Gregg, sorry I didn't answer your question last night, had several people over for game. Answering the question I know for a fact, AV is by far the highest paid kicker in NFL currently, this is totally against New England philosophy. I know Patriots offered him "franchise player" contract, which I believe they average top 3 players at your position, and you get that average salary. AV, said that was a insult. New England could have offered him that label, and he would have no choice but to play, or hold out, ultimately what Branch ended up doing. Similar to the Branch situation, management told AV, to investigate and see if he could attain a better deal. Indy offered him a record breaking deal.
New England has a philosophy that is much different than most teams. Sometimes people argue against it, I did when Willie McGinnist left for Cleveland, he was a guy that was drafted by New England, played his entire career here in. And I wish he had the opportunity to stay, but Patriots don't pay a dollar more for somebody, it doesn't matter who they are. It's hard to argue, because they have won 3 Super Bowl s. They look at it like this, since Brady started playing in 2001, by far there are other NFL teams with more talent (stars) than Patriots, but don't win. For example you could easily argue Manning is better than Brady, certainly Harrison, Wayne, and Edge were more talented than Patriots skill players. But from 2001 to present, Indy has zero Super Bowls. They have paid huge dollars for Manning Harrison and Wayne, so much so they couldn't afford to keeps Edge, also the rest of their roster suffers, remember its a 53 man roster, and there is a salary cap involved. That's where New England generally wins, they have no high priced stars, certainly guys like Brady, Seymour, Brueski etc. play like stars, but the definitely aren't paid as such, they take less money, in exchange for winning, that's the sell line Patriots management uses on them, that's why Brady isn't in the top 5 paid quarterbacks. Guys like ty law didn't buy into this philosophy, and ultimately left to make much more money with jets & Kansas City, but he no longer plays in Super Bowls or playoff.
In other words New England uses a smaller percentage of the salary cap on the best 10 players on the team, but if they can get those guys to commit to this, their players 11 through 53 are more talented players. You have seen in past years Indy has absolutely no defense, primarily because they have spent the majority of their money on their offensive all*players, but this hasn't as of yet served their playoff needs yet. Same thing with Seattle, they spend so much money with Alexander, guys like Hutchinson were let go. Those peripherals, or less obvious stars, are still crucial parts of the team. Ultimately AV, refused to be in the average of the top 3 kickers paid. Lots of fans considered him greedy for this. Sometimes its hard to argue, how many million is enough? Adam made lots and lots of money from endorsements in New England also. He had commercials with Ford dealers of New England, and several restaurants etc. I'm sure that money was significant. It's too bad, he seems like a quality guy, he lives in the neighborhood near my parents, everyone says he is a nice guy, just didn't work out. Hope that explains it somewhat
Shamrock
