Bill Belichick made plenty of headlines with his recent candid comments about the New England Patriots' salary cap limitations during the offseason.
The Patriots head coach told Charlie Weis on SiriusXM NFL Radio the team has played young players more this season than in the past because of the salary cap situation. He doubled down on those remarks Monday on WEEI, stating "we sold out and won three Super Bowls."
One important detail Belichick left out is New England's less-than-stellar drafts in recent years. While Belichick is correct that the Patriot's cap limitations affected their ability to build a competitive roster for 2020, poor drafting is part of what got them in that situation.
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Albert Breer of The MMQB discussed Belichick's comments Monday on Boston Sports Tonight .
"They're carrying $30 million in dead cap this year. Just in case you don't know what that means, 30 of the 200 million dollars against the salary cap right now for the New England Patriots is devoted to players who are no longer on the team," Breer said. "And that's a result of mortgaging the last few years. So Bill is not lying, like that's what's going on. It's affected the depth of their roster, they can't build the same way.
"One thing that you are doing when you're talking about that is you're side-stepping part of the issue, which is you haven't drafted very well. Which is why you have to pay more for players. Which is why you had to hold onto guys into their 30s. Which is why you had to mortgage so many contracts. If you draft well, you have cheap young talent on your roster and you're able to avoid these sorts of things. A big part of where they are is that they did mortgage contracts and they did go all in the last few years, but the reason they had to do it is because they didn't draft very well. Now all those chickens are coming home to roost."
New England Patriots
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Breer adds he was caught off guard by Belichick making these thoughts public, considering how calculated he usually is during his interviews.
"I do think Bill is giving his own version of events here, and I do think there's some blood on his hands when it comes to it," Breer said. "I'm not surprised he thinks it, I'm not surprised that he might say it privately, I am surprised he would say it publicly because I always felt like when he's talking publicly he's not talking to us in the media, he's talking through us to the locker room. I'm not real sure what message this sends that group of people."
The Patriots (2-5) will look ahead to a Monday Night Football matchup vs. the winless New York Jets. They'll hope to put an end to their four-game losing streak.