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06 Nov 2009
Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Jason Cole of Yahoo scores the rarest of interviews: A lengthy chat with Bill Belichick.
With that title, though, I was expecting something a little more retro.
Thanks to the several readers who sent this in.
83 comments, Last at 19 Nov 2009, 5:50am by Kayle
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Comments
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I really don't understand why people dislike this guy. Yes I'm a Pats fan, but when you sit him down and talk real football issues with him, he's great. That interview was 20X better than any King interview with one of his go to guys ("Cliche cliche cliche heart grit cliche hyperbole left it all on the field"). Though the answers were simple, they were compelling. When he unveils what's the behind the curtain, it's never as complicated as we think it is - I find that somewhat fascinating.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I'm with you!! When you get to hear him away from the podium where people are only looking for soundbites or controversy, he's really compelling.A smart football guy who loves to talk about football.
I love listening to his Monday afternoon gig on the radio. Unfortunately it entails listening to the idiots with whom he is talking.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
You are correct. Belichick is very smart and loves football. The key to life is in the Jimmy Johnson comment at the bottom -- I'm paraphrasing here, "you just have to let the people who are subject to numerous cognitive biases screw it up for themselves."
As to why people hate him, (1) it is frustrating to see a guy so easily school the management of your favorite team, and (2) he is a sociopath. Now, I don't mean to be terribly pejorative in saying he has antisocial personality disorder. Jordan is a sociopath and the public still mostly loves him. Kobe is a sociopath and the public is mostly disdainful. Whatever, many people with a deep unabated desire to win and crush their opponents are sociopaths. These people are generally disliked; their intelligence and interests are usually not relevant. I don't see why anyone should be so terribly concerned about whether he is liked or hated. I wish I had a smart sociopath running my team.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Frankly, to call a football coach and some famous athletes sociopaths while simultaneously claiming you mean it in a non-perjorative way is absurd. To do so without any real form of evidence is even worse. Aren't there people who are intelligent and competitive without being sociopaths? Do you really think that being highly ambitious and wanting to destroy your opponents in sports is equivalent with lacking the capability to empathize? Or are you claiming that our extremely limited window into these men's personal lives is sufficient to make this determiniation?
As you're answering these questions do me one other favor. Try empathizing with these three men and the people who read your comment and consider whether it's really not "terribly perjorative" to state someone is a sociopath like it's a fact without providing some kind of evidence or even claiming expertise.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Well, obviously, you have no ability to see beyond normative connotations of objective labels. If you feel you must associate a pejorative connotation, that is fine. I will emphatically disagree with your notion that my dissociation of that appellation from such connotation is "absurd." It is not only not "absurd," it is a matter that is not subject to reasonable disagreement.
"Antisocial personality disorder" is a label conjured in the last century to describe a person with certain characteristics. In one sense, a person either has those characteristics or does not have them. At the same time (not that you noted this), this subject is quite complex. Just as Kinsey described sexuality on a sliding scale, "sociopathy" could also be described on such a scale. This one could go from zero to eleven, for instance.
I think it would be difficult to read the stories about Jordan and Kobe, to listen to their speeches, or set forth their acts and not see them as inching up toward the double digits on such a scale (Jordan's recent HOF speech is a great exhibit A for him, his addictive gambling habits are an easy exhibit B, Kobe's Colorado rape will suffice as the analog exhibit A, I hope an exhibit B is not necessary). I will not set forth any DSM definitions here. They are easily googled.
As for empathy, I have no idea how you gleaned from my comment that I do not have it. In fact, as strange as this may sound, I always rooted for Jordan and still begrudingly root for Kobe, simply because I think he is so transcendant as a player. I am not short on empathy. That is exactly why I said I meant my comment in a non-pejorative way. I *sincerely* meant it. I don't know how else I could have stated it more clearly. If other readers are not objective enough to engage in the discussion in a productive and straightforward factual manner, that is not my problem.
Further, I suggest you google "Straw man fallacy," and then reconsider your comments "Aren't there people who are intelligent and competitive without being sociopaths? Do you really think that being highly ambitious and wanting to destroy your opponents in sports is equivalent with lacking the capability to empathize?" as being meaningful retorts to my comment. If you need help analyzing why I say this, I did not necessarily state such things or even imply them, but I do have a suspicion that I might somewhat agree with your latter question.
If I will cede you anything, it is that there is far less evidence of Belichick's "sociopathy" than the others that stood accused in my comment. What the hell. When there's smoke, there's usually fire. I do think Belichick is mostly successful because he is simply not governed by the same logical fallacies that affect almost every other decision maker in the NFL. How many others would have traded Seymour? I doubt if the percentage were in double digits. I think Belichick's probably a six or something. He certainly does little to dissuade the public of this image (not that this is any sort of definitive proof, but one of the characteristics is being contemptuous of those who seek to understand them). Brady's sideline glares when the rare Patriot defensive lapse is "holding him back" from his rightful place at the top and satisfying his grandiose sense of self is more indicative of a higher number, I will certainly grant you that.
In any event, calm down. This is not the most important thing in the world. My life is certainly not governed by others' opinions of me (though I could never aver that they don't matter at all...that would be crazy), and I would be greatly, incredibly, stupendously shocked that any of these three men cared one whit about my opinion of them. If you were worried that I don't know more than you do on this subject, I hope we've put that worry to rest. At the same time, I do not assert that I am privy to understanding all the complexity of the world or even this subject or even a small subset of this subject. I simply have my opinions, and you could have gracefully let it go at that. Well, I guess you couldn't.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
This sounds like a quote from Dennis Miller on MNF.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
You are a terrible writer. You sound like a British fop. It is incredibly awkward how you try to splice your thesauressed synonyms into your otherwise normal sentences. You should footnote the things you plagiarize. Was this a joke? Was this supposed to be a commentary mocking how seriously some people take these postings. Also your grasp of even entry level logic is poor. And you clearly stopped after logic 101 before you made it to any more modern philosophy. You are the first person to compell me to respond because you are just so pompous but so dumb.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
You should check out this year's season of HBO's "Hard Knocks" covering the Bengals' preseason. When they play the Patriots Chad Ochocinco seeks out Belichick before the game and you can tell he really likes him. Belichick jokes about how they're going to double cover Chad all game and immediately disarms him. It was cool to see the stodgy close to the belt old sociopath have such an easy and mutual conversation with a guy that lots of people seem to have trouble understanding or talking to. Belichick hates talking to the media. You can hear him get annoyed with the way all the reporters ask leading questions in the post game conferences. He gets annoyed that they think they can push him into saying what they want him to say, to give them that soundbite. What you always hear from the free agents that sign in New England guys like Dillon, Harrison, and Moss, all said they came in to interview and just talked for hours about football and walked out wanting to play for him. His players all like him. Seau calls him Belli. People like Jordan and Kobe, their teammates never like them, they are always awkward trying to seem a certain way. He and McDaniels unabashedly extoll each other. My take on it has always been that Bellichick hates talking to the media in certain ways and so comes off poorly sometimes. Even in this interview, he gets snippy when he thinks he's being goaded into saying something but when they just talk football he becomes a great interview.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I 'hate' him because he almost always beats my team (Pittsburgh) in the most gut wrenching manor (out physically in the early years, death by a thousand slants later, and for a while, late in the play offs). Monday through Saturday, when I'm not rooting for my team, I think he's the greatest thing to happen to the game since pass blocking.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Gut Wrenching Manor: Lair of the Pukapotamus
In theaters October 31st!
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I really like the way he runs his team and his interviews are very interesting. I think the reason most people hate him, though, is because of the fact that he's a cheater.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
They hated him before 'spygate'
Captcha words today 'Fitzgerald throbbed'
seriously, does somebody make these up?
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I didn't.
Spygate and what seems like arrogance in his pressers. That's pretty much it.
Despite all that, I find the guy fascinating and don't pass up chances to read what's on his mind. I hung on every word.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Like so many things, the hated thing is not the real source of hate, but rather the large amount of adulation appointed on that thing.
If people would stop saying how SUPER AWESOME Belicheck and the Patriots are every 5 seconds (or rather, if they would have done that sometime around 2004-2005) I would feel a lot better about Belicheck than I do now.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
So you resent him/the Patriots because other people talked about how great they were when they were, in fact, great?
I really don't follow that. Why do you dislike Belichick for it? Are he and the Patriots meant to stop being good so people don't talk about them that way? Why not direct your ire to those people who wouldn't stop talking about it?
I used to strongly dislike Indianapolis. I did so because they were very good, and I didn't like my team having a rival that could beat them. Disliking somebody because other people like them and tell you they like them is the kind of thing the wierd kids did at my high school. I'm always left bewildered whenever I encounter that in adult life.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
How about SPYGATE?
I'm not a Pats fan and I used to REALLY LIKE Belichick. After spygate, I don't like him anymore.
Re: Hating Belichick
I think a lot of fans dislike him because he does things differently. In particular, he is not about doing what the fans think is popular. He is quite willing to avoid keeping popular, capable players who want full free-agent dollars. Almost every other team gets dragged into that. In their mind, a coach that would trade Richard Seymour is bad for the NFL.
It is also envy. His team is always a team. Non-team people move out. He doesn't need the top-of-the-first-round picks to make his team good. Fans love top picks. He stacks later first-day picks, and early second-day picks. Is that for budget reasons, or because the top of the first round can be really hit-or-miss for anyone. So invest less money in more people and keep the good ones.
That, and he keeps a pretty low profile. He won't even let his picture be used by EA Sports for the Madden series.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I find it funny how the two things he listed that he looks for in a QB is essentially what the Lewin (sp?) Projection System looks for.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
It was really three things.
As long as the guy is a good decision-maker and he’s accurate and he’s consistent, you can give him something you can count on and you have a pretty good chance. The hard part is when they’re inconsistent or they’re not very accurate or they don’t make good decisions because ultimately you’re going to need a throw, they’re going to miss it; you’re going to need a decision, they’re not going to make it and that’s when it comes apart.
Two skills, but three things you need: decision-making, accuracy, and consistency.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I'm sure he's assuming the QB has sufficient arm strength rather than suggesting it isn't a necessary criteria. Because that's the easiest skill to assess, the pool of QB's Belichick is likely to be looking at will be those that the scouts have already decided have the arm strength to play in the NFL. So it probably doesn't enter into his thinking much.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Boy, that's a pretty good description of what I look for on football picks, too. Shame the guys we get here are more Bledoe than Brady.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I wonder if Bill thought McDaniels made the right move (at the time) with the Cutler for Orton + picks deal that McDaniels eventually took. His talk about QBs and talk about trade value could have dovetailed into that question but it wasn't asked.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
"Indianapolis is always going to be there."
Even if the whole defense is on IR, Bill? Thanks, I guess that's comforting.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
The team's undefeated!
Let's not start crying for them yet.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Bah, the Patriots won a Superbowl one year (and arguably barely lost in an AFC final another) with their defense also in tatters. It's not time for the Colts to blame injuries (yet).
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
"YOU HAVEN’T HAD TO SUFFAH LIKE WE HAVE!"
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Quite the opposite: the Pats objectively did not particularly suffer from those most injury-plagued years, hence I suggest that the garment-rending from Colts fans is somewhat premature. Besides, it's not like Sanders has never been injured before, and the rest of their secondary is hardly irreplaceable. As long as they have Peyton standing, they'll have a fair chance.
CAPTCHA gets political: insur- tighten
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Yep, even with the defensive injuries. The Colts should end up with no fewer than 11 wins (Houston, Tennessee, at Jacksonville, at Buffalo), and 13 is even reasonable (at Houston, NY Jets) with a banged-up defense.
So yeah, the Colts will be there.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Interesting that he was reticent when talking about the Seymour trade. Did he not have anything insightful to say or was he was being intentionally vague?
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
What did you want him to say?
He said that every player has a price, that the discussions with the Raiders had been going on for a long time, that he felt the compensation was right, that he couldn't answer a hypothetical about a different level of compensation, that the Raiders were the ones who brought it up, that hashing out the details took 24-48 hours...
What did you want?
Did you want him to say that Seymour was traded because he had been dogging it? Well, you're not going to get that kind of comment from Belichick about anybody in the NFL. True or not, there's no need to drag Seymour's name through the mud.
I will give you points, though, for correctly using the word "reticent".
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Boy, people are testy in this thread!
I was just struck by how that response contrasted from the rest of the interview where he seemed more forthcoming, it's a simple observation. I'm sure he has his reasons, or, like I implied, perhaps there really was nothing to say on the matter other than "they met our price".
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
It's a good observation, Temo, don't worry about the prickly responses. :)
My take is that this interview fits Belichick's pattern. He is forthcoming about things in general, where he can talk about philosophy and strategy without either revealing what he considers to be team proprietary information or criticizing specfic individuals, especially players and coaches.
He was vague about Seymour because he tends to go out of his way to avoid publicly criticizing players. I'm not saying Seymour did or did not deserve criticism, but if Belichick is questioned about something and something in his reponse could be construed as criticism, he'll tend to dodge it.
All the "playing for a championship" hoo-hah gets mentioned a lot, but I think that two of the big reasons that medium-level free agents find the Pats attractive is because Belichick will play whoever he thinks is better, regardless of contract, and he doesn't criticize players publicly.
By the way, that good/bad/average organization comment was as close he ever gets to criticism. I took that as a pretty serious shot at Cleveland, whether it was Mangini, the front office, the owner, or all of the above.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
It's interesting you saw it as him avoiding criticizing Seymour. I really saw it as more of a "Oakland offered way more than we thought he was worth, we were like 'Gotta do this now!', rolled it through in 2 days, and now we'll say the right things so we can rip off Oakland again in the future"
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
What you said and what I said can both be true.
However, I don't think the Pats "ripped off" the Raiders in the Seymour trade and I don't think Belichick thinks that either. I think he knows that he gave up something valuable in the short term for something even more valuable in the long term. And Belichick would have said the same thing no matter what team the trade was with. Which was my point. He's going to make soft statements about whomever he trades away.
So I guess my larger take on all of this, admittedly not clearly expressed, is that Belichick's patterns are pretty clear, if you want to see roughly why he does what he does. The "scheming genius" (good, evil, sociopathic, or otherwise) view of Belichick is way overblown. It makes for a lot of fun for the media and fans, but it doesn't shed any light on why he does what he does. The reasons are usually simpler than those expressed by the general public.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I think he did answer it, indirectly.
When he talks about young players you have under contract for a while, about those players being people you don't trade, you can make a logical deduction about the case of Seymour.
Seymour is not young and under contract for only one year. You are trading one year of Seymour for 4-5 years of a young player you'll have under contract at reasonable terms.
By 2011, there will be a rookie salary cap/slotting to make the contracts handed to those players more in line with their values. A 1st round pick in 2011 is going to be significantly more valuable -- especially a top 10 pick -- than it has been in recent years.
Belichick alluded to these things when he mentioned the factors surrounding the trade the writer already knew about.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I was under the impression that the decision making process was as simple as he stated - they made an offer too good to refuse, so we made the trade.
I thought the most interesting part was the Jimmy Johnson stuff. For all the "we're just concentrating on Sunday" speech, there really are only 10 or so teams that are your competition. Those are the ones with an identity, and the ones that are successful for the same reasons that the Patriots are. IND, PIT, PHI, BAL, NYG, and a few others all have a manner in which they evaluate, plan, and then execute, and they don't deviate from it. When you see a team that can't find success (look at the annual contenders for worst team), it's because they can't consistently connect those three things. It's so simple, yet franchises are always doing their best to avoid that conclusion and chase after something else.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
A fascinating interview all the way through, but I too thought that was the most fascinating part.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Yes, but what would happen if all of the teams had good management for a long time?
That's when luck (particularly injury) would play an even bigger role in determining success.
Maybe that was Jimmy Johnson's estimate of how the management talent was distributed across the league at that time. Can we come up with metrics regarding team success consistency over the years?
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
But I think Belichick and Johnson are saying that your hypothetical is impossible. Ego gets in the way too much - coaches try to fit players into their scheme that don't fit, owners meddle in the operations side of football, GMs and coaches butt heads over the direction of the team, etc. Think of how many owners (Snyder, Jones, others) have almost unlimited funds and absolutely no idea what to do with them. They follow fads in the league, always search for the hot thing in coaching circles, but they rarely hand someone the reins and say, "Here's the team for 5 years - give our franchise an identity." Jones did that with Parcells, and the Cowboys were the better for it.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I suspect the teams that managed to get their hands on elite quarterbacks would win. Even with the best process in the world, only a few teams are ever going to have an elite quarterback at any given time, and the acquisition of such players will always involve a hefty dose of luck. That luck might take the form of having the #1 pick in the 1998 draft, not #2. It might take the form of picking up some Arena League guy on the off-chance, having your starter break his leg in pre-season, and discovering that the obscure scrub is not merely better than people thought but actually flat-out amazing.
One thing that really makes me feel good about being a Texans fan is that the process seems to be excellent. The owner hires football people, gives them free reign to run the team and time to build one, and fires them when and only when they have demonstrated that they can't. The current football management have a clear, rational team-building strategy, and it appears slowly but progressively to be paying off. We may never have had a team that was significantly better than ok, but the threat of Raideresque perennial suckitude is mercifully absent, and consistent above average performance seems tantalisingly close to realisation.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
The Bears and Ravens come to mind as teams that have done well this past decade without a good quarterback. But otherwise, I'd agree that having an elite QB is very important.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
What I found noteworthy was that the one player who he deems to be completely off limits in any trade discussions (in contrast to the headline above) is Jerod Mayo. (Although I'm sure he would have said the same thing about Brady six years ago.)
(BTW, the headline above omits Belichick's usage of the qualifier "probably".)
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
It's not really that surprising. Every other player on the roster is either way older, less talented, less proven, has a big cap number, or has his contract up in 1-2 years. Off the top of my head, Mayo is the only player on the Patriots roster that (1) is proven to play at a Pro-bowl level, (2) still has yet to hit his prime, (3) has at least 3 years on his contract, (4) is still on his rookie deal and hence is cheap. If they'd hit the gold they hit with Mayo on any other player from the 07 or 08 drafts, then I suspect those players would be on Belichick's list of "off limits" players, too. The only other player that might qualify is Meriweather.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I didn't take it to mean that Mayo was untradeable, just that the price is going to be far higher than any team would ever offer.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
exactly. I mean what's a young cheap pro bowl linebacker who fits your system worth? presumably the answer is a freaking hell of a lot. Even the patriots have their share of misses in the first round after all. To trade for a guy like Mayo you'd need to offer something amazing, maybe even more than 2 firsts.
Take an even more extreme example: joe flacco. Is there _any_ trade offer that any team could realistically make that would get the ravens to trade flacco? If the colts offered peyton manning straight for flacco, the ravens might very well decline given his advanced age, recent knee problems, and gargantuan monetary demands. The same probably also goes for matt ryan, though ryan has a more expensive contract. Even when you're talking about a guy like jay cutler, who honestly is not as good as either flacco or ryan, it took a massive fight with management plus two first round picks, a third round pick, AND a decent starting quarterback going the other way to pry him out of denver.
plus you have to figure that a star player is almost always more valuable to his current team than he is to a future team because of his familiarity with the system and the coaches and all that intangible stuff. Even if there weren't a salary cap to constrain such moves further, I'm not at all surprised that the NBA and MLB show far more trades than the NFL. Football isn't a sport conducive to changing teams.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
"Even the patriots have their share of misses in the first round after all."
Actually, they don't. In the Salary Cap Era, every single one of the Patriots' 1st-round picks has become their full-time starter for at least one season. In case you don't believe me, here's the list:
1994 - Willie McGinest
1995 - Ty Law
1996 - Terry Glenn
1997 - Chris Canty
1998 - Robert Edwards
1998 - Tebucky Jones
1999 - Damien Woody
1999 - Andy Katzenmoyer
2001 - Richard Seymour
2002 - Daniel Graham
2003 - Ty Warren
2004 - Vince Wilfork
2004 - Benjamin Watson
2005 - Logan Mankins
2006 - Lawrence Maroney
2007 - Brandon Merriweather
2008 - Jerod Mayo
Out of those 17 1st-round picks, they've drafted 17 starters, 7 of which made the Pro Bowl. No other team in the league even comes close to this level of 1st-round success since 1994. You want to know Parcells' first lesson in Draft Philosophy 101? It's using 1st round picks on sure things. He simply never uses those picks to dicker around with the future of his franchise (See Long, Jake and Davis, Vontae immediately following regime that used 1st-rounder on Ginn, Ted). Belichick has followed Parcells' mantra to a tee in New England, and that's one -- if not THE -- major reason for their success.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
"Out of those 17 1st-round picks, they've [the Patriots] drafted 17 starters, 7 of which made the Pro Bowl. No other team in the league even comes close to this level of 1st-round success since 1994."
The very first team I checked, the Colts, has greater success with first round picks since 94 having drafted 15 starters 8 of whom have mad pro bowls and at least three of whom will make the hall of fame.
08 no 1st round pick
07 Anthony Gonzales
06 Joseph Addai 1 pro bowl
05 Marlin Jackson
04 no pick
03 Dallas Clark
02 Dwight Freeney 4 pro bowls
01 Reggie Wayne 3 pro bowls
00 Rob Morris
99 Edgerinn James 4 pro bowls
98 Peyton Manning 9 pro bowls
97 Tarik Glenn 3 pro bowls
96 Marvin Harrison 8 pro bowls
95 Ellis Johnson
94 Marshall Faulk 7 pro bowls
Clark, Manning, Freeney, and Wayne are all highly likely to go to the pro bowl this year incidentally. Since the very first team I looked at surpassed the feat you said no other team in the league had come close to matching I would be unsurprised to find that there were other examples.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I count 13 first round picks for the Colts in your list. They got 15 starters? Wow! That's unreal! Imaginary, even. Unless they were starting the "No Pick" brothers, who might be distant relations of "Hole In Zone".
No doubt, the Colts have done well with their first round picks. Manning is the single best draft pick ever. It was good strategy on the Colts' part to stink up the previous season in order to get that first pick.
I'd still have to say that the Patriots have done better, despite not having had a top-two pick, while the Colts had two of them.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
When I read his comment about Mayo, I took it as an example of a class of players: young, productive draft picks that are at the beginning of their prime years. Players like Patrick Willis, Rashard Mendenhall, Calvin Johnson, DeSean Jackson. Since these guys are on rookie contracts, their cost effectiveness is high, unless they were a very high first round pick.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I took it as an example of a class of players: young, productive draft picks that are at the beginning of their prime years. Players like Patrick Willis, Rashard Mendenhall, Calvin Johnson, DeSean Jackson.
One of these is not like the other.
Hint: he plays a very fungible position and isn't exactly top of the class at it either.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
exactly what I was thnking :)
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I think we're glossing over the paucity of 21-year-olds who can come out of college and start from Day 1 at ILB in the Belichick 3-4 defense. There's probably less than one guy per year in the draft who can do that.
The contract stuff, while true, is gravy.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
The reason that Mayo stands out to Belichick is that he falls in that sweet zone; young player with multiple years left on a contract with a cap figure that isn't yet commensurate with full market value. Players like that define competitive advantage in the modern cap era, so you never want to let them go. Always trade the slightly aging pro bowler with the bloated salary and try to replace him with Jerod Mayo.
Incidentally, something that I wonder if anyone has thoughts on--the way that the Patriots cheated in 2006 etc., does anyone really think they got a meaningful competitive advantage. Don't most teams have personnel with clipboards dedicated to taking notes on the oppositions' defensive signals? Don't they have camera men filming those guys from the media box? I thought the cheating was rather a semantic thing and nowhere near as significant as something like Merriman's steroids, which we know confer a legitimate and unfair advantage. Thoughts?
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
You really want to open that can-o-worms?
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
For the love of god, please take it to the Irrational Spygate Thread (that one still exists, along with the Brady/Manning ones, right?)
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Irrational? I guess it must comforting for NE fans to call it irrational...
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Sure.
Perhaps.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
This one got done to death over and over and there is no good reason to bring it up. No one is going to change their mind on this one. People who think they cheated will probably always think they cheated. People who don't will also probably always think they got unfairly punished. Short of a death bed confession by Belichick or someone spilling the beans one way or another (or Goodell recanting the punishment) this one isn't going to be resolved either way. There is no point rehashing it.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Would he trade Brady for 3 number ones from any of the non-competetive 20 teams? How many (#1's) would it take?
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I think a bigger question might be how many #2s and/or #3s it would take. The Patriots and Colts--the two teams with top star QBs entering the second half of their careers, and a very long history of being (one of the) best--are both good enough teams to prefer a high 2nd/low 1st. Maybe something like two 1st, three 2nd, two 3rd and try to trade the 1st round picks into the back half of the round to pick up even more?
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
That doesn't really fit the Pats' MO under Belichick. On each occasion they've had a top ten draft pick, they've exercised a top ten draft pick - and knocked it out of the park in the form of Seymour and Mayo. High first round picks are a very good thing if your talent evaluation is good enough, especially if you need a new franchise quarterback.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Every year, along with New England, the media puts Pittsburgh, Indy, Philly, etc... up on a pedestal. They also immerse us in New York's teams, Dallas, Green Bay, Oakland and others. We get overindulged in other players and coaches - the Mannings, Favre, Owens, Ocho Cinco, Ray Lewis, Andy Reid, etc...now we can't seem to hear enough about Singletary, Harbaugh, Brees, Peterson. They're great, but you'll think it's too much in the near future.
How commenters here and at other sites choose to react to New England is very telling. It truly appears as an emotional reaction that attempts to simplify how another team can somehow be consistently good and make deep playoff runs, beating many teams along the way.
It seems so obtuse to keep blaming your own team's failures on defensive handsignals videotaped from plain view. Especially when the team won 17 consecutive games afterwards. If it keeps you dumb and happy, fine, but all I see when I read your words is fear.
The best comments that come out of here, to me, are the ones that discuss the good things - Arizona's SB run last year, the Giants improbable run the previous year, Indy's consistently good offensive attack, Pittsburgh's consistent defensive attack.
Writing something negative about these things without making a sound argument and hitting "post comment" is a waste. It would save us all time by typing your name and following it up with "is a knucklehead." Then post the comment.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
That last paragraph is fantastic
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Well said. The emotion just interferes with any attempt to find insight.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Yeah, 18-1 was awesome... hope they had that trademarked.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Ha you're helping me make my point. Please refer to my post again to understand what you are. Too funny.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I know this was just a throwaway dig from an internet troll, but what can I say? It made me think. And, yes, it kind of was. As a fan, I would have loved for them to win the Superbowl, and I'm sure that every player on the team would have traded the undefeated regular season for the ring in an instant, but it was still a great season to watch. Given that the vast majority of any teams seasons are going to end without a Superbowl victory, I'll take one that was exciting and absorbing any year over one that's just boring (or crushingly bad). I've watched so many terrible Patriots teams that watching an insanely good one was a joy, even if the season ended on an incredible down note.
But then, I've never been one to buy into the "If it wasn't a championship year, it was a waste" mentality, so take it for what it's worth.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Three things stick out to me from this interview:
1) the dicussiion on kid's sport. BB is willing to keep in his displeasure about what happens in the games. That's how every parent, and every coach should act. I read a Mangini Jets interview where he said that one of the key things he learned under BB was learning to communicate with players in the midst of games, without displaying positive or negative emotions. (Admittedly Art Shell used to do that on the Raider's sideline and he got slated for it).
2) In the QB discussion ... BB finds out what players do well and then get them to do it more often. Basically he fits the system to the players rather than trying to fit players into a system. Despite this being one of the most obvious things out there, you'll still see many coaches trying to do the latter.
3) The final paragraph about keeping out of your own way and only really competing with 10 other teams while the remainder shoot themselves in the foot.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Every player on the Patriot's team should immediately demand a trade. It's just completely unfair and dishonest that a coach would even consider trading any of his players. It's worked out great for me!
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Interesting forum today. However the gravity of tangent is pulling many off the subject. The bottom line is Belicheck is a consummate professional. He doing what he is paid to do. He's good at what he does. He doesn't owe any opponent or opponent's fans any apologies or concessions.
According to 'Anonymous Jones' profile, every military strategist is a sociopath too. Any strategist for that matter must be a scheming deviant gremlin.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I couldn't give a bleep for the bleeping Colts and their injured players or whining fans. My preference is that
Bob Sanders get run over by a cement mixer. Actually, if the entire team died in a plane crash on their way to a game that would suit me fine. Better yet, if the entire team
went berserk, took AK-47's with them to the airport, and gunned down the entire city of Indianapolis, then were captured and went on trial which was broadcast all over the country so the entire city of Indianapolis and all their fans could be humiliated into killing themselves, that would be fine with me. They deserve it after their whining GM initiated the rule change so their sensitive, delicate homosexual receivers wouldn't be hurt too much by the big bad Patriots defenders.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Please die in a fire.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Wait, i'm confused. So after the team guns down the "entire city of Indianapolis" with assault rifles, who is left in the "entire city of Indianapolis" to kill themselves over the humiliating trial?
Also, just because Marvin Harrison is a good shot, doesn't mean the rest of the Colts are.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I'm really torn between #59 and #65. Both confront the issue welland work on multiple levels. 59 is an instant-response, polite gut-punch utterly dismissive of the underlying idiocy. 65 applies rationality in an academic attempt to deconstruct whatever underlying logic might be found in that cesspool of dead braincells, but appears to understand that it's a doomed effort from the start.
Unless the first post was a joke, which I am kind of hoping... but if so, the poster is surely playing it straight (getthe pun?).
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I second that, and would also like to point out that Bob Sanders would not be run over by a truck. He would run over the truck and destroy it but get injured in the process. (This Bob Sanders phenomenon is similar to the Rodney Harrison phenomenon, where Harrison's teammate would destroy the truck, and Harrison would pile on at full speed 5 seconds later and injure himself and one other teammate.) And the AK-47 bit is subject to the Freeney Corollary, where citizens of Indianapolis can not be hit by bullets due to their whirlwind spin move.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Are the citizens of indy also prone to running right by things?
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
More likely than the Freeney Corollary, the mayor of Indy will complain the 7.62 slugs are being too aggressive with their citizens, and penalties will be haphazardly assessed on any rounds that appear to come too close to the citizenry. Apology letters for overzealous enforcement will be issued after the AK-47s have been eliminated from contention.
Rodney Harrison will hire Michael Irvin's acting coach and publicly implore his children not to follow his path. He'll tell them to use only league-approved performance-enhancers to recover from injury and continue separating back-up tight ends from their coccyges 5 yards out of bounds in the 4th quarter of blowouts.
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
Seriously, Julio, tell us how you REALLY feel.
Good CAPTCHA again: Pele punt
Re: Belichick: Every Player Has A Trade Price
I always felt that Belichick screwed the Jets with his "yes I'll take the job today", and then his "no, I don't want the job" the next. Him getting caught cheating just sort of reinforced the negative feelings that a lot of Jets fans already had toward him after he left us at the altar. So I 'spose everyone has their own rationale for disliking the slimy little worm... but I'm just sayin' ...
Not accept one day, reject the next
Let's get the sequencing straight. BB did not accept the HC of the NYJ job one day and then turn it down the next. He was there as DC from 1997 to 1999 under a contract that said when Tuna quit BB would automatically become HC. Tuna moved upstairs and on the day BB was to be subsequently introduced as HC of the NYJ, he resigned.
The buzz in the Boston press at the time was that Kraft was trying to hire BB away from the Jets and Tuna quit as HC to activate BB's automatic promotion, thus blocking the Pats from hiring BB.
And as we all know, the NFL ruled BB was under contract and the Pats had to pay compensation to hire BB.
Re: Not accept one day, reject the next
Best draft pick the Patriots ever spent.
Re: Not accept one day, reject the next
ON the head. Belichick never directly accepted the Jets job, it was more of an indirect consequence of Parcells's strategy.
At the time, and who can blame him, Belichick was wary of the ownership change Hess had just died and there was instability at ownership.
I went looking for a quote I recall where Belichick criticized someone from the Jets organization by saying something to the effect of "there is no one who knows less about football than" and I think it was Steve Gutman.
But i did come across this gem from the Sporting News Jan. 17th 2000:
"Why any team would want to hire this man as a head coach is baffling. Why Patriots owner Bob Kraft apparently is willing to give Belichick more power than he was willing to give Bill Parcells is beyond all reason. Belichick is a coaching testament to Laurence J. Peter's theory. Known as the Peter Principle, it states that in any hierarchy, a person tends to rise to the level of his incompetence. Just because Belichick is a great defensive coordinator doesn't mean he can be an effective head coach. In fact, he already has been an awful head coach in a five-year run with the Browns. It is possible that he has learned from his mistakes and would be a different head coach, but it's also possible that a pig will learn to use silverware."
Re: Not accept one day, reject the next
Who said that? Wrong Borges?
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