Andrew Brandt of the National Football Post gave an interview and discussed why he doesn't blame the Packers for going after free agents to appease Brett Favre [1]...
“Well why is there a philosophy? Because that philosophy has been practiced by a lot of people in the past and has proven to be somewhat successful… Listen there are extremes. I mean there are teams that go and make the big splashes every year, one of them in Washington, D.C., and the success has not been there. Clearly it is a correlation between winning and spending has not been clear. That is kind of the biggest reasons to avoid free agency. Let me say it again, there has not been a proven correlation in the NFL between spending and winning. When you make that statement then you can see why people avoid big spending in free agency, why people avoid big spending in trades, etc. When the Vikings made the acquisition of Jared Allen [2] and paid him the highest contract in defensive ends at the time and gave up top draft choices. You can say what you want about that deal they ended up into the playoffs but they ended up in a place where they probably didn’t want to end up last year. This year they have started out very strong so I think what philosophy rings true but listen there are philosophies that win and philosophies that lose and I don’t think it is proven that one is a formula that excludes the other.”
Links:
[1] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/player/15811/brett-favre
[2] http://www.footballoutsiders.com/player/15318/jared-allen