Yankees vs. Patriots

No this isn't an argument about who loves America more, or the difference between people who think Michael Phelps is the greatest athlete ever or not. No, here I want to talk about how similar these teams assembled their monstrous rosters over the past half decade plus, but how they yielded such different results.

This post came off the heels of reading that John Lynch is heading to New England to be the newest former all-star coming to the NFL's greatest superpower for a twilight tour, hoping he will get a ring at the end of it. I went and looked back at old New England rosters since 2003 and compared some of the players to how the Yankees have tended to put together their team (***Note: Before 2008, or the "Building from Within" era.)

What I found was that the Patriots have a trend of signing players who have at one point been the most dominant players in their prime, but are (in all but one or 2 cases) well past their prime. Follow my logic: Rodney Harrison (2 time pro bowler with Chargers.), Junior Seau (12 time pro bowler with Chargers.), Corey Dillon (4 time pro bowler with Bengals.), Vinny Testaverde (Heisman winner and 2 time pro bowler.), Doug Flutie (Heisman winner, pro bowler and 3 time Canadian MVP.), and Randy Moss (5 time pro bowler before joining the Pats.)

Now think about every Yankee free agent signing over the past 7 years or so. I think every one of those guys have had career accomplishments and awards that made every fan salivate and look forward to the upcoming season. And I wonder to myself, how come the Patriots have perfected the art of getting big names who are going to perform maybe half as good as they used to be, and win championships. And how the Yankees get these guys and they somehow make them worse.

It all has to do with expectation. Rodney Harrison was going to be the vocal leader and team captain, setting an example for the young defensive backfield. Junior Seau had just about the same role, being named one of the team's 7 captains. Corey Dillon was signed by the Pats because they wanted to give him a second chance after his negative attitude got him run out of Cincinnati. Vinny Testaverde and Doug Flutie were last minute additions to play backup to Tom Brady. And Randy Moss was another gamble hoping that his 2 bad years in Oakland were a fluke and that he could go back to his level of play when he was in Minnesota, they were lucky.

On the other hand, the Yankees sign/trade for guys like Giambi, Brown, Mussina, Farnsworth, Abreu, the list goes on. And they get them AFTER they have already won an MVP or finished a career season, hoping they can keep up that pace, even late in their career.

I think they are going in the right direction now, by trying to develop players into those MVP and award winning caliber players and then, after they have reached their prime, trade them or let them go to the next type of New Engla... ahem, York Yankees.