Who Is Worth 40M a Year Today?

[DannyB]

5 minutes ago, Vorsutus said:

Didn't they fudge tge cap? Or was that the Broncos?

That would be the Broncos

[DannyB]

5 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

If teams suddenly find themselves in need of QBs, do you think QBs aren’t going to sit back and set their market value at that $40m Max? Do top players in the NBA not take the max deal even if taking less may make them a more competitive team? Top players in the MLB? Top players in MLS? Top players in the NHL? Do top players in the NFL generally not take “the max deal” (they can find) even when that might not be best for the team’s chances of winning? Do NFL teams pay specific players beyond what their worth is if they need to change a specific element of their franchise around?

I have no idea what your point is here, sorry. Not trying to ignore it, I just don't get what you're driving at.

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

This isn’t as simple as teams saying, I want x player and the will pay him “x amount”, this is a scenario where teams will have no players and will have a sort of career day with talents. If the max is $40m, players are going to negotiation their deals with that thought in consideration. The Seahawks could’ve let Russell Wilson leave, but they didn’t. The Packers could’ve let Aaron Rodgers leave, but they didn’t. Same with Brees and the Saints. Rivers and the Chargers.

But no team has paid a quarterback 20% of the cap before, not ever. And frankly, how have those big contracts worked out for those teams? No championships yet. Not Super Bowl appearances yet.

8 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

The teams who drafted #1 COULD have chosen to just not sign the player asking for too much money. It eventually got out of hand because the players had the leverage in those situations.

No, they basically couldn't have, not realistically. Just like you said, the player had all the leverage. They could trade out, but they were getting pennies on the dollar, and it didn't help them actually improve their team the way picking early is supposed to. Rock and a hard place. There's a reason it changed.

 

10 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

What makes this scenario any different? It’s a giant NFL draft... only the players have to AGREE to sign with said team. Sure the first few QBs likely sign to a team with the best organizational track record (because they choose where they want to go), but after that money and opportunity will incentivize the next wave of QBs for sure.

To be honest the scenario put forth leaves a LOT of questions. If 40 million/year is the cap, and QBs start going for that, is EVERY QB going to end up getting that since they start disappearing? Do I HAVE to take a quarterback? I'd rather let everyone else pay that much for a QB, and then let whoever is left fight over my low offer, so I can build everything else and then look for a QB to draft in the future. I know this is just a thought exercise, but I feel like we're missing info.

[lancerman]

Nobody lol. That’s a fifth of the salary cap. It pretty much guarantees you are always struggling to do anything but pray that every year 3-4 rookies become extremely solid franchise level players before you lose them 

[DannyB]

13 minutes ago, lancerman said:

Nobody lol. That’s a fifth of the salary cap. It pretty much guarantees you are always struggling to do anything but pray that every year 3-4 rookies become extremely solid franchise level players before you lose them 

Noooo. According to posters here 20% of the salary cap is nothing but an afterthought. Simply the final wet squeak that trails a massive orchestral fart.

$40 million dollars against the cap? FEH! Chump change, why not 45? Why not 50!? What? The roster needs like 52 people? And like a dozen people are going to end up on IR or with lengthy injuries? And players get gassed or cramped during games and need subs that won't absolutely gag and give up a game changing play? Pish posh! Just give me the jetsam from the Browns and Redskins!

It takes a team to win football games. But sometimes a single player can lose them.

[wackywabbit]

The Browns have 40M in cap space right now. How do you guys suggest they convert that into a championship?

When they auction off the Lombardi at the end of the season for cap space dollars, they are clearly going to get it right?

Edited May 26, 2020 by wackywabbit

[JaguarCrazy2832]

1 minute ago, wackywabbit said:

The Browns have 40M in cap space right now. How do you guys suggest they convert that into a championship?

In this scenario though everyone would have 200M and no players. Who is worth 40M a year starting fresh 

[lancerman]

6 minutes ago, DannyB said:

Noooo. According to posters here 20% of the salary cap is nothing but an afterthought. Simply the final wet squeak that trails a massive orchestral fart.

$40 million dollars against the cap? FEH! Chump change, why not 45? Why not 50!? What? The roster needs like 52 people? And like a dozen people are going to end up on IR or with lengthy injuries? And players get gassed or cramped during games and need subs that won't absolutely gag and give up a game changing play? Pish posh! Just give me the jetsam from the Browns and Redskins!

It takes a team to win football games. But sometimes a single player can lose them.

It’s funny too because no team has won with a player taking up more than 13% of the cap and that’s only because the first year when the teams were adjusting Steve Young did it (on a team that had a cap violation). Everyone else was 11% or less and most were 6% or less. 
 
But someone can take up a 5th of the cap and not kill a team. Sure. Do it and get back to me 

[DannyB]

2 minutes ago, lancerman said:

It’s funny too because no team has won with a player taking up more than 13% of the cap and that’s only because the first year when the teams were adjusting Steve Young did it (on a team that had a cap violation). Everyone else was 11% or less and most were 6% or less. 
 
But someone can take up a 5th of the cap and not kill a team. Sure. Do it and get back to me 

Aah so there was something with that Steve Young team? Someone brought that up.

Yeah, this is a common thread that comes up fairly often on here, and I've been saying all along that no QB on any of these "mega deals" has won. But I also will always through in this caveat: Tom Brady taking a below-market deal throughout his tenure may just be throwing the data totally off. Once he's in the rearview mirror, we might see that locking up one of the elites, cost be damned, is the best way to ensure a year in and year out chance at a SB berth. But I'm not holding my breath.

[wackywabbit]

I really do not care about ANY "no team/only X team(s) has/have won a super bowl with ___" fact. That's incredibly narrow sampling. Also the league changes too fast for that group to accumulate any meaningful size and still be relevant.  So save those facts for people who already agree with your thought process.

It's a flat out worse measure than correlating with wins in general. And guess what correlated with wins? Having a top 10 QB. Guess what doesn't? 40M cap space.

"Since the 2011 CBA introduced the rookie wage scale, only twice has a QB on a wage-scale rookie contract won the SB. That's 2/9. Far more than 2/9 of starting QBs were on a 2011 or later rookie contract during that interval. Ergo, having a QB on a wage-scale rookie contract is bad."** Edited to clarify post-CBA rookie contracts

Edited May 26, 2020 by wackywabbit

[DannyB]

7 minutes ago, wackywabbit said:

And guess what correlated with wins? Having a top 10 QB. Guess what doesn't? 40M cap space.

you...you do know that the $40 million dollars wouldn't literally be bundled up, strapped with pads and a jersey, and thrown out on the field on Sundays, right?

[Jakuvious]

I've gotta agree with Wacky here, for the most part. On the market, whether it's for a QB or another position, $40M won't actually get you that far nowadays. Especially with some of that money still going to a QB regardless. Obviously, the dream is to just draft an elite QB on a rookie deal, but that's not realistic. But like, the Colts went into the offseason with crazy cap space. And really all they got out of it was Buckner and Rivers. I wouldn't take that duo over a truly elite QB. $40M is basically what the Panthers spent on Bridgewater and McCaffrey. 100%, give me $40M to Mahomes or Wilson or even a guy like Watson, compared to a $20M - $25M QB and other players with what's left over.

No matter who you're paying out that kind of money too, the key is and always will be how well you manage to draft. You can't build a team around a QB in free agency either, so even if the notion is, go for a cheaper QB and use that money to build up talent around him, that money is only getting you 2 - 3 meaningful free agents. So either way, the draft is key. For my team, if we pay Mahomes $40M, the only way we can keep the team this talented is by continuing to draft excellently. But, before we paid Mahomes, as a bunch of our drafted talent was reaching big money levels (Houston, Ford, Berry, Fisher, Hill, Kelce, Jones, Nelson, Morse, Hudson, etc., etc., etc.) they key was already that we needed to keep drafting well in order for the team to not fall apart. Little changes. It's still about draft success either way.

 

For the actual thread question, I'm going to go the opposite direction of many, and say several QBs would get $40M in that scenario. In a free for all bidding war, you're going to see teams desperate for the small number of QBs that look capable of imminently or in the near future, winning a superbowl. If you lose out on getting a great DE, that's fine, you can shift to building a secondary or get an interior rusher. There are options. You end up with a non capable QB, you're basically just prepping for the 2021 draft. I think you'd see the top tier guys command huge money, along with some of the young promising guys. I actually think who it would hurt the most would be guys that are good, but not great, and have been around enough to seem relatively established. Dak, Matt Ryan, guys in that kind of tier.

[DannyB]

@Jakuvious But here's the thing, as more teams are spending a higher percentage on QBs, at some point that will necessarily eat away at how much is spent on other positions, relative to the cap. There's gotta come a time where nabbing more of those guys at depressed prices is better than spending THAT much for like...the 12th best QB.

[lancerman]

Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Brett Farve, Kurt Warner, have all been in the league in the salary cap era. Those are legendary QB’s. They couldn’t do it just being a little bit above half the percentage we are talking at 40 million. Mahomes is going where he’s doing with an extremely talented offense. You are doing something that guarantees he will never have that again 

[Nabbs4u]

No one!

Who will get it first, Mahomes. 

[diamondbull424]

5 hours ago, DannyB said:

Noooo. According to posters here 20% of the salary cap is nothing but an afterthought. Simply the final wet squeak that trails a massive orchestral fart.

$40 million dollars against the cap? FEH! Chump change, why not 45? Why not 50!? What? The roster needs like 52 people? And like a dozen people are going to end up on IR or with lengthy injuries? And players get gassed or cramped during games and need subs that won't absolutely gag and give up a game changing play? Pish posh! Just give me the jetsam from the Browns and Redskins!

It takes a team to win football games. But sometimes a single player can lose them.

There’s no need to be overly dramatic for a minority counter-opinion? It’s a debate, not everyone has to agree. I (contrary to my argument) understand your perspective. In a more ideal world the QB wouldn’t be quite as valued and protected as they’ve become to this point vs when I started watching some 20 years ago. But they’ve drastically increased their value the last decade. But as we saw with the rookie wage scale being removed, it was supposed to earn veteran players more money... but ultimately teams really just started to utilize the additional savings and passing it along to their QBs, while most of the other players stayed pretty consistent in their max salaries in comparison. So it’s just further evidence IMO that a team would be willing to value these contributors at whatever price they dictate for themselves and just grab a couple million here and there from other positions.

6 hours ago, DannyB said:

I have no idea what your point is here, sorry. Not trying to ignore it, I just don't get what you're driving at.

My apologies, my point is that the free market determines value is my point. And if QB is the most important position- by far- on the field, I’m simply saying that I have five guys that I would EASILY feel would be well worth the $40m considering the suped up value of the position: Mahomes, Jackson, Wilson, Watson, and Murray.

Then when you have those guys getting paid, guys in that fringe area could easily command that value and if in a situation where I’m the GM I might not fight it too much. Might they get the same $40m? Perhaps not, but would they get that $35m or something in that range... and would I pay them that and thus would they be “worth that”? Sure. Guys in that range would make me a little more nervous but could easily become good values with a SB win: Matt Ryan (MVP), Baker Mayfield (some ROTY), Sam Darnold (potential), etc. There are more guys that I listed on page one where I might not necessarily pay them, but the market might eventually dictate that the difference between a Matt Ryan and Matthew Stafford is inconsequential... and thus I couldn’t really argue that much against that. Then if I’m spending money on Baker Mayfield because of the potential I believe he has, why shouldn’t I spend it on Joe Burrow or Drew Lock? Especially when these QBs are refusing to sign for less because of deals their peers are getting paid.

My point is that in a situation where teams have had an opportunity to play hardball and reject overpaying, they haven’t generally done so. Whether it’s with their own FAs demanding a market breaker contract (Joe Flacco), a guy they believe might get them over the top (Kirk Cousins), a guy who showed plenty of great promise but hasn’t played extensively to that point (Jimmy G), or even guys just being drafted (Matthew Stafford the rookie). In each situation teams have spent big money (for that time period) and that’s when the market price was only one guy hitting the market at a time.

So in a hypothetical situation that says we have no players and the QB is the most important position on the field... they have similar leverage as all the above situations I mentioned where franchises eventually caved on the asking prices. My viewpoint, similar to a fantasy football auction draft is... I may not want to spend $40-60 on a top tier running back but it’s market value and I refuse to settle for fodder backs, same here with the QB position. You either have one or you’re hoping you could find him in the draft... but you can say the same about almost any other position come draft day.