: In Boston, Nicole Yang notes at one point this offseason, the Patriots "had the least amount of cap space in the NFL with around $600,000." That number "increased in July after the organization settled grievances involving former players Antonio Brown and Aaron Hernandez, and again in August after a league-high eight players opted out of the season because of the coronavirus pandemic." With today's trade deadline looming, the Patriots currently have $22.6M in cap room. Another "figure of note, perhaps to Belichick's point," is $26.4M, the amount of "dead money the Patriots have tied up with players no longer on the roster" (BOSTON GLOBE, 11/3).
EVERYTHING HAS AN END: In Boston, Greg Bedard wrote, "Fifty years from now, the football world will look back on the Patriots, from 2001-2019, as perhaps the greatest franchise in the history of team sports due to their unprecedented and sustained success during the salary-cap era." That is "what separated them from everyone else." It is "unbelievable what they did for those 20 years." They "were always relevant and in the mix." Anyone "can sell out for a title or two, but nearly everyone has to pay the price and go back to irrelevancy for a time before contending again." Bedard: "Did the Patriots sell out to keep the team near the top the past few seasons? Yes, Belichick is absolutely right." But what he "left out was the reason he had to do that." It "wasn't a choice" and it "wasn't circumstances." It was a "necessity because of the growing failures in the draft and personnel" (BOSTONSPORTSJOURNAL.com, 11/2).
