| |  Small payroll doesn't hamper Patriots
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
NEW ORLEANS -- One of the several New England Patriots veterans plucked off
the NFL scrap heap last summer, and signed to a bargain basement contract
far below what he earned in the past, wide receiver Charles Johnson insisted
Tuesday morning that taking a bus to a Super Bowl news conference actually
beats driving a Brink's truck up to the bank loading dock.
"They can take the money away from you but, no matter what else happens,
they can't take away the experience of being a part of this game," said
Johnson, a starter for the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XXX. "I know
people will laugh, and so be it, but this is bigger than money. This is a
team that plays for the sake of playing and not for what the numbers say on
the paycheck."
Sure enough, one of the most compelling features of the Patriots' success in
2001 is that it was achieved with the second-smallest payroll in the league,
and that no one can ever accuse owner Bob Kraft of having attempted to buy
himself a championship.
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QBs - Quantity or quality?
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Here are the salaries for the possible Super Bowl starters. Total package is listed first, followed by 2001 salary.
Drew Bledsoe
10 years, $103M, ($3.4M)
Kurt Warner
Seven years, $46.5M, ($1.5M)
Tom Brady
Three years, $849,000, ($298K)
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According to NFL Players Association salary documents obtained by ESPN.com,
the two Super Bowl teams are nose-to-nose in salary cap charges, with the
Rams at $67.405 million and the Pats at $66.253 million. But in terms of
team payroll, the actual dollars paid out to players in salaries and
bonuses, the franchises hardly operated in the same financial neighborhood
in the '01 season.
The projected payroll for New England was $49.620 million, the NFLPA
documents revealed, and only the Dallas Cowboys ($44.167 million) ranked
lower than that. The numbers probably were adjusted slightly by season's
end, because many of the New England veterans cashed in on
performance-related incentives, but even those bonuses likely did not
much affect the team's relative standing. The next-to-last ranking in the
league payroll sweepstakes is believed to be the lowest for a Super Bowl
team in the last dozen years.
By comparison, the St. Louis Rams spent about $66.577 million in salary
costs, the 12th-highest total in the league.
That's not to suggest that the Patriots did things on the cheap, or that the
Rams were excessive in their spending habits, but rather that New England
operated with a tough cap status entering the season, revenues below the
league average, and an eye on fiscal responsibility. It also helped that the
team had addressed in prior seasons the issue of retaining key veteran
performers like strong safety Lawyer Milloy, cornerback Ty Law and defensive
end Willie McGinest.
New England simply was in a period when it did not have to re-sign most
veterans beyond Drew Bledsoe, and his bonus and that of first-round
defensive tackle Richard Seymour represented the team's biggest outlays.
The payroll disparity of $17 million-plus -- most of it in signing bonuses
for new players, where the Rams paid out more than $25 million and the Pats less
than $10 million -- is paramount to the point spread for Super Bowl XXXVI,
with the oddsmakers installing St. Louis as a prohibitive favorite. But
Kraft and Patriots senior vice president Andy Wasynczuk, who negotiates most
contracts for the club, can clearly stretch a dollar the way the St. Louis
passing attack can stretch the field.
Oddly enough, the New England player with the highest salary for this season
($11.4 million) and the highest cap charge ($6.936 million) is Bledsoe, who
started in just two games during the season and is likely to give way again
to Tom Brady in the championship game. On the flip side, Brady had a cap
charge of just $314,993.
"All season long this has been a team with very little ego, one that puts
the team's goals ahead of the individual ones, and I think (the payroll)
reflects that," coach Bill Belichick said. "There are some guys who made
financial sacrifices to play for us, who took a lot less money to come here,
and it didn't seem to matter to any of them. The selflessness of this bunch
is part of what makes this team so much fun to be around."
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“ |
Sometimes it comes down to pride over money. Money isn't everything and when a person understands that, in any walk of life, it makes him a lot happier, I think. You look at our locker room and guys aren't among the highest paid players in the league, but we're all having a hell of a good time. ” |
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— Terrell Buckley, Patriots cornerback |
This is hardly a new story, a Super Bowl in which one entry outspends the
other by a significant amount, and has a large payroll advantage. The
Baltimore Ravens in 2000 featured a payroll of more than $90 million and the New
York Giants checked in at about $30 million less than that. Denver had much
larger payrolls than its opponents in Super Bowl XXXII (Green Bay) and Super
Bowl XXXIII (Atlanta).
Few teams, however, have done so much with so little as the Patriots,
especially in light of all the mid-level veterans added during the
offseason.
"Sometimes it comes down to pride over money," said New England cornerback
Terrell Buckley. "Money isn't everything and when a person understands that,
in any walk of life, it makes him a lot happier, I think. You look at our
locker room and guys aren't among the highest paid players in the league,
but we're all having a hell of a good time."
Of the 53 players on the New England active roster, 43 have cap values of
less than $1 million and just three are in excess of $3 million. St. Louis
has a half-dozen players with cap values of $3 million or more and 27
players at under $1 million. That is indicative, in part, of an offseason in
which the Pats signed 21 free agent veterans, with only guard Mike Compton
pulling in a deal worth more than $1 million for 2001.
No matter the largesse of the organization, though, both teams are in the
big game and when the kickoff occurs, no one is going to be concerned about
dollars signs.
"When I'm rushing the quarterback, I don't guess I'll be thinking about how
much more money (Rams left tackle) Orlando Pace is making than I am," Patriots linebacker Roman Phifer said. "It doesn't make a difference to me. If I
walk out of here with a (Super Bowl) ring on my finger, believe me, that
will be priceless."
Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.
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