Bill Belichick believes salary cap spending is more important than cash spending

BOSTON -- You may recall a rather eye-opening comment from Bill Belichick after last season ended without a Patriots playoff appearance, as the head coach/de facto general manager stated that the Patriots were one of the lowest cash-spending teams in the NFL over a three-year period.

That comment prompted owner Robert Kraft to state that he has never placed limits on cash spending and that Belichick has always been allowed to operate the football business as he wishes. Belichick himself clarified his comments, too, saying that his cash-spending comment had nothing to do with ownership's financial commitment to the football team.

Now seven months later, Belichick has once again opened up on his philosophy of cash spending vs. salary cap spending, adding some detail to that statement from January.

"Cash spending isn't really that relevant. It's cap spending," Belichick said on WEEI's Greg Hill Show. "So teams that spend a lot of cash one year probably don't spend a lot of cash in the next year, because you just can't sustain that. So we've had high years, we've had low years, but our cap spending has always been high. And that's the most competitive position you can be in. So that's really -- the cash spending, there's no cash cap. There's a salary cap and we spend to the salary cap, that's what's important."

When pressed on the Patriots' philosophy of not going "all in" with cash spending, Belichick said such an approach is not sustainable. 

"Temporarily you can. You can't sustain it, no. I mean you can't sustain the 20 years of success that we sustained by overspending every year without having to eventually pay those bills and play with a lesser team," he said. "So I think if you look at the teams that have done that, that's kind of where some of them ended up. Jacksonville back in '14, the Rams are going through it, Tampa's going through it now. Not saying there's anything right or wrong with it, it's just a different way of doing things, and there's a result for doing that."

According to Over The Cap, the Bucs have over $75 million dead money on their books in 2023, with the Rams not far behind with over $74 million. More than $35 million of the Bucs' dead money comes from Tom Brady's contract. The Patriots were left with dead money after Brady left New England, too, but that was a $13.5 million charge.

Belichick acknowledged that the salary cap will be going up in the next two or three years, but he noted that the COVID year led to minimal increases over the past few years. Thus, the Patriots' spending philosophy -- or, more accurately, Belichick's preferred method of running the franchise -- has not shifted significantly.

"The cap's more relevant than cash is, for sure," he stated. "You want to use all your cap space and put the best team you can on the field. So whether that's paying more cash this year and less next year, or less this year and more next year, is really ... to me it doesn't have a lot to do with the cap spending. If you're not spending to your cap, then that means you could have players that you're choosing not to have. Whereas if you spend to your cap, you've fully exhausted all of your spending. But again that comes over time. You can't look at it in Polaroid snapshots. It's a multi-year process. So you can overspend one year, then at some point, you're not going to be able to do that."

On the one hand, the explanation of such a key philosophy is always appreciated. On the other hand, it does represent another callback to the glory days that don't feel as relevant to the present day. While the Patriots did sustain an unbelievable level of success for 20 years, they did that with Brady as their quarterback. Since he's left the franchise, the team has gone 25-25 in the regular season with just one playoff appearance: a blowout loss in Buffalo.

Belichick and the Patriots felt the sting of dead cap space in 2020, when they had the third-highest number in the NFL. A 7-9 season ensued. The team spent big on free agents the following offseason, but the sustained success has certainly not been recaptured. 

At 71 years old, Belichick's long-term plans in New England remain unknown to outsiders. Yet as he mentioned, the salary cap will be going up significantly in the coming years. A change in approach will likely be necessary for the Patriots to return to their former ways of contending for a Super Bowl on a regular basis.