QB Cap Percentage and Super Bowl wins

[MacReady]

I have been one of the only people on this site to frequently bring this up, but in NFL history, one QB has ever won a Super Bowl getting paid 13% of their team's cap.  That was Steve Young in a year where the 49ers were literally penalized for cheating the Salary Cap. 

Below are the cap percentages for quarterbacks sine 2001.  I could not find Brad Johnson's figures, and Aaron's win was in an uncapped year. 

Removing Aaron Rodgers and Brad Johnson, the average cap percentage paid to a QB who wins the Super Bowl has been 7.7% over the past 18 years. 

This is not some myth, this is a trend that has been repeated over and over again, and I'd like to know why teams think they can win a Super Bowl while paying their QB 13% of the cap.  It's a team sport, there are 53 players on a team, and paying 13% of your cap to .02% of your roster has never seemed like a good idea to me. 

2018 - Brady Patriots - 12.4%
2017 - Foles AND Wentz Eagles - 4.6%
2016 - Brady Patriots 8.9%
2015 - Manning Broncos - 12.2%
2014 - Brady Patriots - 11.1%
2013 - Wilson Seahawks - .6%
2012 - Flacco Ravens - 6.6%
2011 - Eli Manning Giants - 11.7%
2010 - Rodgers Packers - Uncapped year (Figured to be under 10%)
2009 - Brees - 8.7%
2008 - Roethlisberger - 10.7%
2007 - Eli - 9.2%
2006 - Peyton - 10.4%
2005 - Roethlisberger - 4.9%
2004 - Brady - 6.3%
2003 - Brady - 4.4%
2002 - Johnson - Can’t find.  
2001 - Brady - .5%

Quarterbacks who will NOT win the Super Bowl in 2019 if this trend continues: 

1. Tom Brady (over 14%)
2. Aaron Rodgers (over 14%)
3. Kirk Cousins (over 15%)
4. Matt Stafford (over 15%)
5. Andrew Luck (over 14%)
6. Russell Wilson (over 13%)

Put lots and lots of money on the Saints winning the Super Bowl this year. 

 

[J-ALL-DAY]

Or put it towards the Chiefs.....Or you know, be smart and put it towards the 49ers!

[MacReady]

Just now, J-ALL-DAY said:

Or put it towards the Chiefs.....Or you know, be smart and put it towards the 49ers!

Chiefs are definitely a favorite.  Niners are definitely not.  You don't win Super Bowls with zero playoff experience out of your head coach and QB often.  The Eagles are the only team to ever do that in their first playoff experience.  Not impossible, but not very probable. 

Chiefs, Chargers, Saints are all really good bets. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

3 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

Chiefs are definitely a favorite.  Niners are definitely not.  You don't win Super Bowls with zero playoff experience out of your head coach and QB often.  The Eagles are the only team to ever do that in their first playoff experience.  Not impossible, but not very probable. 

Chiefs, Chargers, Saints are all really good bets. 

So 50% of the last two SB winners won without playoff experience from their HC? 49ers confirmed 2019 SB champs! 

[iknowcool]

Correlation /=/ causation and there are way too many factors to look at before we can automatically assume teams paying 13% of their cap to a QB can't win a Super Bowl.

1. Brady and Manning were .6 and .8 away from 13% respectively in 2 of the seasons.  If Brady saw a .6% increase in pay in 2018, then would logic dictate the Patriots don't win the Super Bowl?  That .6 would have been equivalent to DE John Simon.  Is getting rid of Simon and giving Brady that additional .6 the difference?  Do the '15 Broncos have their odds diminished if they release WR Caldwell and give Manning an additional .8%?

2. The % of Super Bowl winning teams among teams who compete for it every year is small.  So how often have QBs been paid 13% of the cap since 2001 is something that is a big deal.  In 2015, only 3 QBs had higher than 13% of their teams cap (Brees, Ryan, Rivers).  And Ryan barely.  Is it fair to say because 3 teams failed to win a Super Bowl in a league of 32 teams, that it means 13% is too much for a QB?  

In 2011, only 2 QBs accounted for higher than 13% of the cap - Mark Sanchez (hahahaha) and Peyton Manning (who didn't even play).  So is it fair to use seasons like that?

You could jump a year and look at 2012.  Peyton Manning was the highest with 14.93% and they went 12-4.  The next one was Sam Bradford at 12.93%.  So you already have only 1 team a year winning the Super Bowl and there is only 1 team in the NFL that season who has a cap % higher than 13%.  And said team went 12-4.  

In 2013, you had Eli Manning (16.72), Stafford (14.54), and Brees (13.84).  Saints went 11-5 while the Giants and Lions went 7-9, which is similar to the records in 2012 even when their QBs weren't making up 13% of the cap.  

In 2018, you had Jimmy G (15.86%), Stafford (14.61%), Carr (13.53%), Flacco (13.71%), Brees (13.52%), and Wilson (13.38%).  Wilson and Brees, the only two great QBs from that list, made it to the playoffs and one of the probably should have made it to the Super Bowl if not for a bad call.  The only trend I'm seeing is that teams who pay bad to average/mediocre QBs a lot of money are the ones who can't win a Super Bowl, but that isn't a mystery.  However, I'm not seeing the proof that a team paying a QB 13% of the cap can't win considering we've seen teams still manage to make the playoffs and contend.  Just because they aren't the final winner shouldn't mean anything; winning the Super Bowl is difficult and there is not a large enough sample of teams in an individual season to draw concrete evidence from.  It would be different if, for the last 5-10 years, 50% of the league had been paying QBs 13% of their cap and yet never won the Super Bowl.  But as it stands now, you might have 9% of the league doing that (even in 2018, it's only 18%).

Edited April 11, 2019 by iknowcool

[Jakuvious]

2 hours ago, Outpost31 said:

I have been one of the only people on this site to frequently bring this up, but in NFL history, one QB has ever won a Super Bowl getting paid 13% of their team's cap.  That was Steve Young in a year where the 49ers were literally penalized for cheating the Salary Cap. 

Below are the cap percentages for quarterbacks sine 2001.  I could not find Brad Johnson's figures, and Aaron's win was in an uncapped year. 

Removing Aaron Rodgers and Brad Johnson, the average cap percentage paid to a QB who wins the Super Bowl has been 7.7% over the past 18 years. 

This is not some myth, this is a trend that has been repeated over and over again, and I'd like to know why teams think they can win a Super Bowl while paying their QB 13% of the cap.  It's a team sport, there are 53 players on a team, and paying 13% of your cap to .02% of your roster has never seemed like a good idea to me. 

Because this number can just as easily be explained by how few QBs have been paid over 13% of the cap. Some of the QBs listed were still making top 5 or higher salaries for that year. The reality is, most years there's only a couple of guys making more than that 13% number. Literally the only guy making more than that for much of the early 2000s was Peyton. There were a few years, like 2004 and 2005, where literally no one made that much. So a huge chunk of the relevant years, 0 or 1 guy was making more than that 13%, so a superbowl never being won by someone making that for like the first half of that window makes perfect sense. No one was making that.

Even looking at a more recent year, like 2015. Peyton won that year as the 6th highest paid QB in football. He was on one of those huge contracts for the time, he just happened to be a few years into it where the inflation had continued beyond him. Only 3 guys were eligible that year, past the 13% mark. So yeah, every year there has been like a 90% - 100% chance that a QB making less than 13% wins it, because 90% - 100% of the QBs in football are making less than that. Statistically it's likely that 1 or 2 would've occurred by now, but a couple were close.

Really, this is just a case of using a statistic in lieu of logic to make a point. For starters, the % barrier is arbitrary. You have plenty of guys up there within a million or two of 13% of their team's cap. Brady twice, Peyton, Eli, even Ben were very close when they won it. Do we really believe that if they had made one or two million more in that particular year, they wouldn't have won? In some cases, those teams had that cap space that year. So no. They could've just as easily been over 13% and won those years. Additionally, a core part of why teams are willing to do this is because in the modern NFL, a QB is absolutely worth more than 13% of a team's success. The great ones, at least. You say it's .02% of their roster (it's actually more like 2%, not .02%, but okay), but that doesn't mean it's 2% of that team's success. A QB may hold 20% or 25% of the team's success. On the flip side, your third string QB might not even crack a full percentage point. Equating the position to the roster spot in terms of value is a bad argument. There's also the basic question of what else do you suggest? Teams would absolutely just pay QBs less if they could. But that's not the market. The market has reflected their value to teams. If you don't give your QB $30M, fine. Next year, the Dolphins will. Or the Giants. Or any of the teams with the cap space and the need. So you're not choosing whether or not to give your QB that money. You're choosing whether to give the QB that money, or start from scratch. In the near future this issue will come up with Goff, and Mahomes, and Watson, and Wentz. These are teams that likely fall out of immediate contention if they don't retain their star QBs. Now, there are some cases where teams probably should've moved on. The money given to Stafford or Cousins or Carr might be questionable. But if you have a guy you know is elite, you don't not pay him because of some arbitrary financial cut off someone on the internet found. $25M in free agents is not going to offset the loss of your QB, and the odds of finding a new one are not great.

And as a final counterpoint, regardless of income of the list of QBs you have above, almost all of them were elite. Even if we take it as true, that your odds of winning while paying a great QB handsomely aren't great. Your odds of winning without one are just as bad, if not worse.

[FrantikRam]

I've been saying this for a while. Eventually some team will do it - give up a franchise QB to keep the elite core around him intact.

 

[FrantikRam]

2 hours ago, Outpost31 said:

Chiefs are definitely a favorite.  Niners are definitely not.  You don't win Super Bowls with zero playoff experience out of your head coach and QB often.  The Eagles are the only team to ever do that in their first playoff experience.  Not impossible, but not very probable. 

Chiefs, Chargers, Saints are all really good bets. 

 

Not the Rams though?

[KellChippy]

15 minutes ago, FrantikRam said:

 

Not the Rams though?

And Texans/Bears/Eagles/Cowboys.  A lot of teams have playoff experience and cheap qbs.

[N4L]

2 hours ago, Outpost31 said:

Chiefs are definitely a favorite.  Niners are definitely not.  You don't win Super Bowls with zero playoff experience out of your head coach and QB often.  The Eagles are the only team to ever do that in their first playoff experience.  Not impossible, but not very probable. 

Chiefs, Chargers, Saints are all really good bets. 

You must have missed the Superbowl a few years ago where Kyle was the falcons OC. Also, while Garoppolo hasn't played in a playoff game, he does have a couple of superbowl rings. Doesn't mean a whole lot, but I think it is worth noting. Not saying we win the superbowl this year, would be happy with a playoff game tbh. 

Just curious/lazy, what percentage of the cap does Garoppolo count for?

[Shanedorf]

1 hour ago, N4L said:

Just curious/lazy, what percentage of the cap does Garoppolo count for?

Here you go you lazy bum ( Its different each season) See column on far right

https://overthecap.com/player/jimmy-garoppolo/3001/

[N4L]

7 minutes ago, Shanedorf said:

Here you go you lazy bum ( Its different each season) See column on far right

https://overthecap.com/player/jimmy-garoppolo/3001/

20% of the cap last year! Wow. 

The niners had more money on IR than any other team last year, Garoppolo alone was more than any team had on IR last year lol

[SBLIII]

so if Brady gets a contract extension this year which reduces his caphit to below 13% and the Patriots don't make any other roster moves than they would have done at 14.3 % they become SB favorites again?

 

This seems rather illogical.

[tom cody]

Interesting stats there for sure. QB is a very important position but if I'm a team I surround myself with other talent as to not be so dependent on the QB. 

[FrantikRam]

23 hours ago, KellChippy said:

And Texans/Bears/Eagles/Cowboys.  A lot of teams have playoff experience and cheap qbs.

Eagles yes.

Texans and Cowboys are more likely to miss the playoffs than actually rise to being contenders.