bbgun
please don't "dur" me
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we tried it once and Cedric Wilson got called for holding against the Jets
Dak Watch Thread...
- Thread starter boozeman
- Start date
P_T
Baddest MoFo Around
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Which was clearly a BS call... IIRC.
deadrise
DCC 4Life
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Lots of teams do it. In Pubes' case, try it once and never do it again. Shitful execution and coaching.
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DontCryWolfe
DCC 4Life
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Well, while this team has been nothing to write home about, I do also feel like the league office has it out for us. And by league office, I mean Goodell, who is butt buddies with the Mara’s. Ironic, considering the fact that despite our mediocrity, we are still the biggest draw in the league.
ravidubey
DCC 4Life
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I am cautiously optimistic and especially love the talk of overhauling the DL.
BTW, I have never been sorry for one millisecond that Dallas drafted Dak Prescott.
My only gripe was that he was left in place as starter late in 2016. We all know why, and it’s my opinion and that of many people.
But to quote some Jones family member, I’m all in on Dak. I am just a bit more realistic I think in some regards about where he is at this point of his development.
As for rub routes, well, they have to be coached well. Garrett’s mentor Norv Turner back in the 90’s had problems making them not appear to be flat out picks, and Garrett is the same. Too bad he didn’t evolve like Turner did.
deadrise
DCC 4Life
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True ... dancing on Garrett's grave serves no purpose. BUT -- in the context of discussing who to pay, who not to pay, who to keep, who to let go, (should all be 'whom') the context has to be the coaches and the system under which those players operated. It's hard to judge a player's future value if he was hamstrung by shitty and unimaginative coaching in the past.
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How will Dak Prescott play under next contract? Here’s what the 20 largest QB extensions tell us
By Jon Machota 24m ago
At some point, the Dallas Cowboys are expected to pay Dak Prescott. It’s been well-documented that the team’s franchise quarterback was significantly underpaid on his rookie contract. He’s aiming to be among the NFL’s highest-paid players on his second deal — which would make him one of the highest-paid players in league history — and it appears very likely he’ll gain that distinction.
History has proven that getting similar or improved production during a quarterback’s second contract is far from a sure thing. To see what kind of return on investment teams have received, we have broken down the top 20 biggest second contracts NFL quarterbacks have signed.
The contract should be for slightly more than the four-year deals that the other top QBs in his draft class — Jared Goff and Carson Wentz — signed last year. Negotiations are expected to heat up, as the March 10 deadline to franchise tag players is quickly approaching. Teams can start designating the franchise tag on Feb. 25. If the Cowboys can’t get a deal done with Prescott, they are expected to franchise him with the intent to eventually finalize a long-term deal.
Here’s a look at how the 20 highest-paid quarterbacks performed on their second deals.
(Contract figures via Over The Cap.)
Great return on investment:
Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts. Deal completed in March 2004. Contract terms: 7 years, $98 million with $34.5 mil guaranteed. This was a no-brainer. Manning was the NFL’s best quarterback at the time, coming off a six-year rookie deal during which the Colts made the playoffs four times. Under this contract, Indy averaged 12.5 wins per season, made the playoffs every year, won a Super Bowl and reached a second.
Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints. Deal completed in March 2006. Contract terms: 6 years, $60 million with $8 million guaranteed. This was Brees’ first contract with New Orleans after leaving San Diego. The Saints would go on to win the Super Bowl four years later.
Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers. Deal completed in Oct. 2008. Contract terms: 6 years, $63.5 million with $20 million guaranteed. Rodgers signed this contract before his first season as Green Bay’s starter, replacing Hall of Famer Brett Favre. The Packers would go on to win the Super Bowl three years later.
Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers. Deal completed in March 2008. Contract terms: 6 years, $87.9 million with $33.2 million guaranteed. During this time, Roethlisberger led the Steelers to two Super Bowl appearances and one Super Bowl win. He was one of the NFL’s top QBs during this stretch, making the Pro Bowl three times.
Good return on investment:
Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks. Deal completed in July 2015. Contract terms: 4 years, $87.6 million with $31.7 million guaranteed. Wilson led Seattle to consecutive Super Bowl appearances, including one Super Bowl victory, while on his rookie deal. In the four years under his second contract, Wilson led Seattle to three playoff appearances while making the Pro Bowl three times. Although the Seahawks didn’t win a Super Bowl during this stretch, keeping Wilson in Seattle was an obvious decision. He continues to be one of the game’s best quarterbacks.
Eli Manning, New York Giants. Deal completed in Aug. 2009. Contract terms: 6 years, $97.5 million, $20.5 million guaranteed. Manning won a Super Bowl under his rookie deal and won his second under this contract. Although the Giants didn’t go to the playoffs any other year during the contract, he was one of the league’s better QBs, making the Pro Bowl twice.
Satisfactory return on investment:
Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons. Deal completed in July 2013. Contract terms: 5 years, $103.7 million with $42 million guaranteed. The Falcons went 4-12 during the first year of this deal. However, by Year 4, they reached the Super Bowl. Ryan won NFL MVP honors in 2016. He made the Pro Bowl twice during this contract.
Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers. Deal completed in June 2015. Contract terms: 5 years, $103.8 million with $41 million guaranteed. The Panthers went 15-1 and reached the Super Bowl during the first year of this deal. Newton was also named league MVP that season. Carolina has made the playoffs only once since, losing in the wild-card round. Newton hasn’t put up a season close to that one in 2015 since, either.
Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers. Deal completed in Aug. 2009. Contract terms: 6 years, $91.8 million with $33.3 million guaranteed. The Chargers went to the playoffs twice during those six seasons, winning one playoff game. Rivers made four Pro Bowls during that contract.
Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions. Deal completed in July 2013. Contract terms: 3 years, $53 million with $33.5 million guaranteed. The Lions made the playoffs twice during that contract, losing both times in the wild-card round. Detroit has made the playoffs only three times in Stafford’s 11 seasons. He made the Pro Bowl in 2014.
Kirk Cousins, Minnesota Vikings. Deal completed in March 2018. Contract terms: 3 years, $84 million with $84 million guaranteed. Minnesota won eight games during the first year of this deal and 10 last season, while also winning a wild-card playoff game over the Saints. Cousins has thrown 56 touchdowns to only 16 interceptions during his two seasons with the Vikings. If Minnesota has a disappointing 2020 season, this could end up getting shifted to our next category.
Poor return on investment:
Joe Flacco, Baltimore Ravens. Deal completed in March 2013. Contract terms: 6 years, $120.6 million with $51 million guaranteed. This deal was done because Flacco had just led the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory a month before. Flacco was outstanding during that playoff run, throwing 11 touchdowns and no interceptions. He threw three TDs in the Super Bowl en route to winning MVP. But he was never the same under his second contract. Flacco never made a Pro Bowl and the Ravens only made the playoffs once.
Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts. Deal completed in June 2016. Contract terms: 5 years, $122.9 million with $47 million guaranteed. Under his rookie deal, Luck led Indianapolis to three consecutive 11-5 seasons, including a trip to the AFC Championship game in 2014. He looked well on his way to being one of the NFL’s next great quarterbacks. But the injuries started to add up, and Luck shockingly announced his retirement last August.
Derek Carr, Oakland Raiders. Deal completed in June 2017. Contract terms: 5 years, $125 million with $40 million guaranteed. Coming off a 12-win season and the only playoff appearance of his career in 2016, Carr signed a new deal that temporarily made him the highest-paid QB in the league in terms of average per year. In the three seasons since that contract was finalized, Carr has led the Raiders to only 17 wins.
Carson Palmer, Cincinnati Bengals. Deal completed in Dec. 2005. Contract terms: 6 years, $97 million with $24 million guaranteed. The Bengals made the playoffs twice over the six years on this deal, falling in the wild card round both times. Palmer, who went to the Pro Bowl twice during this contract, requested a trade after the 2010 season. Cincinnati then drafted Andy Dalton in the second round in 2011, and Palmer was later sent to Oakland.
Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco 49ers. Deal completed in June 2014. Contract terms: 6 years, $114 million with $12.9 million guaranteed. Kaepernick’s best years were in 2012 and 2013, when he led the 49ers to consecutive double-digit win seasons and a Super Bowl appearance. After signing this deal, he only started 35 more NFL games. The 49ers went 2-14 in 2016, his final season as a starter. With that being said, the limited guaranteed money meant the 49ers were able to walk away easily.
Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals. Deal completed in Aug. 2014. Contract terms: 6 years, $96 million with $17 million guaranteed. The Bengals made the playoffs the first two years of this deal but have combined for only 21 wins in the four seasons since. Dalton made the Pro Bowl twice under this contract. There weren’t great returns on this investment, but it could be argued that it was a satisfactory return considering he wasn’t being paid near the top of the market.
Too early to determine:
Carson Wentz, Philadelphia Eagles. Deal completed in June 2019. Contract terms: 4 years, $128 million with $66.4 million guaranteed. Wentz led the Eagles to an NFC East title under the first year of this contract, throwing for 4,039 yards, 27 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He suffered a concussion that forced him to exit the game early in the Eagles’ wild-card loss to the Seahawks. Wentz is a gifted passer, but the significant time he’s missed over his first four years is concerning.
Jared Goff, Los Angeles Rams. Deal completed in Sept. 2019. Contract terms: 4 years, $134 million with $57 million guaranteed. Like Wentz, Goff led the Rams to a 9-7 record in his first year under his second contract. Unlike Wentz and the Eagles, Goff’s team didn’t make the playoffs. Goff threw for 4,638 yards, 22 touchdowns and 16 interceptions last season.
Jimmy Garoppolo, San Francisco 49ers. Deal completed in Feb. 2018. Contract terms: 5 years, $137.5 million with $48.7 million guaranteed. Considering that he led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in his first full season as a starter, this deal appears to be headed in a good direction. In 16 starts last season, Garoppolo completed 69 percent of his passes for 3,978 yards, 27 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.
NOTE: Tom Brady’s deal wasn’t big enough to make the cut. His second contract with the New England Patriots was completed in Aug. 2002. Contract terms: 4 years, $30.1 million with $9.5 million guaranteed. The Patriots gave Brady that extension after only two seasons as he was coming off winning Super Bowl MVP in his first year as a starter. New England would go on to win two more Super Bowls while Brady was on his second contract.
What does this tell us? For one, it’s unwise to overreact to a successful season by paying a quarterback more than he’s worth. Most of the quarterbacks in our penultimate category were middling passers who inked their extensions after a season in which their team won a lot of games — and in Flacco’s case, a Super Bowl. Palmer and Luck, on the other hand, were extremely gifted passers victimized by injuries and insufficient talent around them.
On the positive end, it’s hard to go wrong extending quarterbacks who have put up numbers among the NFL’s best. Statistically, Prescott was one of the NFL’s best passers in 2019, and he added additional value on the ground. Was last season an aberration or perhaps a sign that he hasn’t yet reached his ceiling? His second contract with the Cowboys will be based on the franchise believing there are even better days ahead.
By Jon Machota 24m ago
At some point, the Dallas Cowboys are expected to pay Dak Prescott. It’s been well-documented that the team’s franchise quarterback was significantly underpaid on his rookie contract. He’s aiming to be among the NFL’s highest-paid players on his second deal — which would make him one of the highest-paid players in league history — and it appears very likely he’ll gain that distinction.
History has proven that getting similar or improved production during a quarterback’s second contract is far from a sure thing. To see what kind of return on investment teams have received, we have broken down the top 20 biggest second contracts NFL quarterbacks have signed.
The contract should be for slightly more than the four-year deals that the other top QBs in his draft class — Jared Goff and Carson Wentz — signed last year. Negotiations are expected to heat up, as the March 10 deadline to franchise tag players is quickly approaching. Teams can start designating the franchise tag on Feb. 25. If the Cowboys can’t get a deal done with Prescott, they are expected to franchise him with the intent to eventually finalize a long-term deal.
Here’s a look at how the 20 highest-paid quarterbacks performed on their second deals.
(Contract figures via Over The Cap.)
Great return on investment:
Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts. Deal completed in March 2004. Contract terms: 7 years, $98 million with $34.5 mil guaranteed. This was a no-brainer. Manning was the NFL’s best quarterback at the time, coming off a six-year rookie deal during which the Colts made the playoffs four times. Under this contract, Indy averaged 12.5 wins per season, made the playoffs every year, won a Super Bowl and reached a second.
Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints. Deal completed in March 2006. Contract terms: 6 years, $60 million with $8 million guaranteed. This was Brees’ first contract with New Orleans after leaving San Diego. The Saints would go on to win the Super Bowl four years later.
Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers. Deal completed in Oct. 2008. Contract terms: 6 years, $63.5 million with $20 million guaranteed. Rodgers signed this contract before his first season as Green Bay’s starter, replacing Hall of Famer Brett Favre. The Packers would go on to win the Super Bowl three years later.
Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers. Deal completed in March 2008. Contract terms: 6 years, $87.9 million with $33.2 million guaranteed. During this time, Roethlisberger led the Steelers to two Super Bowl appearances and one Super Bowl win. He was one of the NFL’s top QBs during this stretch, making the Pro Bowl three times.
Good return on investment:
Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks. Deal completed in July 2015. Contract terms: 4 years, $87.6 million with $31.7 million guaranteed. Wilson led Seattle to consecutive Super Bowl appearances, including one Super Bowl victory, while on his rookie deal. In the four years under his second contract, Wilson led Seattle to three playoff appearances while making the Pro Bowl three times. Although the Seahawks didn’t win a Super Bowl during this stretch, keeping Wilson in Seattle was an obvious decision. He continues to be one of the game’s best quarterbacks.
Eli Manning, New York Giants. Deal completed in Aug. 2009. Contract terms: 6 years, $97.5 million, $20.5 million guaranteed. Manning won a Super Bowl under his rookie deal and won his second under this contract. Although the Giants didn’t go to the playoffs any other year during the contract, he was one of the league’s better QBs, making the Pro Bowl twice.
Satisfactory return on investment:
Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons. Deal completed in July 2013. Contract terms: 5 years, $103.7 million with $42 million guaranteed. The Falcons went 4-12 during the first year of this deal. However, by Year 4, they reached the Super Bowl. Ryan won NFL MVP honors in 2016. He made the Pro Bowl twice during this contract.
Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers. Deal completed in June 2015. Contract terms: 5 years, $103.8 million with $41 million guaranteed. The Panthers went 15-1 and reached the Super Bowl during the first year of this deal. Newton was also named league MVP that season. Carolina has made the playoffs only once since, losing in the wild-card round. Newton hasn’t put up a season close to that one in 2015 since, either.
Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers. Deal completed in Aug. 2009. Contract terms: 6 years, $91.8 million with $33.3 million guaranteed. The Chargers went to the playoffs twice during those six seasons, winning one playoff game. Rivers made four Pro Bowls during that contract.
Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions. Deal completed in July 2013. Contract terms: 3 years, $53 million with $33.5 million guaranteed. The Lions made the playoffs twice during that contract, losing both times in the wild-card round. Detroit has made the playoffs only three times in Stafford’s 11 seasons. He made the Pro Bowl in 2014.
Kirk Cousins, Minnesota Vikings. Deal completed in March 2018. Contract terms: 3 years, $84 million with $84 million guaranteed. Minnesota won eight games during the first year of this deal and 10 last season, while also winning a wild-card playoff game over the Saints. Cousins has thrown 56 touchdowns to only 16 interceptions during his two seasons with the Vikings. If Minnesota has a disappointing 2020 season, this could end up getting shifted to our next category.
Poor return on investment:
Joe Flacco, Baltimore Ravens. Deal completed in March 2013. Contract terms: 6 years, $120.6 million with $51 million guaranteed. This deal was done because Flacco had just led the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory a month before. Flacco was outstanding during that playoff run, throwing 11 touchdowns and no interceptions. He threw three TDs in the Super Bowl en route to winning MVP. But he was never the same under his second contract. Flacco never made a Pro Bowl and the Ravens only made the playoffs once.
Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts. Deal completed in June 2016. Contract terms: 5 years, $122.9 million with $47 million guaranteed. Under his rookie deal, Luck led Indianapolis to three consecutive 11-5 seasons, including a trip to the AFC Championship game in 2014. He looked well on his way to being one of the NFL’s next great quarterbacks. But the injuries started to add up, and Luck shockingly announced his retirement last August.
Derek Carr, Oakland Raiders. Deal completed in June 2017. Contract terms: 5 years, $125 million with $40 million guaranteed. Coming off a 12-win season and the only playoff appearance of his career in 2016, Carr signed a new deal that temporarily made him the highest-paid QB in the league in terms of average per year. In the three seasons since that contract was finalized, Carr has led the Raiders to only 17 wins.
Carson Palmer, Cincinnati Bengals. Deal completed in Dec. 2005. Contract terms: 6 years, $97 million with $24 million guaranteed. The Bengals made the playoffs twice over the six years on this deal, falling in the wild card round both times. Palmer, who went to the Pro Bowl twice during this contract, requested a trade after the 2010 season. Cincinnati then drafted Andy Dalton in the second round in 2011, and Palmer was later sent to Oakland.
Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco 49ers. Deal completed in June 2014. Contract terms: 6 years, $114 million with $12.9 million guaranteed. Kaepernick’s best years were in 2012 and 2013, when he led the 49ers to consecutive double-digit win seasons and a Super Bowl appearance. After signing this deal, he only started 35 more NFL games. The 49ers went 2-14 in 2016, his final season as a starter. With that being said, the limited guaranteed money meant the 49ers were able to walk away easily.
Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals. Deal completed in Aug. 2014. Contract terms: 6 years, $96 million with $17 million guaranteed. The Bengals made the playoffs the first two years of this deal but have combined for only 21 wins in the four seasons since. Dalton made the Pro Bowl twice under this contract. There weren’t great returns on this investment, but it could be argued that it was a satisfactory return considering he wasn’t being paid near the top of the market.
Too early to determine:
Carson Wentz, Philadelphia Eagles. Deal completed in June 2019. Contract terms: 4 years, $128 million with $66.4 million guaranteed. Wentz led the Eagles to an NFC East title under the first year of this contract, throwing for 4,039 yards, 27 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He suffered a concussion that forced him to exit the game early in the Eagles’ wild-card loss to the Seahawks. Wentz is a gifted passer, but the significant time he’s missed over his first four years is concerning.
Jared Goff, Los Angeles Rams. Deal completed in Sept. 2019. Contract terms: 4 years, $134 million with $57 million guaranteed. Like Wentz, Goff led the Rams to a 9-7 record in his first year under his second contract. Unlike Wentz and the Eagles, Goff’s team didn’t make the playoffs. Goff threw for 4,638 yards, 22 touchdowns and 16 interceptions last season.
Jimmy Garoppolo, San Francisco 49ers. Deal completed in Feb. 2018. Contract terms: 5 years, $137.5 million with $48.7 million guaranteed. Considering that he led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in his first full season as a starter, this deal appears to be headed in a good direction. In 16 starts last season, Garoppolo completed 69 percent of his passes for 3,978 yards, 27 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.
NOTE: Tom Brady’s deal wasn’t big enough to make the cut. His second contract with the New England Patriots was completed in Aug. 2002. Contract terms: 4 years, $30.1 million with $9.5 million guaranteed. The Patriots gave Brady that extension after only two seasons as he was coming off winning Super Bowl MVP in his first year as a starter. New England would go on to win two more Super Bowls while Brady was on his second contract.
What does this tell us? For one, it’s unwise to overreact to a successful season by paying a quarterback more than he’s worth. Most of the quarterbacks in our penultimate category were middling passers who inked their extensions after a season in which their team won a lot of games — and in Flacco’s case, a Super Bowl. Palmer and Luck, on the other hand, were extremely gifted passers victimized by injuries and insufficient talent around them.
On the positive end, it’s hard to go wrong extending quarterbacks who have put up numbers among the NFL’s best. Statistically, Prescott was one of the NFL’s best passers in 2019, and he added additional value on the ground. Was last season an aberration or perhaps a sign that he hasn’t yet reached his ceiling? His second contract with the Cowboys will be based on the franchise believing there are even better days ahead.
L.T. Fan
I'm Easy If You Are
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Don’t think I ever said Dak is a business person.
data
Forbes #1
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Nice reflection piece, but useless. Tells us nothing.
Might as well write an article on QB #1 overall draft picks and what it will “tell us” for the next one.
Plan9Misfit
Appreciate The Hate
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Oh, no. Your sorry ass is going to sit here and endure this fucking irritating Dak torture just like the rest of us.
Plan9Misfit
Appreciate The Hate
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Exactly. And since it “didn’t work”, Garrett’s base programming defaulted back to zero which removed it from the playbook.
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Disspelling convention: Does paying a QB top-10 money really doom a franchise? (Pay attention, Cowboys)
By Bob Sturm 3h ago
This column is not about Dak Prescott.
It will obviously be applied to the stack of information we use to spark theories about how to build a football team — and plug in a highly-compensated QB in the middle of it — but this is not actually a discussion about whether he is worth a massive contract. It’s also not about whether the Cowboys should pull the trigger and get this deal done.
It is about the idea that paying a QB is generally a bad idea. The argument that a team can no longer win in today’s NFL by paying its QB the going rate.
I don’t remember the first time I was sent a piece of research that assured me that if a team spends more than 12 to 14 percent of their salary cap on their QB, they simply could not remain competitive. If you look places like NFL Reddit or my Twitter feed, you will see that conversation happening on a regular basis. It tends to follow teams that are signing their QB to a mega-deal. It happened in Green Bay, Seattle and Kansas City — and, yes, it is now happening in Dallas.
This also isn’t a conversation about whether Dak Prescott can be compared to Russell Wilson or Pat Mahomes for football reasons. It’s about the role of a QB salary and whether you can win by moving the percentage of their money up.
I believe the NFL changes at a snail’s pace. As I tweeted this weekend, the object of the game is not to wait to see what everyone else does since 1994 but rather to figure out where the game is headed and act accordingly to that. If you are last to the party, you suffer consequences. But if you understand where things are going, you don’t make as many ill-informed mistakes.
THE 13 PERCENT THEORY
So, let’s start at the top. What is this theory and where did it start?
In 1994, the NFL instituted a salary-cap system that changed the league forever. In that year, the cap sat at about $34 million. In 2020, we believe it will finally jump over the $200 million barrier. It is linked to league revenues, and aside from a brief pull-back in another labor dispute in 2010-2013, the cap has risen by between $5 million and $15 million every year over the last two decades.
Concurrently, top salaries have risen, too. It probably isn’t totally fair, but despite every single sport having a slightly different way to govern player costs, they all seem to result in the highest class of players seeing their money expand exponentially while the middle class gets shrunk and stifled. Not all growth is constant and equal. It quickly turns into a marketplace where positions are ranked by importance and scarcity, which drives the QB market right up the charts in quick fashion.
According to historical salary data — which can often be difficult to check for accuracy — the top salary on a roster has often been less than 10 percent of the total cap pool for an entire roster. In fact, according to this very unofficial study, only five times has a Super Bowl winner featured a QB salary that eclipsed 10 percent of the cap. Only once did it go as high as 13 percent (1994 San Francisco with Steve Young).
Media and fans latched on to that. Because nobody had ever won a Super Bowl and employed a player being paid a higher percentage of the cap than Young did in 1994, that must prove it’s impossible, right? Could you go 16-0 and then lose the Super Bowl? This is the fun in arbitrary numbers or facts to try to attach meaning to things in sports.
NOTE: NFL accounting can be very complex, especially when teams can move money around to massage a certain year’s salary cap. The above study and many others do not adjust for this and therefore feature many errors. This is why we will use “annual average value or AAV” when discussing these deals so as to not be confused by how the money is specifically paid out. The AAV flattens it all and helps us see apples to apples.
This number has moved plenty since people started noticing that high salaries would seem to weaken a supporting cast and therefore make winning more difficult. It is a very sound theory that makes intuitive sense, of course. The theory is having more good players make winning easier. If one guy is hogging all the money, then his mates have to go elsewhere to get theirs.
There is a trade-off to having scarce talents. We see this constantly in the NBA, and it drives salaries above $50 million a year now. Nobody would dispute that having LeBron James and Anthony Davis means that the rest of your roster will be much worse. But it is a trade-off you happily make. Giannis Antetokounmpo can sign a five-year, $254 million deal this summer which will confirm that unique talents can make all the money in that league despite a salary cap that is projected at $116 million. That will pay him about 44 percent of the cap, but, of course, the caps are different in the sports. In the NBA, you can exceed the number in exchange for a tax. In the NFL, you cannot.
Most of us enjoy establishing absolutes within our sports discussions. The theory in the NFL that a team’s top player (QB) should stay below a threshold is an easy one to understand and to share the wealth. If Steve Young is the line, then Russell Wilson cannot do this, and therefore that settles the issue. Of course, it never works that way. In fact, once someone noticed that you would rather pay your QB nothing or at least under 10 percent of your cap to try to win a Super Bowl, we had to keep moving the bar to keep up.
For instance, the 2011 Super Bowl — when the Giants beat the Patriots — featured two of the highest-paid players in the sport squaring off at QB. The third-highest paid QB, Eli Manning, was making 13.5 percent of the salary cap. He beat Tom Brady, who was making 15 percent of the cap. At the time, the magic number was 13 percent, but had Mario Manningham not caught that sideline pass from Manning, the new number would have moved up to “you can’t pay more than 15 percent” to your QB and win a Super Bowl. Instead, we just moved it to 13.5 percent.
2014 almost blew the whole theory out of the water. You may recall that Aaron Rodgers made 17 percent of the cap that year. But his team could not recover an onside kick in Seattle at the end of the NFC Championship Game and therefore we didn’t have to move the number up to 17 percent that year. Apparently, you can only go to the point of the season where you are leading by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship Game with a QB who makes that much money.
Meanwhile, I have used this visual aid in the past, but let me dust it off again. This chart below shows you how the sport has obviously evolved to where our game’s LeBrons and Giannises (EditOr’s note: Gianni?) are quite obviously the quarterbacks:
This is the most basic demonstration of the game’s strategic and economic turn in the last 50 years. People mention the running backs who used to run the league and the fact that most of those top RBs have a hard time getting their money now. Above, you see the simple run-vs-pass balance by decade. The league is heading in one direction, and there are few signs it will change. This year’s Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs pushed the boundaries even further by winning the Super Bowl while passing the ball on 61.6 percent of offensive snaps. They cut Kareem Hunt, who won the 2017 rushing title, and actually improved without him. The revolution is continuing, and that red line will continue upwards as the copycats continue to follow.
This, of course, means that QBs are in higher demand. And that means the compensation of said QB will continue to rise as those without the QBs cannot compete. If they can break through, they can’t stay competitive without finding their own.
I think trying to figure out the nuanced differences between the salary structures of the mid 1990’s is pretty irrelevant. So much has changed in just the last 10 years that trying to figure out how the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers structured their money is pointless. But this last decade does seem relevant. So I wanted to set you at ease on my findings about the “dangers of paying a QB,” and we can go from there.
First, some ground rules. We will start with this latest collective bargaining agreement, which began in 2011. We will use AAV and league ranking among QB. If a QB is among the league’s top 10 at his position, he is also a top-10 player in the NFL. How do I know this? Well, in the last decade, almost every top-10 salary is a QB, with only a very few exceptions. Since 2013, only Khalil Mack and Aaron Donald have cracked the Top 10 without throwing the ball. In 2019, the top 11 AAV players were all QBs. All of them!
I also think “he hasn’t won a Super Bowl” is tailored to win an argument. I think it’s necessary to account for the thin margins of one play and one call and one bounce deciding these outcomes, and suggesting that the QB salary was the reason that the Saints didn’t win a Super Bowl in 2018 is silly. They were victimized by a bad call. In my methodology, if you make the final four teams and play in a conference championship game and definitely a Super Bowl, you deserve to take part in this study.
The numbers are salary rankings among QBs. The green applies to a player is on a rookie contract, and the red indicates a player is ranked among the top 10 QBs (and players) in the entire NFL. Here is what we have for this decade:
We have nine years of names, four per year, for a total of 36 samples.
13 (36 percent) are QBs on their rookie deals. If you are unclear, there is no question the best way to win a Super Bowl in today’s NFL is to draft a QB and immediately go on a run. That’s tough to do, because your roster is not usually ready to do this, but if you can channel Russell Wilson or Pat Mahomes, you can do this.
12 (33 percent) are veteran QBs on inexpensive deals. This is what everyone wants: a QB who is good and experienced, but cheap enough that he can have a good team around him. Here is the problem with this group. Of the twelve, six are Tom Brady, who played for a very cheap deal for much of his twilight from 2013 through 2018. That actually means there are only six cases outside of Brady (16 percent), and they involve Alex Smith, twice, with San Francisco (one he shared with Colin Kaepernick, who made even less money but was on a rookie deal), Peyton Manning at the end of his career, Carson Palmer, Matt Ryan and the year Sam Bradford/Case Keenum made a run in Minnesota in 2017.
That’s it. Those are the only exceptions.
11 (31 percent) are QBs on top-10 deals. This, in my opinion, is where the market is going. There will be fewer of the middle-class QBs in the mix because Tom Brady is not going to prop up that category anymore. I anticipate we will see names in either red or green from now on.
And what will that mean? It will mean the aforementioned 13-percent rule goes away. In fact, Jimmy Garoppolo was eighth in the NFL last year, and he cost nearly 15 percent of the cap. Aaron Rodgers had his team one win from the Super Bowl again, and he was at 18 percent. He beat Russell Wilson’s Seahawks in the playoffs, and Russ made 19 percent.
Pat Mahomes will sign a deal that will very likely break the 20-percent barrier. Can the Chiefs still win with a roster like that? Of course they can. They may not be able to have a top-paid running back, center and guard anymore, but I predict in five years that many teams will have broken 20 percent to secure their QBs’ services. Will they all win Super Bowls? Of course not. Super Bowls remain rare; the mean team has a 3.125 percent chance of securing one in any given year. But unless the new CBA caps individual salaries, QBs will still take more and more of the pie as every other position sees their growth slow down.
You must have a QB. You also have to pick the right one. But the idea that you can lock down a really promising player in his mid-20’s and not expect to pay the going rate, whatever crazy number that is, will leave you on the outside looking in.
Again, this is not a Dak Prescott study. It was done mostly to demonstrate how out of date the 13-percent or 15-percent rule has become. I predict Mahomes is not done competing for Super Bowls. I also predict all of his future Super Bowls will invalidate that old Reddit theory, as he will wind up at 20 percent or so. The idea is to be ahead of the curve, not behind it, and you can expect the top 10 QBs to all be making “Giannis money” before too long.
Please don’t try convincing your friends you want to win with a QB who will be 22nd in salary at his position. It can happen, but only on rookie deals. After that’s over, it’s time to pay the man.
By Bob Sturm 3h ago
This column is not about Dak Prescott.
It will obviously be applied to the stack of information we use to spark theories about how to build a football team — and plug in a highly-compensated QB in the middle of it — but this is not actually a discussion about whether he is worth a massive contract. It’s also not about whether the Cowboys should pull the trigger and get this deal done.
It is about the idea that paying a QB is generally a bad idea. The argument that a team can no longer win in today’s NFL by paying its QB the going rate.
I don’t remember the first time I was sent a piece of research that assured me that if a team spends more than 12 to 14 percent of their salary cap on their QB, they simply could not remain competitive. If you look places like NFL Reddit or my Twitter feed, you will see that conversation happening on a regular basis. It tends to follow teams that are signing their QB to a mega-deal. It happened in Green Bay, Seattle and Kansas City — and, yes, it is now happening in Dallas.
This also isn’t a conversation about whether Dak Prescott can be compared to Russell Wilson or Pat Mahomes for football reasons. It’s about the role of a QB salary and whether you can win by moving the percentage of their money up.
I believe the NFL changes at a snail’s pace. As I tweeted this weekend, the object of the game is not to wait to see what everyone else does since 1994 but rather to figure out where the game is headed and act accordingly to that. If you are last to the party, you suffer consequences. But if you understand where things are going, you don’t make as many ill-informed mistakes.
THE 13 PERCENT THEORY
So, let’s start at the top. What is this theory and where did it start?
In 1994, the NFL instituted a salary-cap system that changed the league forever. In that year, the cap sat at about $34 million. In 2020, we believe it will finally jump over the $200 million barrier. It is linked to league revenues, and aside from a brief pull-back in another labor dispute in 2010-2013, the cap has risen by between $5 million and $15 million every year over the last two decades.
Concurrently, top salaries have risen, too. It probably isn’t totally fair, but despite every single sport having a slightly different way to govern player costs, they all seem to result in the highest class of players seeing their money expand exponentially while the middle class gets shrunk and stifled. Not all growth is constant and equal. It quickly turns into a marketplace where positions are ranked by importance and scarcity, which drives the QB market right up the charts in quick fashion.
According to historical salary data — which can often be difficult to check for accuracy — the top salary on a roster has often been less than 10 percent of the total cap pool for an entire roster. In fact, according to this very unofficial study, only five times has a Super Bowl winner featured a QB salary that eclipsed 10 percent of the cap. Only once did it go as high as 13 percent (1994 San Francisco with Steve Young).
Media and fans latched on to that. Because nobody had ever won a Super Bowl and employed a player being paid a higher percentage of the cap than Young did in 1994, that must prove it’s impossible, right? Could you go 16-0 and then lose the Super Bowl? This is the fun in arbitrary numbers or facts to try to attach meaning to things in sports.
NOTE: NFL accounting can be very complex, especially when teams can move money around to massage a certain year’s salary cap. The above study and many others do not adjust for this and therefore feature many errors. This is why we will use “annual average value or AAV” when discussing these deals so as to not be confused by how the money is specifically paid out. The AAV flattens it all and helps us see apples to apples.
This number has moved plenty since people started noticing that high salaries would seem to weaken a supporting cast and therefore make winning more difficult. It is a very sound theory that makes intuitive sense, of course. The theory is having more good players make winning easier. If one guy is hogging all the money, then his mates have to go elsewhere to get theirs.
There is a trade-off to having scarce talents. We see this constantly in the NBA, and it drives salaries above $50 million a year now. Nobody would dispute that having LeBron James and Anthony Davis means that the rest of your roster will be much worse. But it is a trade-off you happily make. Giannis Antetokounmpo can sign a five-year, $254 million deal this summer which will confirm that unique talents can make all the money in that league despite a salary cap that is projected at $116 million. That will pay him about 44 percent of the cap, but, of course, the caps are different in the sports. In the NBA, you can exceed the number in exchange for a tax. In the NFL, you cannot.
Most of us enjoy establishing absolutes within our sports discussions. The theory in the NFL that a team’s top player (QB) should stay below a threshold is an easy one to understand and to share the wealth. If Steve Young is the line, then Russell Wilson cannot do this, and therefore that settles the issue. Of course, it never works that way. In fact, once someone noticed that you would rather pay your QB nothing or at least under 10 percent of your cap to try to win a Super Bowl, we had to keep moving the bar to keep up.
For instance, the 2011 Super Bowl — when the Giants beat the Patriots — featured two of the highest-paid players in the sport squaring off at QB. The third-highest paid QB, Eli Manning, was making 13.5 percent of the salary cap. He beat Tom Brady, who was making 15 percent of the cap. At the time, the magic number was 13 percent, but had Mario Manningham not caught that sideline pass from Manning, the new number would have moved up to “you can’t pay more than 15 percent” to your QB and win a Super Bowl. Instead, we just moved it to 13.5 percent.
2014 almost blew the whole theory out of the water. You may recall that Aaron Rodgers made 17 percent of the cap that year. But his team could not recover an onside kick in Seattle at the end of the NFC Championship Game and therefore we didn’t have to move the number up to 17 percent that year. Apparently, you can only go to the point of the season where you are leading by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship Game with a QB who makes that much money.
Meanwhile, I have used this visual aid in the past, but let me dust it off again. This chart below shows you how the sport has obviously evolved to where our game’s LeBrons and Giannises (EditOr’s note: Gianni?) are quite obviously the quarterbacks:
This is the most basic demonstration of the game’s strategic and economic turn in the last 50 years. People mention the running backs who used to run the league and the fact that most of those top RBs have a hard time getting their money now. Above, you see the simple run-vs-pass balance by decade. The league is heading in one direction, and there are few signs it will change. This year’s Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs pushed the boundaries even further by winning the Super Bowl while passing the ball on 61.6 percent of offensive snaps. They cut Kareem Hunt, who won the 2017 rushing title, and actually improved without him. The revolution is continuing, and that red line will continue upwards as the copycats continue to follow.
This, of course, means that QBs are in higher demand. And that means the compensation of said QB will continue to rise as those without the QBs cannot compete. If they can break through, they can’t stay competitive without finding their own.
I think trying to figure out the nuanced differences between the salary structures of the mid 1990’s is pretty irrelevant. So much has changed in just the last 10 years that trying to figure out how the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers structured their money is pointless. But this last decade does seem relevant. So I wanted to set you at ease on my findings about the “dangers of paying a QB,” and we can go from there.
First, some ground rules. We will start with this latest collective bargaining agreement, which began in 2011. We will use AAV and league ranking among QB. If a QB is among the league’s top 10 at his position, he is also a top-10 player in the NFL. How do I know this? Well, in the last decade, almost every top-10 salary is a QB, with only a very few exceptions. Since 2013, only Khalil Mack and Aaron Donald have cracked the Top 10 without throwing the ball. In 2019, the top 11 AAV players were all QBs. All of them!
I also think “he hasn’t won a Super Bowl” is tailored to win an argument. I think it’s necessary to account for the thin margins of one play and one call and one bounce deciding these outcomes, and suggesting that the QB salary was the reason that the Saints didn’t win a Super Bowl in 2018 is silly. They were victimized by a bad call. In my methodology, if you make the final four teams and play in a conference championship game and definitely a Super Bowl, you deserve to take part in this study.
The numbers are salary rankings among QBs. The green applies to a player is on a rookie contract, and the red indicates a player is ranked among the top 10 QBs (and players) in the entire NFL. Here is what we have for this decade:
We have nine years of names, four per year, for a total of 36 samples.
13 (36 percent) are QBs on their rookie deals. If you are unclear, there is no question the best way to win a Super Bowl in today’s NFL is to draft a QB and immediately go on a run. That’s tough to do, because your roster is not usually ready to do this, but if you can channel Russell Wilson or Pat Mahomes, you can do this.
12 (33 percent) are veteran QBs on inexpensive deals. This is what everyone wants: a QB who is good and experienced, but cheap enough that he can have a good team around him. Here is the problem with this group. Of the twelve, six are Tom Brady, who played for a very cheap deal for much of his twilight from 2013 through 2018. That actually means there are only six cases outside of Brady (16 percent), and they involve Alex Smith, twice, with San Francisco (one he shared with Colin Kaepernick, who made even less money but was on a rookie deal), Peyton Manning at the end of his career, Carson Palmer, Matt Ryan and the year Sam Bradford/Case Keenum made a run in Minnesota in 2017.
That’s it. Those are the only exceptions.
11 (31 percent) are QBs on top-10 deals. This, in my opinion, is where the market is going. There will be fewer of the middle-class QBs in the mix because Tom Brady is not going to prop up that category anymore. I anticipate we will see names in either red or green from now on.
And what will that mean? It will mean the aforementioned 13-percent rule goes away. In fact, Jimmy Garoppolo was eighth in the NFL last year, and he cost nearly 15 percent of the cap. Aaron Rodgers had his team one win from the Super Bowl again, and he was at 18 percent. He beat Russell Wilson’s Seahawks in the playoffs, and Russ made 19 percent.
Pat Mahomes will sign a deal that will very likely break the 20-percent barrier. Can the Chiefs still win with a roster like that? Of course they can. They may not be able to have a top-paid running back, center and guard anymore, but I predict in five years that many teams will have broken 20 percent to secure their QBs’ services. Will they all win Super Bowls? Of course not. Super Bowls remain rare; the mean team has a 3.125 percent chance of securing one in any given year. But unless the new CBA caps individual salaries, QBs will still take more and more of the pie as every other position sees their growth slow down.
You must have a QB. You also have to pick the right one. But the idea that you can lock down a really promising player in his mid-20’s and not expect to pay the going rate, whatever crazy number that is, will leave you on the outside looking in.
Again, this is not a Dak Prescott study. It was done mostly to demonstrate how out of date the 13-percent or 15-percent rule has become. I predict Mahomes is not done competing for Super Bowls. I also predict all of his future Super Bowls will invalidate that old Reddit theory, as he will wind up at 20 percent or so. The idea is to be ahead of the curve, not behind it, and you can expect the top 10 QBs to all be making “Giannis money” before too long.
Please don’t try convincing your friends you want to win with a QB who will be 22nd in salary at his position. It can happen, but only on rookie deals. After that’s over, it’s time to pay the man.
L.T. Fan
I'm Easy If You Are
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The exercise is interesting as a possible “DAK”related analogy and could suppose without naming anyone that maybe he may have become a top 10 Quarterback for the sake of making a determination for the assumed hypothesis.
The article did not however make a precise case for what constitutes a top 10 QB. The question in my mind is how sure does an orginization have to be that their man is legitimately in that range to write the check big money check. This article didn’t give a standard gauge or performance history to be able to plug into and say this is how you determine a top 10 guy. Maybe I missed the point.
The article did not however make a precise case for what constitutes a top 10 QB. The question in my mind is how sure does an orginization have to be that their man is legitimately in that range to write the check big money check. This article didn’t give a standard gauge or performance history to be able to plug into and say this is how you determine a top 10 guy. Maybe I missed the point.
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Who the hell is Burroughs?Can I trade Prescott for Burroughs still?
Simpleton
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That's more or less true, although there have been several QB's who made it and nearly won it that were on fair market deals, like Matt Ryan, Cam Newton and Garropolo. Peyton Manning was on a fair market deal in 2015 when they won it, and I believe Eli was as well in 2011.
The majority of the winners, and most of the participants, were either on rookie deals (Wilson, Mahomes, Flacco, Goff) or severely discounted deals (Brady, Foles).
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I am all in on this move.Can I trade Prescott for Burroughs still?
Angrymesscan
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