Scott Pioli Explains the Patriots Approach to Free Agency: 'Be Fearful When Others are Greedy, and Greedy When Others are Fearful.'

You say life's got you down? That you feel abandoned and forgotten? Down on your luck? Everyone else seems to have the delivery van pulling up on a daily basis to drop off another package, while you're maxed out.  All your neighbors are tearing the open the packages on their new All Pros and future Hall of Famers while your GM expects you to make do with the same tired old stuff in your shabby, run down place that's suddenly the worst house in the neighborhood? 

You say you want all this doing without to make some sense? That you could use a reason to hope that maybe, just maybe, you too can have nice things again and not live in squalor like those Jets and Jaguars at the end of the street? I have just the pep talk you need.

From co-architect of the Patriots Dynasty, Scott Pioli:

“Player acquisition isn't a sprint; it's a marathon. Just like the season. So last year, the entire league was in a depressed market, so the Patriots went out and spent two years of free agency money, and they received tremendous value. You look at the financial terms of those deals a year later and they look very good. So they’ve done some of this year’s free agency last year. 

"You know, Warren Buffett once said, 'It's wise for investors to be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.' That's how the Patriots have treated free agency going back to when I was there with Willie [McGinest]. It's a core tenet of their football and their business. And this idea of 'All gas and no brakes' is not always the best way to do business. ...

"The first wave of free agency has ended, and we're not into the second wave. And in the second wave, there's a new free agency because once players are signed, players get cut. So now there's more players. After the draft, there will be more players cut. After the 53-man cut, there will be more players available in free agency. So building a football team and building a roster takes a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of patience." 

This is the entire philosophy that has given us everything we've had over the last 20 years. Of course, having the best player to ever live was a huge factor. Along with players that Belichick and Pioli didn't draft, like McGinest, Ty Law, Tedy Bruschi, as well as ones they did, like Richard Seymour, Vince Wilfork and so on. But the core belief system that developed those players, built those rosters, and hung all those banners is in those paragraphs. And I've never heard it expressed so perfectly in so few words. 

I mean, that Warren Buffett quote explains it all. Both last year's approach when New England was one of the few teams that was flush with cash as the salary cap went down for the first time in 10 years, as well as this year, when the cost of doing business is spiking. This year they're fearful because everyone else is greedy; last year everyone was fearful so they were crazy greedy. That's how empires are built and maintained. 

To Pioli's point about the second wave of free agency, consider this list of names that are still available:

It's so illegible because it's so long. Here's hoping you can read this better:

By no means am I suggesting there are Davante Adamses, Von Millers and Chandler Joneses still standing. But there's talent all over the place. Stephon Gilmore, Jadaveon Clowney, Trey Flowers, Bobby Wagner, Tyrann Mattheiu, just to offer a short list. Players who can be significant pieces of a playoff contender, but who weren't targeted in the first wave of the buying orgy. Who represent the type of values with high upside and low risk that Belichick has always been drawn to in order to prevent a situation like the one he and Pioli inherited in 2000 from Bobby Grier and Pete Carroll.

Look, I'm guilty as the next guy of getting caught up in the feeding frenzy of the legal tampering period and the first few days of free agency. I admit that. Especially after 2021, when it was blog after blog that wrote themselves for days on end. That was a fun time. I mean, who doesn't prefer their gratification to be the instant variety? But like an instant food or beverage, the gratification you wait for - that "takes a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of patience" - tends to be better for you. And costs a lot less. 

It's a lesson we all tend to forget to one extent or another every March. But like Pioli says, there's a long way to go and a lot of players are going to be coming available in the days, weeks and months ahead. The second wave is here. The next waves will follow. That's the time when the Patriots foot comes off the brake and back on the gas. I'd say "I can't wait," but after listening to Pioli, we should all be ready to wait as long as it takes.

To put the same philosophy in the words of another financial genius, Baron Rothschild, "The time to buy is when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own."