OT: Only 3 Teams Paying Their QB's Are In The Playoffs (cap hit of $30M or more)

[DoubleDeluxe]

No. We'll see where we are when decisions need to be paid. I'm simply saying that paying a QB over $30M leads leads to failure at least as often as success. Plugging in Maye with a $60M a year contract as many have done certainly does NOT necessarily lead to success.

Not quite accurate....I don't think.
You can't just look at one year, **** happens, bad years, injuries....etc. Look at the past 5-10 SB winners, how many of them have had top paid QBs?
Take a look at the current top 10, sure some of missed this year, but how often have they been in the playoffs the past 5 years?
You don't build a roster for one year, so looking at one year is too small a sample size.
Bottom line you need (or at least almost) a top QB to win a SB, so saying paying your QB works less often than it fails may be be statistically true, it's also true that it is extremely hard to win a SB without a top paid QB.

 

[ViperGTS]

Maye will get extended when it's time. Also, Maye will take a "discount". I don't think Maye is in the set records financially but I could be wrong. I mean, Ben Brown just took less to stay in NE and that counts. What that discount is remains to be seen but my guess is he will be paid like a top 5 QB ish.

 

[Toofy]

Another way to work around this is to cap max salary of QB at 50 million + cap space inflation which will be paid off separately and cumulatively when the QB retires/ cut / trades. That is not part of cap .

Considering core of team is QB, CB, WR,LT,DE - the top 5 should not make more than 50% of total cap space in a year . Each player on roster should be making at least 1% of yearly cap space which means min salary for every player on roster is 2.5 million not the 800k . Spread the riches . Average age of players is 1.5 years . Let them make 3-4 million to set up their life . This way uneven contracts will start to get reduced . The middle class of NFL players will grow .

Set up incentives as a percentage of cap space.players will get a percentage of that money based on their game play and tenure with team .

 

[Vindicate]

It seems to be the playoffs where the QB is most needed. What's percentage of SB winners have a QB that was around a similar percentage of the cap that a 30/40mil contract is right now?

Overpaying a limited QB is the issue. Purdy being a great example. Jackson being an example. Tua being an example.

Teams nutted on mediocre QB play and it drastically inflated the command of a contract that a QB like Mahomes has. And even then, the Eagles have shown: you can do a LOT with an expensive QB if you are a master at drafting. Chiefs are an example of a team with a solid defense and a great QB, but terrible drafting offensively as of lately. Cap space becomes a bigger issue when you can't handle drafting towards the bottom for multiple years.

I do however wonder why an elite QB who has made an insane bag already isn't just like "okay, let's shave a chunk of this contract price off and outright dominate for 10 years"

 

[stinkypete]

Mahomes and the Chiefs have been to five of the past seven Super Bowls.
Tampa won with Brady in that stretch.
Burrows made a recent Super Bowl.

You can make a similar argument in a given year in MLB that high salaries don’t guarantee a World Series winner.
But didn’t hurt Los Angeles…

It might be interesting to look at the last decade and compare how much of the team cap is tied up in the QB for Super Bowl or playoff teams.

Every team is a different situation.

Baltimore and KC got hit by train wreck seasons. They’ll be back.

Detroit got drained by injuries and roster/coaching attrition.

Cindy has mismanaged their cap and drafting. Dallas stared down its best player, lost, then panicked. It’s not Burrow’s or Prescott’s fault.

 

[Toofy]

Every team is a different situation.

Baltimore and KC got hit by train wreck seasons. They’ll be back.

Detroit got drained by injuries and roster/coaching attrition.

Cindy has mismanaged their cap and drafting. Dallas stared down its best player, lost, then panicked. It’s not Burrow’s or Prescott’s fault.

I don't want to absolve burrow of any fault. He demanded Higgins and got two bonafide WR1. Sadly you need health to throw to those WR1 and for health to sustain you need an oline.

I. Feel teams with strong culture and camaraderie will start to rule it again and for that you need a players coach and Ben Johnson and Mike Vrabel seem to have good starts towards those objectives.

I like the building of depth being done by Vrabel - contracts for Ben Brown and Marcus jones are steps in right direction. Now get chaisson and Tonga too .

As we build a strong core and continuity , might see more players sticking on for home town discount . I hope Maye can do that too. Every 10 million saved goes into signing 3-4 good depth pieces like brown .

 

[Wozzy]

Mahomes and the Chiefs have been to five of the past seven Super Bowls.
Tampa won with Brady in that stretch.
Burrows made a recent Super Bowl.

You can make a similar argument in a given year in MLB that high salaries don’t guarantee a World Series winner.
But didn’t hurt Los Angeles…

It might be interesting to look at the last decade and compare how much of the team cap is tied up in the QB for Super Bowl or playoff teams.

This is where is gets confusing. The Chiefs paid Mahomes in 2020, but they deferred his big cap charges until 2022. Basically they kicked his salary cap can down the road. That allowed them to spend more, it eventually caught up with them.

The Chiefs traded Tyreek, the best weapon in the entire NFL at that time, instead of paying him. They let left tackle Orlando Brown leave for greener pastures instead of paying him. This led to more rings but also a revolving door at WR and left tackle. The Chiefs are the best example of how to handle a QB being paid at the top of the market… the Bills and the rest not so much.

Tampa had a ton of cap space when they signed Tom, they eventually owed a bunch of dead cap after he left. Mayfield was damaged goods and he as cheap so that worked out well. The Patriots went a decade after 2004 once they started paying Tom at top of the market… they only became dominant in the postseason again when he decided to take less money starting in 2014. That’s not coincidence.

A stud QB on a rookie contract is a cheat code, some teams are simply better at taking advantage of it.

 

[mgteich]

It seems to be the playoffs where the QB is most needed. What's percentage of SB winners have a QB that was around a similar percentage of the cap that a 30/40mil contract is right now?

Overpaying a limited QB is the issue. Purdy being a great example. Jackson being an example. Tua being an example.

Teams nutted on mediocre QB play and it drastically inflated the command of a contract that a QB like Mahomes has. And even then, the Eagles have shown: you can do a LOT with an expensive QB if you are a master at drafting. Chiefs are an example of a team with a solid defense and a great QB, but terrible drafting offensively as of lately. Cap space becomes a bigger issue when you can't handle drafting towards the bottom for multiple years.

I do however wonder why an elite QB who has made an insane bag already isn't just like "okay, let's shave a chunk of this contract price off and outright dominate for 10 years"

Yes, the keys to a dynasty of more than a couple of years is a healthy top 5 QB AND being a master at drafting.

 

[JoeSixPat]

No. We'll see where we are when decisions need to be paid. I'm simply saying that paying a QB over $30M leads leads to failure at least as often as success. Plugging in Maye with a $60M a year contract as many have done certainly does NOT necessarily lead to success.

For someone like Maye though, it does indicate that the Pats have an early window to pay others while he's on his rookie contract.

After that, as we've seen with some teams, the quality and depth of the rest of the team can suffer - even more so if a QB demands money like Watson and Tua did, hamstringing the team's ability to sign quality players impacting the team even if they didn't underperform.

As such, drafting cheap affordable players is essential to cap/roster management. And one has to HOPE that if Maye is a championship caliber QB like Brady, he will recognize that getting top dollar and winning Super Bowls don't necessarily complement each other