Former Patriots tackle Nate Solder characterized his experience in New England as "very business-like" and occasionally "cold." Considering that Bill Belichick majored in economics, it makes sense that he'd value efficiency over friendliness. Yet when asked how much he used economics in his coaching career, the unsentimental mastermind replied, "For the most part, probably 1 percent." However, economics reporter Paul Solman (who posed the question) argued the percentage is far higher.
Solman made the case that Belichick relies on the economic concepts of opportunity cost and convex preferences when constructing football teams. Simply put, opportunity costs are what you lose when you choose something. For example, the more money a team pays for a star athlete, the less it can pay for other athletes.
That's where convex preferences come in. The basic idea is that when you have a fixed budget, you don't want to purchase too many expensive or dirt-cheap items. Applied to building football teams, it means you're better off with a lot of medium-priced priced average players than with a few high-priced stars and a bunch cheap terrible players.
The Patriots are famous for acquiring mostly average players, and Fox Sports noted that if an elite player wants to work for Belichick, they have to accept less money than they'd earn elsewhere. As of this writing 43 NFL players have higher salaries than Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who's won more championships than any of them.
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