Salary Cap, Free agency, you name it - the great Miguel explains all

[Hawg73]

And so it's the offseason. The draft is still months away, the games are over and training camp seems like it will never start. Fresh football topics are scarce and do not satiate our appetites for Patriot football so what are we to do?

One thing to do to try and fill in those long winter days would be to go to Miguel's salary cap page and spend a few hours or more crunching the numbers and reading the detailed information available there about free agency rules etc., etc. It is truly an amazing resource and while the financial side of the game makes my eyeballs glaze over I have to admit that some understanding of this stuff is necessary to being able to figure out what is going on down there in Foxboro and be able to really discuss it intelligently. I'm forcing my math-challenged brain to read this stuff and it's slowly starting to sink in.

For those of us who may not be familiar this guy - Miguel has put together an amazing site which breaks down the Patriots money situation to a degree which is truly impressive. He has all kinds of stuff in there and the site is constantly being updated as more info becomes available. The man is a legend and I just wanted to make sure that those that are interested in this stuff are aware of his work and how to find it if interested. The link is below:

www.patsfans.com/miguel/

[Peg]

Hey, Hawg--
Thanks for the heads-up with that link... I won't have time to check it out this week, but maybe next week... I don't know a lot about the whole salary cap side of the game, but I, too, want to endeavor to learn more about it... Thanks again for the info, man! :)

[pookie]

Originally posted by Hawg73
And so it's the offseason. The draft is still months away, the games are over and training camp seems like it will never start. Fresh football topics are scarce and do not satiate our appetites for Patriot football so what are we to do?

One thing to do to try and fill in those long winter days would be to go to Miguel's salary cap page and spend a few hours or more crunching the numbers and reading the detailed information available there about free agency rules etc., etc. It is truly an amazing resource and while the financial side of the game makes my eyeballs glaze over I have to admit that some understanding of this stuff is necessary to being able to figure out what is going on down there in Foxboro and be able to really discuss it intelligently. I'm forcing my math-challenged brain to read this stuff and it's slowly starting to sink in.

For those of us who may not be familiar this guy - Miguel has put together an amazing site which breaks down the Patriots money situation to a degree which is truly impressive. He has all kinds of stuff in there and the site is constantly being updated as more info becomes available. The man is a legend and I just wanted to make sure that those that are interested in this stuff are aware of his work and how to find it if interested. The link is below:

www.patsfans.com/miguel/

Man Hawg, you're not kidding! This Miguel is a plethora of information. He's got to be an out of work accountant or somebody that juggles numbers.

[Hawg73]

Originally posted by FallingAlice
By the way, Hawg, I've been watching Miguel's site for some time....do you think there's any way we can recruit this guy to drop by PatriotsPlanet now and again?

I really have no idea if he'd be interested. From what I can gather from reading his posts he is a pretty serious man and this site is kind of....searching for an adjective.......screwy .

Whenever he is asked a question he seems very accomodating and like a good dude. Maybe, but somehow I can't picture him trying to beat out Undertaker in the girlie pic department.

Maybe if the chat room was actually active here we could set a time and have a little chalktalk session with him. I'm not even sure it works. I'll have to see if I can get into it since there is a link to it on the main entry to this site. I tried once and couldn't get in and have kind of forgotten it.

Maybe we could experiment with it sometime and take it for a test drive and then invite Miguel over at a predetermined time as a guest star. I might have to study his site some before I would be able to ask any insightful questions, but I'm sure he would have a lot to offer.

[Hawg73]

Originally posted by FallingAlice
I like that idea a LOT. Do you think you could set something up and make an announcement? If he could do it, I would definitely show up with questions....assuming it's not a Wednesday, Thursday or Sunday night. (Hockey.)

I don't know the guy, but would be willing to drop him an Email and ask. It would be nice to have feedback from a few others as to what a good time would be for them etc.

I had a few thoughts about this:

1. I think the chat room is functional but not sure. It took forever to get it to move and I would like to try it with somebody else but nobody usually goes in there.

2. I can't really commit to a time right now since wifey-poo thinks that I spend too much time on here and I might need to hide in the weeds for a while or get a divorce. I'm leaning towards the former. Maybe in a few weeks she will forget about it.

3. I've never participated in one of these things - not even sure if the chat room is the way to go. Maybe some feedback on bbs vs. chatroom would clarify the question.

4. Things are kind of dead in the FA world right now (free agency, not FallingAlice). Would a more optimum time be around June 1 when the cap cuts kick in and interest is peaking or would another time be best?

Just a few thoughts. If I am going to invite somebody to participate it would be nice to have a clue as to what to expect. For all I know, he has never done it either. Have you ever been in say, the Patriots.com chat room? It can be really confusing and some kind of framework might be a solid idea or Miguel could get bombarded with questions and have the whole thing fizzle.

If things go well he would be more likely to return sometime.

Maybe a dry run where you pose as the guest and we pepper you with questions about goaltending or something and get the wrinkles out.

Originally posted by Hawg73
I don't know the guy, but would be willing to drop him an Email and ask. It would be nice to have feedback from a few others as to what a good time would be for them etc.

I had a few thoughts about this:

1. I think the chat room is functional but not sure. It took forever to get it to move and I would like to try it with somebody else but nobody usually goes in there.

2. I can't really commit to a time right now since wifey-poo thinks that I spend too much time on here and I might need to hide in the weeds for a while or get a divorce. I'm leaning towards the former. Maybe in a few weeks she will forget about it.

3. I've never participated in one of these things - not even sure if the chat room is the way to go. Maybe some feedback on bbs vs. chatroom would clarify the question.

4. Things are kind of dead in the FA world right now (free agency, not FallingAlice). Would a more optimum time be around June 1 when the cap cuts kick in and interest is peaking or would another time be best?

Just a few thoughts. If I am going to invite somebody to participate it would be nice to have a clue as to what to expect. For all I know, he has never done it either. Have you ever been in say, the Patriots.com chat room? It can be really confusing and some kind of framework might be a solid idea or Miguel could get bombarded with questions and have the whole thing fizzle.

If things go well he would be more likely to return sometime.

Maybe a dry run where you pose as the guest and we pepper you with questions about goaltending or something and get the wrinkles out.



Hmmmm. Sounds interesting. I kind of like the idea of someone playing the "Visiting Dignitary" while the rest of us pepper them with questions. However, do we even know that this guy WANTS to do something like this? For all we know he is a well meaning bean counter who is simply fascinated/obsessed with the Pats salary cap. He could be a complete head case. That would be even more fun. Let's do it.

[pookie]

Originally posted by NoRespect
Hmmmm. Sounds interesting. I kind of like the idea of someone playing the "Visiting Dignitary" while the rest of us pepper them with questions. However, do we even know that this guy WANTS to do something like this? For all we know he is a well meaning bean counter who is simply fascinated/obsessed with the Pats salary cap. He could be a complete head case. That would be even more fun. Let's do it.

He was posting on patriots.com the other day.