Patriots Master the Salary Cap

MMQB ran an interesting bit from Jason at Over The Cap, one of the top NFL salary cap websites on the internet. Peter King asked Jason a few questions with regards the current state of the league that I highly recommend reading. He touches upon how the Dolphins' contract to Ndamukong Suh is setting Miami up for failure and how the Saints are in a self-started disaster mode.

King asks Jason about the team he believes runs best with the salary cap. No surprises here.

If there is one team that stands out head and shoulders above anyone else it’s New England. To have the kind of success that they have had in a salary cap era of football is incredible. While everyone deals in two- and three-year windows, this team operates in decades.

What sets New England apart isn’t so much the financial acumen (the Patriots have had more than their fair share of bad deals), but their steadfast approach to valuation of a player. They don’t waver or allow themselves to be taken advantage of. They are cold as ice when it comes to their players. It goes back years, to the team cutting Lawyer Milloy on the eve of the season. No player is bigger than the organization. Whether it was Wes Welker, Randy Moss, Richard Seymour, Logan Mankins, Mike Vrabel, Deion Branch or a number of other players, the team either turned the players into draft picks or walked away without getting stuck in a bad contract.

Just the fact that they would approach Tom Brady about accepting a contract that would pay him in the ballpark of $10 million a year is something to appreciate. The Patriots can also be very quietly generous with their players to build that trust with a player who performs.

Last season the team reworked the contract of Sebastian Vollmer to give him a better chance of earning incentives in his contract that he missed the year before because of injury. Often they give even their practice squad players a boost in salary at the end of the year. When the time comes to ask players for a pay cut later on, I am sure that these things are remembered. They play a different game than anyone else in the NFL.

This Q&A is extremely relevant with New England's handling of the Darrelle Revis negotiations. Bill Belichick and the Patriots weren't going to break their stride for one of the best cornerbacks of all time, even if it meant have to adjust the secondary on the fly.

Revis is free to do what he wants. The Patriots are going to keep winning.