Hollywood Donahoe

Mangini will do fine, and I certainly won't be losing any sleep over the loss of Charlie "Hey, we're up by 6 at the 2-minute warning...lets pass three times!" Weis.

Haven't you heard? The Pats lost a 37-year-old backup LB and their 4th receiver. They're going to suck this year. The celler is going to hurt worse than ever after so many years on top.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Shameless Homer has a, shall we say, less-than-firm-grasp of the concepts of the NFL's economic and contractual systems.

Uhhh...why? Most NFL teams carry three TEs. Don't hold your breath. The Pats aren't in the business of cutting guys who are still playing out their rookie contacts.

It's two days into free agency. Only a handful of team have signed big names, so the Pats aren't unique in having not yet done so. This fact is compounded by the fact that New England generally doesn't go after big names in the first place. Your logic is extremely flawed. Two days into free agency, a player has gone out of his way to single out new England as a place he'd like to play? How many other players have singled out teams that have not yet contacted them? Not many, I'd say. Again, flawed logic. I don't need to say anything. Your record of prognosticative ineptitude speaks for itself.

So, because one guy's wife prefers Baltimore over New England as a place to live (that's live, not play), you have concluded that no one but Ed Hartwell wants to play for the Patriots anymore. With logic like that, it's no wonder you're always wrong abut everything.

All this based on two days of free agency. Wow.

I'll take that as a concession of the argument. By my estimation, they're somewhere in the middle of their extraordinary run. The young nucleus is still under contract for the next several years, and the cap situation is looking good now that several bad contracts are off the books.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that. He's a solid run blocker, but his "Ole!" blocks in pass protection will not be missed. No argument there. I simply don't consider him a loss since the Pats' secondary was just as good without him last year as they were with him. Agreed.

Again, wake me when we lose a key player. See my previous post. Now you're basing your claims on wild assumptions? Crennel's ready-groomed replacement will be fine, and you should know that I've always been patiently awaiting the overrated Weis's eventual departure. Oh, I will. Because it is.

Oops, brain fart. For what's his worth, his replacement (Hochstein) is also a Super Bowl starter, albiet from the year before. "Probably" is hardly the word I would choose. I doubt Bruschi even knows about his future at this point. And the fact remains that he's still under contract, so he's not "gone" yet. Bottom line, the Pats aren't losing "key players," they're losing old guys on the downside (Brown, Phifer), a mediocre starter (Andruzzi), and a guys who missed the majority of '04 (Law). The core of the team is still very much intact, and the Pats have the cap room to add to it.

You're like a caricature! Tell me, where do you keep your tin-foil hat? Wake me when a "key player" leaves. So far we're returning 22 of 22 Super Bowl starters. Don't let facts get in the way of you delusions, though.

I you hadn't already said this countless times leading up to the Patriots' third Super Bowl win in four years, you might have a tad more credibility. As it stands now, though, you just come off as bitter, hostile, and resentful. Might want to do something about that.

Coming from you, the human reverse barometer, this makes me very optimistic.

$20 million is the total value of the contract. In this case: 5 years, $13 million in salary, $7 million in bonus = $20 million contract

I have no idea what you're talking about. Brown lost no money in this deal. Please read the documentation further if this is not clear to you.

He didn't receive any new upfront money in his '04 restructuring, because that's not how restructuring works. His salary was only $760,000 because the Pats converted the rest into guaranteed bonus to be spread over the life of the contract. The money he got was EXACTLY the same, he just got it sooner, and the team was able to spread parts of it over two years instead of one. Again, this is all common restructuring stuff. Here's the link to some documentation. Scroll down to Brown's May 26, 2004 update.

That not how restructures work. Brown got more money up front in guaranteed bonus, which was then spread over the life of the contract, lessening the '04 cap hit and increasing the '05 cap hit. Brown likely knew that the restructure meant he would be released in '05.

Yes.

I don't know why I'd be on your ignore list, but in any event, I really enjoy your political posts in PPP. Keep fighting the good fight!

All I ask is that you acquire some knowledge about a topic before you attempt to discuss it. Nothing more.

Brown and Phifer were BACKUPS last year and law was on the shelf for well over half the season. The team will be fine without them. Mangini has Belichick's trust and Weis was vastly overrated. Again, your ignorance of the Pats is causing you to make very foolish-sounding claims. Oh, I get it. You're just bitter. Now that I know you're a MadBuffaloDisease-esque troll, I feel rather foolish for treating you as a civilized debating partner. When did I say I was "excited" about Johnson taking Phifer's job? I used that as an example to show how far Phifer had fallen. Here's some advice: Get a !@#$ing clue before you start spouting off on topics about which you know nothing.

Guys get cut all the time, especially older players with high cap costs whose production has fallen dramatically. Your ignorance of the situation has led you to make far too much of it. First off, that affected the team for a week. Second, the Milloy release was far more shocking than this and you know it (at least I hope you do). Many Pats fans have been anticipating Brown's release for over a year now. As sad as we are to see him go, this was certainly no surprise to the vast majority of us. If by "f'd" you mean "released," then yes. Phifer was released. I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that his production had fallen off, that he lost his job to Ted Johnson, and that he is just a few days away from his 37th birthday.

Indeed. Like all NFL fans, we're having a great deal of fun discussing all the various possibilities of both the free agency period and the draft. I wouldn't know. I didn't live in or near Boston.