Holy Consistency, Batman!

Stat of the week, via Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback: on Sunday, as they do just about every week, the Colts started 22 players (11 offense, 11 defense. To my knowledge, the only exception to that this year was when the Redskins played 10 on D the first play after Sean Taylor's murder.) Of those 22, 22 have played their entire careers with the Patriots.

That's ridiculous. In this supposed era of free agency and big-name signings, to have one of the two best teams of this decade have that sort of consistency and acumen in drafting and signing undrafted players is absolutely amazing. King leads off the article talking about how the Patriots wrote the book, starting in 2002, on how to build a successful NFL franchise in this era: get a good QB, draft well, and fill in the rest of the slots with lesser-known free agents.

Although, he doesn't note how far from that pattern the team deviated this year, with big-name signings on offense (Moss, Welker, Stallworth) and defense (Adalius Thomas). On the other hand, they are pretty clearly playing the game of professional football as well as it has ever been played in the history of mankind, unless there was some australopithescene team who was equally dominant, but of course their record wasn't recording because, duh!, no writing yet.

Anyhow, the point is that if you look at the franchises that have been most consistently successful since 2000, which I would argue are Pats, Colts, Eagles in that order, they all follow the pattern of being completely willing to cut ties with a popular and successful player at a moment's notice if they think it will be good for the team's success, and they normally are very leery of going out and paying market price for a big-name free agent.

Fortunately, there continue to be franchises like the Redskins and the Lions, who are all too willing to bid up the market price of said free agents, which drives up the salary cap and allows the Pats and the Colts to stockpile more weapons for their inevitable AFC Championship showdown. I'll bring the popcorn...