For 20 years, the New England Patriots consciously bought free will, dipping a toe, a foot, rarely an entire leg in the water. In the off-season, Bill Belichick plunged headlong, spreading money abundantly.
A cocktail of favorable circumstances put the Pats in a unique position to boast at the free agency. And a desperate need to infuse a list full of holes provided the impetus.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft told Peter King for his Football morning in America column that the overspending was a calculated gamble from the club generally stingy.
“It’s like investing in the stock market,” said Kraft. “You take advantage of market corrections and inefficiencies when you can, and that’s what we did here. We’ll see. Nothing is guaranteed and I am very aware of that. But we are not in the business to be in business. We are in this business to win. “
With the salary cap falling for the first time in more than a decade, most teams were stuck on how much they could spend. The Pats, meanwhile, had a lot of money to distribute – $ 69 million to start the free agency, the third largest in the NFL. With less competition this year, New England could arrest players who could have been beaten.
“We had the second or third highest limit at the start of the free agency,” Kraft told King. “This year, instead of having 10 or 12 teams competing for most of the best players, there were only two or three. And in my 27 years as an owner, I’ve never had to raise so much capital before.”
With several deals not yet officially accounted for, the Patriots have already secured more than $ 162 million. Ultimately, it is likely that Belichick distributed more than $ 172 million in guaranteed cash, which, as beat writer ESPN Mike Reiss has pointed out, is the amount Kraft paid for the club when he bought it in 1994.
The Patriots spent a total of $ 24.4 million ($ 7.8 million guaranteed) on 15 free agent hires in 2020, according to Spotrac. His biggest signing, defender Beau Allen, came in a $ 7 million deal in total value. In 2021, the Patriots spent more than $ 250 million on contracts with 15 players. The team also signed nine-player contracts worth a total of at least $ 7 million for Allen, according to NFL Research. Three Patriots hires this offseason came with price tags of at least $ 25 million in guaranteed cash, which is more than the entire free agent class of 2020 combined.
The Patriots throwing money around to fix mistakes made in recent projects are out of character, but are calculated. Kraft knows that his club is betting high that the money spent will be rewarded. Most teams that win in March stay at home in January.
“We’ll see,” said Kraft with some caution. “I remember that we always made fun of teams that spent a lot in the off-season. So we know that nothing is guaranteed and I am very aware of that.”