As for the whole thread, I think Hickey is much more willing to spend money out of the gate than Ireland. Now some of that may have had to do with us not really having much cap room until last year.
The bigger question is how he does in the draft for me. Albert obviously is a guy Philbin has wanted for a year (similar to Parcells flirting with Dansby for over a year before signing him), now I want to see how he drafts. Under Ireland/Parcells there wasn't very many risks taken in the draft (last year was a different story with Jordan) but we tried more often than not to go safe rather than swinging for the fences. Didn't matter cause in a lot of cases we struck out doing that as well. Though to Ireland's credit, he found contributors late.