I don't get a lot of the things thrown around as facts WRT the approach of BB and the Patriots.
If there is one thing we do know is that they have never since BB arrived mortgaged the future for anything. In fact much of his vaunted draft magic was simply taking a future profit from others who were desperate in some way. Organizagionally having the patience to never be in GFIN mode allows them to profit in those situations.
They've been tight occasionally but we've learned they tend to roll a small amount of yearly cap money over in recent history as a rainy day fund and to give them them the most flexibility to add a resource in a critical situation. They seem to be carrying a large cap number over this year. To what end I don't know but I do know it gives them flexibility and options.
They value redundancy in every situation from player personnel to coaching staff to game planning. This years team has spectacular offensive redundancy and if they keep Butler a promising defensive side of the ball as well. Many of the new players have overlapping ST skills as well.
They don't allow themselves to be trapped by the draft either. As Lombardi has often stated they grade prospects differently than many teams. If they don't see value in the draft or in their position at the draff they go outside of it. Welker, Moss, Cooks, Kealy, etc. Sometimes they miss but they are evaluating humans not machines.
If there is one scar BB remembers it is when he pulled the plug on Kosar in Cleveland. Succession planning is a dirty business for everyone. If I had to guess I'm betting BB is viewing this situation like a baseball GM: you can never have enough pitching before spring training. Things will sort themselves out in all likelihood - and for as long as he can juggle the resources his best approach is to keep his options open.
He values history and saw his father being a permanent part of the fabric of his own organization. There is no way he would carelessly risk this organization to multiple years of QB-less play just for the chance to cash in on the value he has in the backup (if he believes them to be at risk due to age related decline or sudden retirement of Brady). This would be true if BB was retiring tomorrow or in 10 years. It's just not good risk management, though the public might be missing data in the calculations. Brady's retirement, Kraft's retirement, BB's retirement and all of their views on each others retirements are all factors in this risk analysis. None of them want to leave a mess as they walk out the door.
Patriots strategy: be steady, be competitive, avoid desperation moves, be flexible, plan ahead, don't mortgage the future in any way, do your job.
What has changed really?