Saving money may be costly

By Ron Borges, Globe Staff, 9/3/2003

Last Thursday, less than 24 hours after the Patriots' final exhibition game, Lawyer Milloy was confronted by team management and told that if he didn't take a pay cut of roughly $1.5 million this season, he would be released by 4 p.m. Tuesday, according to sources close to Milloy. After 48 hours of wrangling with Milloy's agents, Carl and Kevin Poston, the four-time Pro Bowl selection refused to blink, and so today he is unemployed. That is what a contract means in the National Football League.

An NFL contract is not worth the paper it is written on, if you are the athlete who signs it. If you are the team, it is an ironclad deal that binds a player to you for the length of the agreement, but if you are an athlete who takes the risk of being paralyzed every Sunday, a contract means nothing unless you have enough guaranteed money in it to break the back of the team's salary cap if you are released.

That is why Milloy is gone today and Ty Law is still here, but Law will be gone by next year because he consistently has refused entreaties to reduce his pay and has made it abundantly clear to management that he will never take "one bleeping penny less," as he told the team at least once, than it originally agreed to pay him.

As for Milloy, despite what some will whisper about how his play has slipped or how he was out after hours too often or how he was a bad influence on young quarterback Tom Brady, who was often out at all hours with him, the fact is this was a money decision and nothing more.

Yesterday, Patriots coach Bill Belichick said cutting Milloy was one of the hardest things he ever had to do. He said it had to happen because the team was over the salary cap. Only Belichick knows if the first statement is true, but the second, though accurate, was far from the whole truth. The Patriots were under the cap when they cut down to 53 players Monday, but that was because the cap was then based on the pay of the top 51 players on their roster. As of today, it is based on every contract they are carrying, including those of players on injured reserve. Yet to say that is why Milloy had to go is like saying water damage is the reason a house that just caught on fire is worthless.

To imply that the only way around the cap problem was to whack Milloy is nonsensical, just as it would be absurd to think Patriots management didn't see this coming for quite some time.

Teams regularly work out a host of scenarios during training camp to understand the implications of cutting or retaining various players once the accounting shift goes into effect. To think for one minute that Belichick and Andy Wasynczuk didn't know this was coming is to imply incompetence running numbers, which is not the case.

The fact is, Belichick long ago decided Milloy was overpaid and he was determined to do something about it. If they wanted to retain Milloy, the Patriots could have simply guaranteed his base salary of $4.4 million, thus turning it into a bonus, and that would have spread it out over future years and reduced his cap number. Instead, they chose to put his feet to the fire, knowing he would never accept what they were demanding. Then they fired him.

The actual process of dumping Milloy began last spring when, as first reported in the Globe and hotly denied at the time, the Patriots shopped him and Tebucky Jones around the league. They traded Jones in April to the Saints for two draft choices.

They tried again to trade Milloy over the past week but found no takers because at this time of year most teams are more concerned with getting their roster down to 53 than they are with adding a player whose cap cost would be $5.8 million and whose base salary would bust many teams' caps.

Now, the Patriots don't have to pay Milloy for this season, a savings of $4.4 million, but his remaining bonus money is prorated onto their cap over this season and the next. More significant, though, may be that they face the possibility of Milloy being in Buffalo Sunday but in the employ of the Bills -- and with the Patriots getting no compensation.

The Jets, Bengals, Seahawks, Lions, Chargers, and Redskins also were talking to the Postons about Milloy yesterday, with Milloy hinting that he might give a hometown discount to Seattle. Wherever he ends up, this will very likely cost him some money, but he is a prideful man who would rather play for less elsewhere than let a team for which he started 106 consecutive games cut his pay when he is coming off a fourth Pro Bowl season.

Much will be made in some corners about Milloy having no sacks, no interceptions, no forced fumbles, and no fumble recoveries last season. Some will argue this was a sign of slippage and that he is no longer the player he once was. Much the same was said about Drew Bledsoe before he went to Buffalo and returned to the Pro Bowl while leading a team with no defense to within one game of the AFC East title in his first season there. To trash a player on the way out the door is the rule, not the exception, in New England and around the NFL.

But one league source whose team is pursuing Milloy and had several conversations with the Postons yesterday said four of his players encouraged him to sign the safety. "They told me Lawyer Milloy was the best player they ever played against," he said. "Not the best player on the Patriots. The best player they ever played against. How do they replace a guy like that?"

Milloy is only 29, he is in the best shape of his life, and mentally he was prepared for what happened, although he thought it would not happen until the end of this season. He was poised for a big season, one fueled by the anger he felt over being disrespected by his own team, so understand this: Regardless of what you may hear or read in the next few days, the Patriots' defense is not as strong today as it was Monday.

The firing of good players to avoid paying them what you agreed to pay them is seldom a good policy long-term. Not only does Milloy's departure create a significant hole in the secondary, it will also have an effect in the locker room, where Milloy was clearly the team leader.

Even Belichick said, "You really don't replace a player like that. He has an element of toughness and leadership and dependability that has been a standard. They are big shoes to fill."

That was clear by the way many of Milloy's teammates took the news yesterday. One said, "I don't want to say anything right now because I shouldn't say what I'm thinking."

Milloy has been angry about the way the Patriots treated him since last spring, when he first came to believe they were trying to trade him. He's been angry about the way he feels his zeroes across the board last year have been used against him; he was often asked to stay off the line and was sent to rush the passer less frequently than in previous seasons, two things that led directly to the diminution of his statistics.

He remained angry most of the summer, and yesterday the world saw why. He was angry because he knew what was coming. He knew it last Thursday when he was given an ultimatum at the worst time of the year -- when nearly every team in the league is out of money.

Yet, in the end, there is more at risk for Belichick than Milloy because if Belichick cannot find an adequate replacement, both on the field and in the locker room, it will be something people remember for a long time. Milloy, meanwhile, knows he will have a job in a day or two. He may even be waiting for the Patriots and Belichick at Ralph Wilson Stadium Sunday.

If he is, I would not want to be Troy Brown or Deion Branch or David Patten coming across the middle of the field. And I wouldn't want to be Bill Belichick if there are a couple of Eric Moulds touchdown catches made in the deep middle of New England's defense.