Luke Daniel
As the NFL season comes to a close and contract negotiations begin for many players, front offices are faced in many cases with a hard decision. Is their quarterback worth the next record-breaking contract? In today’s NFL, offensive numbers and points scored are increasing at an extremely fast rate, and because of this more and more attention, and money, is being paid to the most important player on the team, the quarterback. When examining this trend of higher quarterback salaries in the cap limited payrolls of the NFL, it is interesting to note the relationship between the how much teams pay their quarterbacks and in turn how much success they see out of their teams on the field. In the following article I will lay out some of the current stats and also a group of criteria that teams should examine before they have their QB sign the dotted line.
Aaron Rogers is currently benefiting from the highest contract in the NFL. He cashed in on a four-year $134 million contract that will go through 2023. This will account for a staggering 13.39% of his team’s 2019 cap space according to overthecap.com. While he is commonly regarded as one of the most “elite” quarterbacks in the league, this large contract has not necessarily led to success as the Packers did not make the playoffs in 2018. In fact, when looking at the top five highest paid quarterbacks in 2018 you discover that NONE of them led their teams to the playoffs. Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Matt Stafford all could not lead their teams into championship contention.
While this is a shocking statistic, I don’t imagine that this will be a regular occurrence for all five of the top QB’s to miss the playoffs. I do, however, think that we will continue to see at least some of these expensive quarterbacks missing the playoffs due to the limiting factor that some of their contracts create for their teams when trying to sign elite players at other positions.
So how much is too much? Obviously, the quarterback is vital to a team’s performance and will normally be the highest paid on the team, but as the information points above, paying your team’s quarterback doesn’t always correlate to sweeping success. In fact, over the last eleven Super Bowls the winning quarterback’s cap hit for the year has only accounted for more than 10% of the salary cap 4 times (Tom Brady (2014,2018), Peyton Manning (2015), Eli Manning (2011)). This is a strong case for looking to the draft to try and win a Super Bowl or paying your quarterback somewhere between the 7%-10% range and devote the other resources to the other 52 players on the roster.
Lots of teams in the NFL are closing in on some tough decisions concerning the QB position. I will point out that I’m not against paying quarterbacks, but in these cases steps need to be taken before signing a quarterback so that a franchise will run as little of a risk as possible when filling the most important position on the team. I have personally narrowed down three major categories that I think can generally cover the most important things to consider in evaluating whether or not to re-sign your QB. These categories are production, health/age, and the amount of money they will receive.
First, lets talk about production which is the most important of these three categories. Obviously, the first thing a team needs to do is decide if their quarterback’s play on the field puts them in position to win a championship. Its as simple as a yes or no question. Does your quarterback consistently show that he can win games? If so move on to the next stages of the decision making, and if not its probably time to start thinking about moving on.
Next, even if your quarterback has displayed he can consistently win, how confident are you that he can be available every time you play? I believe health/age is the second most important factor in this decision-making process. In some cases, it seems like a simple choice to move on, especially in the case of an aging quarterback whose play has dropped off (i.e. Eli Manning). On the other hand, Teddy Bridgewater is a great example of a hard choice in this category. Bridgewater has shown he can play, but after his devastating knee injury are teams willing to gamble their long-term future on the hope that he can stay healthy? This can be said for Marcus Mariota as well, who will arrive in free agency next year. Mariota has put up decent stats in his career but has never started 16 games. How confident are Titans fans, in a division with QBs such as Deshaun Watson and Andrew Luck who have had their own injury problems, that Mariota can consistently be available to lead the team for the whole year and into the playoffs?
Finally, the money question. If your quarterback has made it through the first two rounds of questioning, or you are willing to gamble on some questionable results, how much are you going to pay him? Look at my team, the Dallas Cowboys, and Dak Prescott for instance. Prescott has consistently shown that he can lead the Cowboys to winning seasons and into the playoffs, he has little to no injury concerns, and has flourished in leading the most popular franchise in the NFL. All this considered, do I think he should be payed as a top 5 QB in the league? Absolutely not. Every quarterback and team relationship is unique and should be evaluated differently. In Prescott’s case, the Cowboys need to pay him but also keep room to pay Ezekiel Elliot and the young rising stars on the defense in the future. I would like to see the Cowboys keep his contract in the 7%-10% range of the cap.
How much does an NFL team need a top-paid quarterback? Do more teams need to move on from their mid to low level performers at the team’s most important position instead of just paying them? These are such interesting questions that we as fans have the opportunity to watch play out as the offseason rolls on. We can only hope that our teams retain or acquire winning quarterbacks at rates that also allow for significant money to be spent on other positions. The formula of a more complete team has proven to be consistently successful through the years and I believe that trend will continue far into the future.