[Doug Kyed] Patriots owner said, regarding WR Calvin Ridley, it wasn’t because of finance that they didn’t land him in free agency. “Clearly his girlfriend wanted to be in the south.” Also mentions tax situation, though the Patriots were “willing to keep going” and QB situation.

36 comments

1. Basically all the reports leading up to it made it sound like he wasn’t all that interested in coming here.

2. If I were Ridley I’d tell my girlfriend to get her own damn NFL career. The rest of the points, pretty valid

3. For reference, Ridley’s contract among WRs is the:

   6th highest in total value

   10th in APY

   11th in total guarantees

   So we would have had to offer a non-insignificant boost *over* that to get him to consider. I’m glad they didn’t.

4. Maybe the fiancé had a small amount to do with it, but it was absolutely more about the QB situation and lack of talent on the offensive side of the ball.

   You guys can downvote all you want, but Ridley said the money, offense in Tennessee, and Hopkins were the factors that drew him to Tennessee.

5. HAHA I’ll take FA Sports lies ever told for $200 please

6. Trade for Aiyuk or Tee Higgins. Now.

7. Wanting to remain in the south seems so bizarre to me.

8. >wasn’t because of finance

   Ok, so did you offer the best offer?

   No? Okay, then you don’t know that. Thanks Rob.

9. Wife, not girlfriend, wife. Kraft is so out of touch

10. Gonna be a while before anyone wants to come here. Hitting on a QB at three is the only thing that speeds that up

11. Rubert’s shell game is strong.

12. Seems to know quite a bit for a guy who claims to not be involved in football decisions

13. Cut that shit out. He leveraged us into getting a stupid team to give him more guaranteed cash in a state that has better tax breaks. 

    He was never coming to Foxborough, and I’ll laugh when he sucks with Tennessee. 

14. I’m going with the theory that Bob just saved himself 460,000 tuggers at $50/tug. Can never be too careful with that money Bob. Don’t worry about spending anything to improve the offense!

    But actually this is the Krafts attempting to set this as a base level excuse for everytime they lowball a FA and they don’t want to come. Just blame the weather and the taxes and the women. Definitely not just an unwillingness to be the highest bidder.

15. He’s married…not that hard of a google.

16. Now where were these kind of reports when players sign else where during Belichick era?

17. Why pay that much for Ridley when you could have MHJ at 3?

    Im biased because I want MHJ so bad haha

18. i know kraft will say anything to defend himself so you have to take it with a grain of salt, but i do think it’s a fair response.

    everyone is saying in this sub that kraft is cheap because we didn’t land ridley and other FAs, but never considered the fact that maybe they just don’t want to be here. people don’t recognize that free agency isn’t just like madden franchise where you can spam huge offers over and over again and players will just mindlessly sign to the team.

    we’re a shitty team, with no qb, in a shitty climate, with some of the highest taxes in the entire country. it won’t be easy to sign FAs without massively overspending until we’re true contenders again.

19. The only way I play for Pats if if I don’t live in MA..Who wants to pay a millionaire tax when most salaries aren’t guaranteed but taxes are.

20. Bringing up the man’s fiance is poor taste to me. He didn’t have to share this information. Just say we tried and we lost out. I don’t like it

21. What do you mean “QB situation”? We have the GOAT Zappe, WR’s should be beating down our door to have pleasure of watching him lob passes to the other team.

22. Why even say this? Other players now know the owner is going to run their mouth with personal details

23. I mean why would anyone want to play for this fanbase?

24. It’s obvious he didn’t want to come here

25. forget the gf stuff, he went to Titans 100% because of tax situation

26. Bob Kraft continuing his strong run lately of not being able to shut the fuck up. Guy really is turning into Jerry Jones.

27. Why would any athlete choose to play in new England?

    The tax situation is absurd and it’s cold as fuck here.

28. Is he even a top ten WR? How’s he going to look playing for us? No OL, bridge or rookie QB, drawing our opposition CB1 every week. He made the right choice. We did the right thing by not overpaying. This was a pretty stagnant free agent market.

29. There is serious pattern with Robert Kraft taking the low road while commenting on any given situation. If I’m honest, I’m looking forward to him going away and turn over the reins to his son.

30. I’m already getting sick of them using this tax bullshit as an excuse for not getting players.

31. Do I care or believe anything that kraft says anymore? No.

32. This entire (short lived) era of post-Belichick is everyone just using every woe-is-me excuse to play the victim.

33. Surprised he didn’t just blame Bill.

34. But so many people in this sub have told us over and over it is solely about money! None of this other stuff mattered to players I thought?!

35. That’s obviously false. It was a bidding war with Ten. We bailed. Lie after lie with Kraft.

36. At some point the league is going to have to address the tax situation, right? Like it was one thing before players were making this crazy amount of money and were staying with one team for much longer, but everyone is going to end up playing in FL and Vegas.

    FL has no income tax. MA is at 5% + 4% after a million. That means the Pats would have had to pay about $9.05m more to Ridley just to match. If every player approached contracts as total take home pay, then teams with no income tax would have effectively around $20m more in cap space this year. That’s not nothing. Note: I didn’t go through and calculate out what each player would cost on the graduated tax bracket (only 2 brackets, but still would change a bunch around players making min deals and such not getting much income over the $1m mark).