Projo Sports Blog

Online columnist and TV talking head Jay Mariotti has written that the Patriots' trade of Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel to Scott Pioli's Kansas City Chiefs is a "sweetheart deal" that should be investigated by the National Football League.

Mariotti writes: First it was Spygate, the espionage caper that left a permanent cheating smear on [Bill] Belichick's legacy after the Patriots illegally videotaped opponents' defensive signals. Now we have the Pioli Scheme, a suspicion that Belichick's relationship with his close pal and dearly departed partner in dynasty glory, new Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli, contributed to a ridiculously soft compensation package in their Saturday deal.

Mariotti, who opines that Roger Goodell's one serious transgression as NFL commissioner was his failure to punish Belichick more severely over Spygate, charges that the trade was basically a gift to Pioli to set him up with a winning team in 2009.

Two problems: Number one -- Cassel does not set the Chiefs up as a winning team for next season, not with the horrendous defense they had last season. (Vrabel won't do much to help a defense that was 31st in the NFL last season -- giving up a whopping 393 yards per game.) And would Belichick really sacrifice his own team's success to help out a former colleague? Is there any history of this behavior whatsoever from Belichick, who has friends and proteges all over the league? If he is as competitive as everyone says he is, wouldn't he be much more concerned about guaranteeing that the Patriots' run of success continues than he would be with helping Scott Pioli appear like a genius, so that he can eventually take credit for it all?

There are surely better explanations than this to explain a trade that could really end up helping both teams. The Chiefs get a promising quarterback who will be the new face of their franchise; the Patriots get a high second-round draft pick (just barely outside the first round) and they get millions freed up that they will not have to spend on a backup quarterback. They would have had to pay a higher draft pick more, which means they now have more resources available to pursue a big-ticket free agent.

It's not inconceivable that Cassel's franchise deal, while guaranteeing the Patriots compensation for losing him, reduced his appeal to teams in the long run. There is a lot of reason to be skeptical that Cassel is really worth that much money on the basis of one strong season, leading one of the best offenses in NFL history. In the end, there are two people we know of who wanted to take the chance: Pioli and Josh McDaniels. It worked out for Pioli. Hardly seems worth an investigation.

 Tags  Bill Belichick Jay Mariotti Matt Cassel New England Patriots Scott Pioli

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