QB contract explosion have potential to disintegrate league parity

Jake

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First let me say I was never really a fan of league parity. I liked it when Dallas & San Fran were juggernauts who butted heads in championship games. Problem was rest of league wasn't having as much fun and growth was limited to these Super Teams and thus salary cap was instituted.

League parity allows teams to quickly pivot and make astonishing turn-arounds in 1-2 year period. For that reason NFL popularity has exploded since hard Salary Cap was implemented. That system worked as long as GMs created flexibility by only paying elite players elite money, signing starters to reasonable contracts and churning bottom third of roster on yearly basis.

However, that stable time period appears to be coming to end. What is happening now is middling QBs (non elite players) are commanding elite money within a limited hard salary cap structure. Meaning teams signing these middling QBs to monster contracts will lose the ability to retain core pieces at expense of retaining these middle of pack QBs. In other words, the opportunity cost of signing these non elite players to elite contracts will increase dramatically.

How I see NFL shaping up is few teams maybe 5 or so who will truly have elite QBs who will challenge for SB (like they always do). The middle of pack teams (paying monster QB contracts) can't out-depth the top teams any longer. And the bad teams will keep drafting QB early but will require time for them to develop.

Teams I see potentially in trouble are: Vikings (Cousins), 49ers (Garoppolo), Cowboys (Prescott), Lions (Stafford) and Raiders (Carr) and possibly Pitts (Big Ben). Following teams will soon be in trouble with this predicament: Chargers (Rivers) and Titans (Mariota).

The only silver lining for Dallas (if Dak gets $30 million year) is that he makes quantum leap as QB then contract is fine. If he doesn't, Cowboy will be consistently be bubble playoff team who gets bounced early in playoffs because they won't have depth of roster to off-set a more highly skilled team at QB.

No one is forcing owners to sign "middling QBs" to massive contracts. I agree that it's bad business, but they're choosing to do it.
 

Little Jr

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First let me say I was never really a fan of league parity. I liked it when Dallas & San Fran were juggernauts who butted heads in championship games. Problem was rest of league wasn't having as much fun and growth was limited to these Super Teams and thus salary cap was instituted.

League parity allows teams to quickly pivot and make astonishing turn-arounds in 1-2 year period. For that reason NFL popularity has exploded since hard Salary Cap was implemented. That system worked as long as GMs created flexibility by only paying elite players elite money, signing starters to reasonable contracts and churning bottom third of roster on yearly basis.

However, that stable time period appears to be coming to end. What is happening now is middling QBs (non elite players) are commanding elite money within a limited hard salary cap structure. Meaning teams signing these middling QBs to monster contracts will lose the ability to retain core pieces at expense of retaining these middle of pack QBs. In other words, the opportunity cost of signing these non elite players to elite contracts will increase dramatically.

How I see NFL shaping up is few teams maybe 5 or so who will truly have elite QBs who will challenge for SB (like they always do). The middle of pack teams (paying monster QB contracts) can't out-depth the top teams any longer. And the bad teams will keep drafting QB early but will require time for them to develop.

Teams I see potentially in trouble are: Vikings (Cousins), 49ers (Garoppolo), Cowboys (Prescott), Lions (Stafford) and Raiders (Carr) and possibly Pitts (Big Ben). Following teams will soon be in trouble with this predicament: Chargers (Rivers) and Titans (Mariota).

The only silver lining for Dallas (if Dak gets $30 million year) is that he makes quantum leap as QB then contract is fine. If he doesn't, Cowboy will be consistently be bubble playoff team who gets bounced early in playoffs because they won't have depth of roster to off-set a more highly skilled team at QB.

For the teams you mentioned, Vikings had 5m if cap space to start the season off and resigned barr and wr and now have 1m and will be over 400,000 next year. They are the worst situation but can clear cap easily and can be out from cousins after 2020 season.

SF started with 67m, now have 35m after being active in FA and have 23m next year. And any cap they don't use they'll role over. They'll role around 25m giving them 48m of cap space .

Lions started with 33m, now have 27m and have 33m next year. Also can roll over which could give them 43m+ next year.

Raiders started with 72m, now have 29m with being very active in FA and have 58m next year. Roll over could give them 73m+.

Chargers have 12m now and 69m next year. No issues

Pitt started with 16m, signed Ben , ate some of ab cap and still 4m and 19m next year .

Not even getting into the titans since they may not even keep their QB.

Now onto Dallas. We started with 47m, signed Dlaw and some other FA and now have 19m and 84m next year. If we was to sign Dak we would still have 9m this year and 65m+ next year.

You have teams with high paid qbs like the hawks who just singed Russell to the highest contract and they still have 33m and 82m next year. GB started with 34m, was some what active in FA and have 9m now with 16m next year. Atl started with 22m, now have 2m and 28m next year.

Besides Dak and rivers, who haven't signed yet, all the others are top 10 paid QBs. Minn is on the worst shape but can easily get in good shape and it didn't stop them from signing 2 of their own this year. All the others are in good shape or great shape as far as the cap goes.


The cap isn't a issue and sigining qb to a huge contract isn't going to keep a team from signing other players. If someone doesnt want to sign Dak or any player to big contract because they dont think they are worth it or deserve it, that's fine. Just dont use the excuse and narrative that it causes a team not to be able to sign other players. Just not true.
 

buybuydandavis

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First let me say I was never really a fan of league parity. I liked it when Dallas & San Fran were juggernauts who butted heads in championship games. Problem was rest of league wasn't having as much fun and growth was limited to these Super Teams and thus salary cap was instituted.

League parity allows teams to quickly pivot and make astonishing turn-arounds in 1-2 year period. For that reason NFL popularity has exploded since hard Salary Cap was implemented. That system worked as long as GMs created flexibility by only paying elite players elite money, signing starters to reasonable contracts and churning bottom third of roster on yearly basis.

However, that stable time period appears to be coming to end. What is happening now is middling QBs (non elite players) are commanding elite money within a limited hard salary cap structure. Meaning teams signing these middling QBs to monster contracts will lose the ability to retain core pieces at expense of retaining these middle of pack QBs. In other words, the opportunity cost of signing these non elite players to elite contracts will increase dramatically.

How I see NFL shaping up is few teams maybe 5 or so who will truly have elite QBs who will challenge for SB (like they always do). The middle of pack teams (paying monster QB contracts) can't out-depth the top teams any longer. And the bad teams will keep drafting QB early but will require time for them to develop.

Teams I see potentially in trouble are: Vikings (Cousins), 49ers (Garoppolo), Cowboys (Prescott), Lions (Stafford) and Raiders (Carr) and possibly Pitts (Big Ben). Following teams will soon be in trouble with this predicament: Chargers (Rivers) and Titans (Mariota).

The only silver lining for Dallas (if Dak gets $30 million year) is that he makes quantum leap as QB then contract is fine. If he doesn't, Cowboy will be consistently be bubble playoff team who gets bounced early in playoffs because they won't have depth of roster to off-set a more highly skilled team at QB.

IMO, teams without elite QBs should and could compete with cheap young running QBs they churn until they find an elite QB.

We were made for it with our offense the last few years, but clearly that's not management's plan.
 

Hawkeye0202

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I don’t really agree. Simply because the % or cap space QB’s are getting isn’t drastically increasing. The total number of dollars is increasing, but that is also as the cap increases.

It’s not so much the bottom line figure. It’s % of the cap that QB’s are getting.

Having a high priced QB does reduce flexibility with paying the rest of your roster. But that is also a much smaller problem to have, then not having a good QB. Poor QB play is much more restrictive to having team success, than some cap limitations. IMO.

Other words, QB is a position you better get right. Get this position right the rest will likely fall in place. Honestly this the way it's always been. If you have a damn good QB and a min 2 core blue chipper/ elite players of BOTH sides of the ball, you have a chance at being a pretty good team. I'm willing to bet if we go and check, we'll find the QB salary has ALWAYS taken the larger percentage of teams payroll even back in the 80s and 90s. Look back at the so-called dynasties of Steelers, Cowboys, Packers, 49ers and notice solid QB with few core players. I think what's throwing COWBOY fans off is the amount of $$$$ more than the league concept/system of formula has really changed that much.
 

Fastpitch Dad

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First let me say I was never really a fan of league parity. I liked it when Dallas & San Fran were juggernauts who butted heads in championship games. Problem was rest of league wasn't having as much fun and growth was limited to these Super Teams and thus salary cap was instituted.

League parity allows teams to quickly pivot and make astonishing turn-arounds in 1-2 year period. For that reason NFL popularity has exploded since hard Salary Cap was implemented. That system worked as long as GMs created flexibility by only paying elite players elite money, signing starters to reasonable contracts and churning bottom third of roster on yearly basis.

However, that stable time period appears to be coming to end. What is happening now is middling QBs (non elite players) are commanding elite money within a limited hard salary cap structure. Meaning teams signing these middling QBs to monster contracts will lose the ability to retain core pieces at expense of retaining these middle of pack QBs. In other words, the opportunity cost of signing these non elite players to elite contracts will increase dramatically.

How I see NFL shaping up is few teams maybe 5 or so who will truly have elite QBs who will challenge for SB (like they always do). The middle of pack teams (paying monster QB contracts) can't out-depth the top teams any longer. And the bad teams will keep drafting QB early but will require time for them to develop.

Teams I see potentially in trouble are: Vikings (Cousins), 49ers (Garoppolo), Cowboys (Prescott), Lions (Stafford) and Raiders (Carr) and possibly Pitts (Big Ben). Following teams will soon be in trouble with this predicament: Chargers (Rivers) and Titans (Mariota).

The only silver lining for Dallas (if Dak gets $30 million year) is that he makes quantum leap as QB then contract is fine. If he doesn't, Cowboy will be consistently be bubble playoff team who gets bounced early in playoffs because they won't have depth of roster to off-set a more highly skilled team at QB.
Excellent post.

Agree with everything you said.
 

Fastpitch Dad

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Great write-up@Wood!
80s football was good, Insomniac, and they changed the rules protecting the QB and WRs to help usher in this new brand of football...catering to offense n points. Naturally, this means QBs n WRs are gonna start getting bigger contracts.

Anyway, I'm waiting to see which GM has the sac to trade his good QB, and use those resources to build a complete team that can win with an average QB. Example: Stephen Jones won't get fired so he's good there. DAL has a nearly complete team with several contracts coming up for good young, core players. If DAL decided to buck the trend use that $30M to construct an elite defense, stout OL n potent weapons for the next 4 years... Fielding an average QB or role the dice on a 1st or 2nd round QB to get that low pay scale where would they be?

Or you could insert Philly, LAR, TB, TEN, LAC, CIN...I could keep going but you get the point, so it's not about Dak but the QB landscape and finding a different way to win.
Interesting concept.

I would love to see a team try it and see how it would shake out.
 

John813

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IMO I don't think the owners expected the cap rollover to blow up contracts like it has.
The Jets gave out a new bar for linebackers for Mosely,(17mil AAV) and gave Bell a lot of coin. They had some cap to burn and did so.

When teams have 90 mil in cap space, the GM is on the hotseat and the team sucks, they will overpay to save their own jobs short term(potentially). So starts the rise in cap hits for just about every position in March when UFAs can sign. Then the truly good soon to be free agents see what the guys that actually hit FA made and ask for more. And with cap rollover quite a few teams can give them what they want.

Add in good QB play is scarce, teams with cap to burn it's no surprise the most valuable position in the NFL is now trending above 30mil a year AAV with a high amount guaranteed.

But giving a QB 30mil now isn't a "death sentence". It's merely a building block you have to assemble correctly. The team can't be full of overpaid guys at other positions and the team needs to have draft picks produce.

Lets not kid ourselves, Dak may not be some P. Manning or Dan Marino, but there are way worse options out there and finding a competent one isn't as easy as a RB in the draft. Some teams get lucky and go from Peyton to Luck or Brett Favre to Rodgers.

Others go from tim Couch, to Holcomb to Derek Anderson to Brady Quinn....
Or from Marino to Huard, to Fiedler to Ray Lucas to Cleo Lemon to Aj Feeley....

You can look back at stretches of draft classes and see that zero QB's became anything more than backups or a short term crappy starters.

This is why SJ has gone the el cheapo route to most of CZ displeasure(including me at times).
He wanted a clean slate to where you could retain that QB, give him that big contract but still have enough cap to keep the elite non-QB players on the team.
And, there's a damn good shot we can re-sign Dak and still keep Zeke, Cooper and Smith in the upcoming years, while holding onto D-Law-Martin-Smith and Frederick.

May lose out on retaining someone like Byron Jones, but if they keep drafting well, they could turn that potential 3rd round comp pick into a cheap 2-4 year starter.
 

PA Cowboy Fan

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For the teams you mentioned, Vikings had 5m if cap space to start the season off and resigned barr and wr and now have 1m and will be over 400,000 next year. They are the worst situation but can clear cap easily and can be out from cousins after 2020 season.

SF started with 67m, now have 35m after being active in FA and have 23m next year. And any cap they don't use they'll role over. They'll role around 25m giving them 48m of cap space .

Lions started with 33m, now have 27m and have 33m next year. Also can roll over which could give them 43m+ next year.

Raiders started with 72m, now have 29m with being very active in FA and have 58m next year. Roll over could give them 73m+.

Chargers have 12m now and 69m next year. No issues

Pitt started with 16m, signed Ben , ate some of ab cap and still 4m and 19m next year .

Not even getting into the titans since they may not even keep their QB.

Now onto Dallas. We started with 47m, signed Dlaw and some other FA and now have 19m and 84m next year. If we was to sign Dak we would still have 9m this year and 65m+ next year.

You have teams with high paid qbs like the hawks who just singed Russell to the highest contract and they still have 33m and 82m next year. GB started with 34m, was some what active in FA and have 9m now with 16m next year. Atl started with 22m, now have 2m and 28m next year.

Besides Dak and rivers, who haven't signed yet, all the others are top 10 paid QBs. Minn is on the worst shape but can easily get in good shape and it didn't stop them from signing 2 of their own this year. All the others are in good shape or great shape as far as the cap goes.


The cap isn't a issue and sigining qb to a huge contract isn't going to keep a team from signing other players. If someone doesnt want to sign Dak or any player to big contract because they dont think they are worth it or deserve it, that's fine. Just dont use the excuse and narrative that it causes a team not to be able to sign other players. Just not true.


That's not what Stephen says. lol
 

HungryLion

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Right and why Id continue swinging for the fences until I hit on a QB.

If Dak isn’t our most talented player and or most critical component then he shouldn’t be paid as such.

Don't we think we could draft in one of these years a more Elite QB?

If you tank a season, then maybe yes.

But even if you do. We have to be realistic and recognize that like half of first round QB’s end up not being very good. So if you miss on that next QB. You’re now looking at years and years of not
Being a good team.

So there’s a ton of risk involved. It’s not as easy as let’s jusf draft a QB high.

I don’t know which strategy carries more risk. To be honest. Neither is a sure thing.
 

Diehardblues

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If you tank a season, then maybe yes.

But even if you do. We have to be realistic and recognize that like half of first round QB’s end up not being very good. So if you miss on that next QB. You’re now looking at years and years of not
Being a good team.

So there’s a ton of risk involved. It’s not as easy as let’s jusf draft a QB high.

I don’t know which strategy carries more risk. To be honest. Neither is a sure thing.
We wouldn’t have to tank a season. We could maneuver up in draft. And possibly not all the way to the top .Last year for example there were 5 QB’s taken in 1st round with a couple later in 1st round.

And the reason most of those 50% Bust is most high draft picks go to lower tier teams. Surely we can agree Daks Rookie success was optimized with a greater supporting cast which was expected to be a playoff contender with Romo .
 

Flamma

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The teams with the best QBs always had a big advantage (not necessarily a decisive advantage) and it's more true now than it was 20-50 years ago. (yeah I'm old) Personally I liked the style of football from the 1980s because you could win with different styles. The Commanders won 3 SBs with a smashmouth run game, strong D, ok to good QBs. SF won with Jo Montana and the West Coast offense, the Giants won with LT a great D and a good balanced offense. The winning style has become more and more QB centric. That's why I see KC over the next decade as the most likely dominant team. (as long as they can add some good players that can avoid being thrown out of the league for beating up women and children) Perhaps theother teams will look at Mahomes film and come up with plans to force him to his weaknesses. OTOH they may look at the film and determine, "this guy is just bleeping good".

I liked those years as well. Good QBs were needed back then as well, but on occasion they got swamped if they ran into the wrong team. The salary cap waters down teams. If not immediately, eventually. That's why Peyton Manning had that great year in 2013. He basically faced all mediocre defenses until the SB. That's when he met the 80s special. Then Seattle was unable to hold on to that team. When is the last time two good offensive teams met and played a low scoring game? This last SB was one of them. But we rarely if ever see that anymore.
 

CouchCoach

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First let me say I was never really a fan of league parity. I liked it when Dallas & San Fran were juggernauts who butted heads in championship games. Problem was rest of league wasn't having as much fun and growth was limited to these Super Teams and thus salary cap was instituted.

League parity allows teams to quickly pivot and make astonishing turn-arounds in 1-2 year period. For that reason NFL popularity has exploded since hard Salary Cap was implemented. That system worked as long as GMs created flexibility by only paying elite players elite money, signing starters to reasonable contracts and churning bottom third of roster on yearly basis.

However, that stable time period appears to be coming to end. What is happening now is middling QBs (non elite players) are commanding elite money within a limited hard salary cap structure. Meaning teams signing these middling QBs to monster contracts will lose the ability to retain core pieces at expense of retaining these middle of pack QBs. In other words, the opportunity cost of signing these non elite players to elite contracts will increase dramatically.

How I see NFL shaping up is few teams maybe 5 or so who will truly have elite QBs who will challenge for SB (like they always do). The middle of pack teams (paying monster QB contracts) can't out-depth the top teams any longer. And the bad teams will keep drafting QB early but will require time for them to develop.

Teams I see potentially in trouble are: Vikings (Cousins), 49ers (Garoppolo), Cowboys (Prescott), Lions (Stafford) and Raiders (Carr) and possibly Pitts (Big Ben). Following teams will soon be in trouble with this predicament: Chargers (Rivers) and Titans (Mariota).

The only silver lining for Dallas (if Dak gets $30 million year) is that he makes quantum leap as QB then contract is fine. If he doesn't, Cowboy will be consistently be bubble playoff team who gets bounced early in playoffs because they won't have depth of roster to off-set a more highly skilled team at QB.
Good post but if the elite QB's are getting elite money, how much do those team have for the rest of the team? Doesn't that put more players into play in FA?

Can the Cowboys pay Prescott 30M, Cooper 16M and Elliott 15M and put a team, specifically, a defense around them? And a top 5 five paid OL? And when the cap came into being, look at the players the Cowboys had to let walk. It was depth first but losing Ken Norton Jr. was a huge loss and will they have to let Smith or Vander Esch walk because they can't afford them?
 

HungryLion

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We wouldn’t have to tank a season. We could maneuver up in draft. And possibly not all the way to the top .Last year for example there were 5 QB’s taken in 1st round with a couple later in 1st round.

And the reason most of those 50% Bust is most high draft picks go to lower tier teams. Surely we can agree Daks Rookie success was optimized with a greater supporting cast which was expected to be a playoff contender with Romo .

If you do that, you have to give up a lot of draft picks to do so. Which also hamstrings your ability to build a solid team around the QB, just as badly as having less cap space does.

Also, QB’s taken in the middle of the first round bust at an even higher percentage than top 5 QB’s.

Saying the reason most of those QB’s bust is due to the teams they go to, rather than the QB themselves is 1. An opinion. 2. Even if it is true, highlights the fact that you need a team around a QB for them to be successful, which points the risk associated with trading up for a QB.

So again, letting Dak walk and then drafting a QB, anywhere in the first round also comes with high risk for failure. It is certainly not a slam dunk easy thing to do.
 

Diehardblues

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If you do that, you have to give up a lot of draft picks to do so. Which also hamstrings your ability to build a solid team around the QB, just as badly as having less cap space does.

Also, QB’s taken in the middle of the first round bust at an even higher percentage than top 5 QB’s.

Saying the reason most of those QB’s bust is due to the teams they go to, rather than the QB themselves is 1. An opinion. 2. Even if it is true, highlights the fact that you need a team around a QB for them to be successful, which points the risk associated with trading up for a QB.

So again, letting Dak walk and then drafting a QB, anywhere in the first round also comes with high risk for failure. It is certainly not a slam dunk easy thing to do.
I didn’t say there wasn’t risk. And I wouldn’t let Dak walk. We finally found a solid backup we can win with.

I would have brought in more solid competition. And I would have at least wanted to groom him behind Romo until he was knocked out for good. But IMO we got caught up in the emotion of the winning wave his Rookie season.

But I believe our decisions made by our Idiot in Chief is driven by more than just what’s best for Cowboys Football. Or he wouldn’t still be running the show.

And we wouldn’t have to mortgage our future to move up. I’m still not secure with our current backup. And we could have maneuvered this year for competition without giving up the ranch.
 

Proof

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I don’t really agree. Simply because the % or cap space QB’s are getting isn’t drastically increasing. The total number of dollars is increasing, but that is also as the cap increases.

It’s not so much the bottom line figure. It’s % of the cap that QB’s are getting.

Having a high priced QB does reduce flexibility with paying the rest of your roster. But that is also a much smaller problem to have, then not having a good QB. Poor QB play is much more restrictive to having team success, than some cap limitations. IMO.


Think it’s more that any qb that has moderate success can expect to get that percentage
 
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