FanPost

N "IF" L: Bill Belichick and Peyton Manning?

Dream team? - Kevin C. Cox

I usually only write when I'm really motivated. My juices need to be flowing, and that usually only occurs when the NFL season is underway. I'm not one to come up with my own topics, but rather enjoy investigating answers to questions posed by others. This one is dedicated to richardlight who posed the following question:

Belichick Had Manning

If BB has Manning how many titles do we have?

by richardlight on Sep 17, 2014 | 7:22 AM reply rec flag

This has been a part of the Brady-Manning debate for over a decade. One would believe that people would eventually have enough evidence for a specific position, but every once in a while a high-profile player or coach makes a statement that stirs the pot just a little more. The most recent pot stirrer was Rodney Harrison when the Patriots and Broncos met for Brady and Manning's 14th time last season in late November.

"Tom had a lot of veteran players, a lot of really good defenses, where if he didn't play particularly well, he knew that he had a defense with a lot of veteran players that could save him. Whereas, Peyton didn't really have that advantage. If Peyton was on our team, I think we could have easily won three Super Bowls, no doubt about it."

-Rodney Harrison

via the Denver Post


I disagree with Rodney Harrison, and it isn't because I am a Patriots fan and love Tom Brady more than any rational human being should. I disagree because the premise regarding this debate is always wrong. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning can't just swap places. You can't put them in different uniforms and expect everything about the teams to be absolutely the same. The first step to figuring out how Bill Belichick would have done with Peyton Manning is to get Peyton on the team.

Step 1: Get Peyton Manning on the Patriots

Peyton Manning was the 1st overall pick in 1998. Bill Belichick did not join the Patriots until 2000. The first big assumption that I had to make to go forward with this was to answer this question: When did the Patriots decide to acquire Peyton Manning? Since the original question included both Peyton Manning and Bill Belichick, I decided the earliest the Patriots could have tried to acquire Manning would be 2000.

Coming off an 8-8 season in which the offense, under 27 year old Drew Bledoe's command, had finished a pedestrian 20th in scoring out of 31 teams, the Patriots had a coaching change. In a very controversial move, Bill Belichick quit as the head coach of the New York Jets and became the head coach of the Patriots. As punishment for Belichick's defection, the Patriots surrendered their 1st round pick in the 2000 draft.

The Patriots defense finished a very respectable 7th in scoring defense in 1999, and an improvement at the quarterback position with a younger and better player like Manning would make sense. Getting Manning would most likely come at a hefty price. The Indianapolis Colts had just finished the year 13-3 and they won the division. At the time, the Colts and Patriots were in the same division, so trading him to a divisional rival would be a hard one to persuade the Colts to do. What would a 1st overall, franchise quarterback like Peyton Manning cost? I compiled a chart of teams trading to the top of the draft to get a specific player.

Year Top Draft Pick Traded Traded For
1983 1st (John Elway) 1983 1st (4th overall), 1984 1st, QB Mark Herrmann
1984 1st (Irving Fryar) 1984 1st (16th overall), 1984 1st (28th overall)
1997 1st (Orlando Pace) 1997 1st (6th overall), 3rd, 4th, and 7th
2004 1st (Eli Manning) 2004 1st (4th overall), 2004 3rd (65th overall), 2005 1st, 2005 5th
2012 2nd (Robert Griffin III) 2012 1st (6th overall), 2012 2nd (39th overall), 2013 1st, 2014 1st

Every single one of the above players yielded at least two first round picks except for Orando Pace. The difference between Peyton Manning and the other players on the list is that all of those were traded before any of the players had ever played a down. Peyton Manning, on the other hand, was a proven commodity by 2000. So if the Patriots were to acquire Peyton Manning, what would the trade probably consist of?

The Trade: Patriots trade QB Drew Bledsoe, 2000 2nd, 2001 1st, and either 2001 2nd OR 2002 1st

You might be asking why the Patriots didn't trade their 2000 first round pick. As mentioned before, they didn't have one because they gave it to the Jets over the Belichick fiasco. You also might be wondering why they surrendered so much. Manning was already one of the top quarterbacks in the league, while Bledsoe was on the decline. Almost every single trade involved high draft picks from the year of the trade and the year after. In this case, the Patriots did not have a 2000 first rounder, so they had to overcompensate with their 2001 first rounder. I leave it up to you to decide if it is their 2001 2nd or 2002 1st, but I will get into that later. For now, take this trade as an idea of what it would take.

Step 2: Money Talks

Tom Brady is often considered the greatest draft steal of all time. There have been numerous television specials dedicated to him overcoming his 199th pick status. What is often lost in all of the Brady fawning is the terrible state the Patriots were in when he was drafted. According to Scott Pioli, the financial state of the team was a mess.

"Part of the reason he lasted, for us, as long as he did was we had fewer than 40 players on our roster and we were $10.5 million over the cap."

- Scott Pioli on Tom Brady

The salary cap in 2000 was $62.172 million. 36 players on the 2000 Patriots roster were making $620,000 or less, otherwise known as less than 1% of the total cap space. With the Patriots trading Bledsoe and their 2nd round pick in 2000, the Patriots would not have Bledsoe's $8.5 million cap hit or Adrian Klemm's (2nd round 2000) $545,000 cap hit. While Klemm's cap hit is inconsequential, the Patriots roughly lose $9 million of their cap hit and replace it with Peyton Manning's $6.7 million cap hit. This would put a slight dent in the Patriots being $10.5 million over the cap, but it wouldn't put them in a position to make any substantial moves.

The 2000 Patriots went 5-11 with Drew Bledsoe. Many of the weaknesses were a result of the offense not scoring a lot of points in 1999, but in 2000 the defense wasn't as good as it was in 1999 either. Manning would also be undergoing a change in scenery, as he would not be playing inside of a dome half the season. Also, after leaning on Marvin Harrison and Edgerrin James heavily in 1999 (targeted 266 of his 533 pass attempts) as well as James' 1533 yard, 13 touchdown rushing season, Manning would be given receivers Terry Glenn and Troy Brown as well as running back Kevin Faulk to work with on offense. It is hard to believe that Peyton Manning would be the difference between a Super Bowl and 5-11 with Bledsoe. How well would the Patriots do? I'm not sure. What is more important is how the Manning trade would significantly impact the dynasty.

Step 3: Building a Dynasty

It is at this point that I want you to make a decision. Do the Patriots trade their 2001 2nd or their 2002 1st? The reason I ask this is because whichever you choose, the Patriots miss out on a player that contributed to their dynasty. Going into the 2001 NFL Draft, in this scenario, the Patriots would already be without their first round pick. Who did the Patriots pick in the first round of the 2001 draft? An ok player named Richard Seymour who played 164 games, started 10 seasons, amassed 3 first-team All Pro selections, and was the team's starting RDE on all three of their Super Bowl wins. If the Patriots gave up their 2001 2nd in the Manning trade, they would be giving up some offensive tackle named Matt Light, another 10 year starter that was the Patriots starting LT for all three Super Bowl wins. If the Patriots trade their 2002 1st instead of their 2001 2nd, the Patriots do not draft tight end Daniel Graham. Is that as big of a hit as Matt Light? I don't think so. Let's make things easy for Manning.

Updated Trade: Patriots trade QB Drew Bledsoe, 2000 2nd, 2001 1st, and 2002 1st

After winning the Super Bowl in 2001, the Patriots traded Drew Bledsoe to the Buffalo Bills for their 2003 first round pick. Since Bledsoe would not be on the Patriots to trade had they acquired Manning, this trade never would have happened. What does that mean? Well, in 2003, the Bills first round pick was 14th overall. The Patriots coupled it with a sixth round pick to move up to 13th overall and select LDE Ty Warren. The next time the Patriots selected in that draft was 19th overall, but that was following a 9-7 season. Would they have gone 9-7 in 2002 with Manning? That is unclear. The defense was 17th in the league in points allowed in 2002, with no significant differences to it than in 2001. Would the Patriots try and move up to grab Ty Warren? If so, what sacrifices would they make? Not only that, but the Patriots used the 19th in 2003 to trade with the Ravens and acquire their first round pick in 2004 as well as their second rounder in 2003, which the Patriots traded to get S Eugene Wilson. That 2004 first round pick from the Ravens was used on NT Vince Wilfork.

So instead of Bledsoe being used to acquire picks that helped build the dynasty, Bledsoe is traded along with very valuable picks used for really good players that were key to the Patriots Super Bowl victories. The sacrifice of getting Peyton Manning can reasonably include Richard Seymour, Daniel Graham, Ty Warren and/or Vince Wilfork.

Do you think that is a gross exaggeration? Well, if the Patriots were able to accomplish what Rodney Harrison said and win three Super Bowls, the assumption is that at least two of the three are the 2003 and 2004 teams. Without the 2002 Bledsoe trade, there is either no Ty Warren, or no Vince Wilfork and Eugene Wilson. There is never a Richard Seymour, so he doesn't anchor the defensive line for those two Super Bowls either. For all the talk about the defense being the strength of those units, it sure is unfortunate that they aren't even on the team to make room for Manning.

Step 4: Maintaining a Dynasty

Aside from the fact that they probably were unable to build a dynasty without some of those great players, the biggest problem the team would face in all of this would be keeping everyone together once money became an issue. If you know anything about the Patriots, money is always an issue. Ty Law wanted to be the highest paid corner in football and called the Patriots 4-year, $26 million offer in 2004 an "insult."

"I would be a fool to take less than what I already make," Law told the newspaper. "So you're telling me, if I make $17 million over the next two years, if I'm a Patriot, I'm going to accept $15.6 million? That's a pay cut. I said it a thousand times, I'm not taking no pay cut. No. ... If this is a business and you can't afford to pay me what I deserve to be paid, that's fine. I have no problem with that. But let me go out there and earn the salary that I deserve and let me get the commitment from another team because I deserve more than just a one-year deal."

Willie McGinest cost the Patriots too much when he was cut following the 2005 season. Lawyer Milloy was cut right before the start of the 2003 season because he refused a pay cut. Asante Samuel had to be franchise tagged in 2007 before he left for greener pastures with the Eagles. Deion Branch held out and was constantly fined before being traded to the Seahawks and receiving a new contract. The Patriots faced the same problems when it came to Richard Seymour, Vince Wilfork, and Logan Mankins. When it comes to the NFL, it is harder to keep great teams together when everyone wants what they feel they earned.

Establishing the dynasty would have been very hard to accomplish with Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning cost an awful lot of money almost every season he was in the league. Since Drew Bledsoe's cap was counting against the Patriots in 2001, the difference between Manning and the Bledsoe/Brady combination is negligible. However, in the chart below you can see how much more Manning was making during those years Brady was winning Super Bowls. Numbers included are the cap value the player was taking up on the team, not their salary for that year or salary averages. "Cap Value" measured in millions.

Peyton Manning Tom Brady
Cap Value Cap Value
2002 $10.33 $1.09
2003 $15.36 $3.32
2004 $8.30 $5.06
2005 $8.44 $8.43
2006 $10.57 $13.83
2007 $8.20 $7.35

In 2005, after three Super Bowl victories and two Super Bowl MVPs, Tom Brady signed a contract that made him one of the league's highest paid players, a six-year contract for $60 million. Considering the Patriots had signed Drew Bledsoe to a ten-year, $103 million in 2001, getting Brady for nearly the same thing despite him being younger and much more accomplished was a steal. Could the Patriots have maintained all the talent and depth they had that helped them be so successful over those years had Manning's huge contract been eating into the cap space? How many more players would not have become or stayed Patriots due to his huge contract?

Conclusion: Probably Zero

When breaking down all the implications of what it would mean to have Peyton Manning on the Patriots, my conclusion is that the combination of Bill Belichick and Peyton Manning would not have yielded any Super Bowl victories. The defense would not have been as good, Peyton would have been working with lesser offensive players and would probably not have been as good as he was in Indianapolis, and the Patriots would not have had the draft capital to build a team around him. While it is fun for everyone to play the "what if" game and theorize about how good a team would be if they simply swapped players, it is not nearly as simple when put to practice. There is an opportunity cost of each decision made, and the cost of getting Peyton Manning on the Patriots when Belichick took over would be too great for them to achieve the success they did with Tom Brady.

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