I had the exact same thought right as I got the ESPN notification! What a fucking contract. You could easily sign an all pro safety gaurd and maybe corner just with that contract.
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The Random Thought Thread
- Thread starter The Greek
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I had the exact same thought right as I got the ESPN notification! What a fucking contract. You could easily sign an all pro safety gaurd and maybe corner just with that contract.
How many qbs not named Tom win a superbowl on their second contract .. we need to win this year
redrum52
Hall of Famer
Have been saying this for a while. Eventually, a team is going to wise up, build the roster and go bargain bin shopping at qb.
it's potentially going to be hard to know if that's even what a team's doing unless they're letting go of an all-pro type dude...
the biggest tell would be a team drafting a replacement while their "guy" is still on the roster - and then it begs the question of whether you bother with the 5th year option now that it's priced at tag levels...
would a team be declining the 5th year option in this scenario each time - in which case you've probably got to draft the replacement in the draft before year 4 each time or leave yourself QB less for a year (which would be a surefire way to get fired lol)
i just dont see it happening - would be a surefire way to alienate a ton of fans
Oh it's definitely risky, but I could see some "forward thinking" GM giving it a shot. I look at Washington did with Kirk Cousins and could see a team going that route, but with a trade obviously instead of letting him hit the open market. He was a good QB for them but they knew he wasn't the superstar that was going to elevate them to multiple SBs, so they let him go. Main idea being that you draft a QB and then supplement with a Ryan Fitzpatrick type of guy. Maybe you hit on that pick and you get a Mahomes or someone like that, or if you miss, you have a fallback until you get a chance to try it again. Just could see a scenario where a team gives it a shot instead of having a ton of their cap tied up into one player.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
In short... probably never.
Coaches and GM's can't afford to go that route, unless Ownership somehow decides that they won't fire a coach or GM for losing a lot, which won't happen.
It depends how much GMs buy into analytics. You know as time goes on, there's going to be some heavy analysis that says a team with a guy on a rookie contract has a much better chance of winning it all than a team with a good but not great QB on a $40M/year contract. Of course, if you have a Mahomes then you pay what you have to pay, but if you're one of those teams with a forward thinking coach and a GM, I think you could sell it to an owner, especially after the most recent disaster contracts (Wentz, Goff, etc.)
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
It won't work, for a couple reasons:
1. After that happens even like one time, the "Ryan Fitzpatrick types" will start commanding $20M per year or more. Look at what somebody like Teddy Bridgewater gets on the open market. Or even a guy like Alex Smith. Nobody really thinks these guys are anything more than stop gaps. Once agents figure that out, they'll start feasting too.
2. I generally find more cap space overrated, mostly because it doesn't translate into winning. The Patriots didn't win all those years because Brady took less... they did very little of anything with the cap space he gave them, which is partially why he's not there anymore. They didn't use the $10-15M of "less" cap space he took to go sign any stud playmakers or give him any help. They won because they had great players at key positions for short periods of time.
I think there's one key things that NFL GM's and HC's have realized that fans generally haven't come around to yet...spending less on players doesn't translate into winning. Spending $40M on a QB doesn't make it any more or less likely that you'll win than spending $20M on a QB does. People show the stats of % of Salary cap and all that, but its entirely based on the only barometer of success being winning the SB, which of course, isn't true.
NFL GM's know that spending $20M less on a QB only guarantees one thing... that they spent $20M less on a QB. Everything else afterwards is just a series of IF statements. IF they use that $20M on free agents, and IF those free agents play good football, and IF everybody remains healthy, and IF the drafted players they extended continue to play at a high level, then, and only then, does it pay off.
NFL GM's don't want to have five or six "IFs" go right in order to just be competitive. They want one IF. IF Patrick Mahomes stays healthy, KC will compete every year. Will they win a Lombardi every year? No, but then again, neither will the "revolutionary" team who goes bargain hunting in the draft. If you're elite at talent evaluation, your stud QB on a rookie deals wins a Lombardi one time.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
They already have those analytics. And they don't care about them.
"Moneyball" in MLB, which I could debate didn't actually work, isn't just based on analytics. It was based on analytics, combined with the notion that a franchise couldn't or wouldn't spend top dollar on pretty much anybody, because they simply couldn't afford to.
Which NFL team fits that mold currently?
The forward thinking coach and GM will find themselves blogging if they make a mistake. Nobody blames those guys for the deals they gave Goff or Wentz. That's why they still have jobs, despite the deals and subsequent trades. Its a fireable offense to not re-sign Lamar Jackson, have him to go another team, win a bunch of games, and his replacement, whoever that is, win less.
The only team(s) that could even consider doing that, is a team who's GM is also its Owner. And even then... Ownership is risking lower revenue from lower profile players, which is why they don't bother.
In the end, I come back to the same question I always ask... With a salary cap north of $200M (except for this year, of course), why is $160M not enough to fill out the rest of your roster? The teams that can't compete with a $40M QB can't compete because they're not good at talent evaluation, and giving them more money isn't going to fix that. They'll just spend the money on free agents who won't live up to the contract.
Or basically, you'll end up like the current Dallas Cowboys.
I'm not saying this is the new way of the NFL or anything like that. But I wouldn't be shocked at all to see a team try it at some point. It's not just about saving money - it's better allocating that money. So instead of this $35-40M QB that is good but not great, you have that rookie QB with the G in front of him that would have walked and that premiere pass rusher that you couldn't afford on the other side of the ball. Also in this scenario, that QB gets turned into additional assets via draft picks. Risky? Absolutely. Likely? Maybe not any time soon. But all it takes is one.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
I don't think you'll ever see one.
The risk is higher than the reward. I'm not even sure winning a Lombardi would trump the risk, because we already know that you can win a Lombardi with a highly paid QB, so that's proof of concept.
I think you're missing my point though. How do I know that the Guard is good? Because he was good last year? OK, there are dozens of players who were really good in 2019 that played like garbage in 2020. How do I know that Guard isn't going to be one of them?
Same with the "premiere pass rusher". What if he's Paul Kruger instead of Von Miller? If he's my own guy, I'll feel better about it, but then again, those players fall off a cliff too. If he's a FA signing, that's no more or less of a crap shoot as the NFL draft. I have no idea what I'm getting when I pay market value to somebody.
That's the point. Whiffing on two or three high priced free agents or even drafted player extensions is the same as whiffing on a QB. Its actually a lot harder to whiff on a QB on an expensive deal. By the time you've given it to them, they've show 4-5 years of competent play to get it. Even Goff and Wentz did. The same can't be said about paying market value for a ZaDarius Smith, or a Paul Kruger, or any of the long, long, long line of free agent signings who get market value for less than 2 years of quality production.
Dallas isn't going to struggle because they give Dak $40M. He'll be one of the few that keeps them relevant. They'll struggle because Demarcus Lawrence is a declining player on an ascending contract. They'll struggle because Zeke Elliott is a declining player on an ascending contract. They'll struggle because their GM and Owner isn't good at evaluating talent.
If I'm a GM and/or Owner, and I have no track record of quality talent evaluation, I'm giving the one guy I know is pretty good as much money as he wants. There's no evidence to suggest I'll do any better doing the opposite.
Dam never thought of this
Honestly, this makes sense.. not saying its gonna be the new trend, but it could def happen.
Under the right circumstances it could def happen. Shit we could have possibly done it when our defenses were dominant.. matter fact, all those yrs of great defenses was when we had no qb and a young flacco..actually, your idea wouldve worked with kyle boller( if he was some what decent)
The root of the problem is that if you hit on a QB you won a 1/3 roll. So its a very risky bet to, when you in a window, to just try again for another 1/3 roll because it means 2/3 of the time your offense just got drastically worse. Fun fact about 1st round QBs, if you all the way back to Andrew Luck and look at every single first round QB, Mitch Trubisky is actually above average and you are not winning with a Mitch Trubisky behind center.
are you referring to active QBs, because both Mannings won SBs on their second contract.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Are we talking specifically second contracts, or basically anybody not on a rookie deal?
Brees, Rodgers have done it. So have both Manning's and Brady.
Obvious problem I have with this sort of analysis is it implies that winning the SB is the only metric of success. That, of course, isn't true.
If i had tom brady, rodgers, manning or breed stats and never won a bowl, that shit would piss me off.. guys like cam, kap, goff and them prolly doesnt gaf about winning a bowl but the great ones def measure success on winning and thats a fact
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Right, but they're not paying themselves. It's easy to say you're "all about winning" when a) your bank account is being fed by somebody else and b) you've already made a lot of money.
25 year old Tom Brady knew nothing about the word "paycut". Neither did 30 year old Tom Brady. He was signing top of the market, highest paid player in the league, elite of the elite level money deals.
Owners don't think the same way. Their compensation is driven by how well the business does. And the business doing well doesn't require winning. We know this, because there are franchises that make tens of millions of dollars each year in profits (or more), and are valued in the billions, that have quite literally never won anything.
That's why this discussion about "being a forward-thinking" business leader goes nowhere for me. It ignores the fact that the purpose of an NFL franchise, above and beyond literally anything else, is to make money. Its not to win games. It's not to win Lombardi's. Those are things they strive for and can ultimately boost their profits, but that's not the #1 objective.
So it really doesn't matter if players judge themselves by winning or not. Players come and go. The franchise is there long after they're gone.