How to win while paying a franchise QB?

The wait is over. The NFL returns this week and with the start of the new season, the league has two new faces sitting at the top as the league’s highest-paid players. Deshaun Watson and the Houston Texans agreed to a four-year extension worth $160 million tying him to Houston through 2025. While Patrick Mahomes broke the internet on July 6th when he signed a 10-year extension with a combined value of just over half a billion dollars. Mahomes will be a Kansas City Chief until at least 2031, bad news for the rest of the AFC West.

Or is it?

Dating back to the 2011 season, when the rookie wage scale was agreed upon and put into place, there have been four teams to win the Super Bowl with a quarterback carrying a cap hit of 10 percent or more. All four had the last name Brady or Manning (Eli in 2011, Brady in 2014, Peyton in 2015 and Brady in 2018). When you factor in every team that made a conference championship since 2011, only 16 out of 36 teams had a quarterback carrying a cap hit of 10 percent or more. This is also factoring in teams like the 2017 Vikings and 2019 Titans who paid multiple quarterbacks resulting in a cap hit percentage over 10 for quarterbacks that started a game that season.

When you remove Brady, Eli, and Peyton’s respective teams from the conversation, no one else has been able to win a Super Bowl and only nine of the 36 teams that made a conference title game since 2011 paid a quarterback over 10 percent of their cap.

Brady and the Patriots have benefitted from the quarterback’s marriage to a supermodel, Peyton took a pay cut in the months leading up to the 2015 season and Eli’s 2011 cap hit was only $14.1 million. 

There’s no denying Mahomes’ talent and bright future. Turning 25 this year, Mahomes could become the next quarterback to get paid and win at a high level. But what about teams like Dallas, Houston, Cleveland, Buffalo or Baltimore that will have to pay their quarterbacks a premium price in the upcoming years? 

This leads to the question: is it possible for teams to consistently make a run for a championship while paying their quarterback $30 million-plus?

To Pay or Not to Pay

The most dramatic football story of this off-season has been centered around the Dallas Cowboys and the contract extension for Dak Prescott. Brett Kollman beautifully laid out the dilemma the Cowboys find themselves in during the introduction of his video “How much money is Dak Prescott worth?”

To summarize, Dak has demonstrated that he has the skills and mental makeup to be a successful NFL quarterback. That has never been the question. While Dak is very good, he, like the rest of the league, is behind Mahomes in terms of talent and accolades. We already saw the impacts of Dak’s contract this offseason with Byron Jones being forced to find a new city to play in. So is it worth it to pay a good, not great, quarterback top market value?

Kansas City’s decision with Mahomes was much easier as he has been the most dynamic and impactful quarterback in the league since he took over as the starter in 2018. Mahomes is scheduled to make $5.3 million this season and $24.8 million in 2021, the two lowest cap hits he will register for the rest of his career. 

Mahomes is worth his contract, let’s make that clear. But the salary cap issues for the Chiefs have already started and Mahomes isn’t even getting paid more than $6 million yet. Sammy Watkins agreed to restructure his contract to create $5 million in cap room for the Chiefs on April 3rd. Chris Jones just signed a massive extension for three years (three years added onto his franchise tag for 2020) worth up to $80 million and $37 million-plus guaranteed. Travis Kelce signed a five-year extension worth $75 million in mid-August also. But talks of contract extensions for Mitchell Schwartz, Tyrann Mathieu and potentially Sammy Watkins are only a year away.

But because Patrick Mahomes is, well Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs should remain in the championship conversation for the foreseeable future. The decision was easy for Kansas City. But there’s only one Patrick Mahomes and teams have already been raining cash down on these quarterbacks that aren’t even close to the level of talent as Mahomes.

Houston’s decision to sign Watson was easy as well. It took Watson a few weeks to adjust to the NFL as a rookie but his talent was obvious as soon as his third start against New England. While many are quick to criticize Head Coach and General Manager, Bill O’Brien, for how he’s run the Texans over the last few years, this is a great deal for Houston and Watson.

Because of Houston’s decision to move with haste in regards to Watson’s contract, those massive cap numbers from this extension won’t be in play until 2022. Watson will play 2020 with a cap number of $9.8 million and in 2021 for $15.9 million. Watson will carry cap hits of $40 million+ in 2022 and 2023 before giving the Texans some relief in 2024 and 2025 with hits of $34.7 million and $32 million respectively. Houston’s window to win is open now and could remain open for the duration of Watson’s new extension.

Both Mahomes and Watson are great talents that are completely deserving of their deals. But what about those quarterbacks that haven’t completely proven themselves to that level?

We have already seen teams like the Rams, Vikings and Cowboys struggle to retain talent after signing their quarterbacks to top market deals. But what else are they to do? Let their current quarterback’s walk and roll the dice on another player at the most important position in sports? 

While the Washington Football Team was the first to let a “franchise” guy in Kirk Cousins walk, the Vikings have essentially proved Washington right. Kirk Cousins is good, but not Brady, Peyton, Mahomes or Watson good. Paying guys like Kirk Cousins on a premium contract has proven to make it difficult for teams to compete for championships.

Kirk Cousins will continue to be an interesting case in the discussion of paying quarterbacks premium contracts for the near future. The thinking for signing Kirk Cousins goes back to the 2017 Case Keenum led Vikings. Although the 2017 Vikings playoff run was based on a fluke play in the Minneapolis Miracle, the Vikings have been chasing the potential from that 2017 season since. A ferocious defense mixed with two very talented receivers on the outside, it seemed at the time that a solid option like Cousins was the missing piece. But a disappointing 2018 season and a loss in the Divisional round in 2019 has failed to match the results of the Keenum led team from 2017. Now the Vikings have started to see pieces leave from that season including Stefon Diggs earlier this year.

Cousins was the sixth and third highest-paid quarterback in 2018 and 2019 respectively. While the cap hits are more manageable for 2020 and 2021, Cousins’ cap hit skyrockets to the Mahomes and Watson zone of $45 million in 2022. If the Cousins signing ends up being a lateral move at best when compared to Case Keenum, would the Vikings have been better off signing a non-quarterback to a premium deal? Would extending Teddy Bridgewater while signing someone like Jadeveon Clowney or trading for Frank Clark or Dee Ford have produced similar or better results?

Denver’s Point of View

As I mentioned in the introduction, Denver has been one of three teams that have been able to win a Super Bowl while paying a quarterback premium money after the rookie wage scale was put into place. Let’s go back and examine just how the Broncos were able to win their third championship.

After the 2014 season, it was evident that the Broncos’ window was closing. Peyton Manning was starting to show serious symptoms of decline and John Fox was let go as Head Coach. Von Miller’s rookie deal was nearing its end and he would soon command superstar money that he rightfully deserved.

Thankfully for the Broncos, Peyton Manning completely understood his body and where he was at in his career. In early March of 2015, Peyton and the Broncos agreed to a pay cut of $4 million bringing Manning’s cap hit down to $15 million with a chance to earn the $4 million back with wins in the AFC Championship and Super Bowl.

While Peyton took the pay cut, he still was the sixth-highest paid quarterback in the league in 2015 once you factor in bonuses. While $4 million might not seem like a lot of money in terms of cap space, it helped Denver secure some low market free agents that greatly contributed to their future Super Bowl championship. Owen Daniels, Darian Stewart, Ryan Harris and Evan Mathis were all signed for a combined $9.17 million after Peyton took his pay cut. The Broncos were also able to execute a mid-season trade for Vernon Davis. While none of these players are the sole reason the Broncos won the Super Bowl, it’s hard to imagine how they survive and win enough games to claim the one seed, win the AFC title and beat Carolina for a championship without those players.

That’s not even mentioning Brock Osweiler, signed to a rookie contract through 2015, who played a crucial role in helping the Broncos secure the one seed and eventually win the Super Bowl that year.

Today, the Broncos find themselves in a completely different position. Drew Lock has Broncos fans finally excited for the future. But because he was a second-round pick, Denver is without the valuable fifth-year option meaning Drew Lock’s camp could begin rumblings for a new contract as early as 2021.

The road towards Lock’s extension could set the Broncos up with a situation similar to Dak Prescott or Derek Carr considering both of those players were also drafted outside of the first round. Carr and Prescott easily outplayed their draft position and earned a massive amount of leverage when it came to negotiating a contract extension. While he had a huge second and third year as a starter, Derek Carr might be the example of who teams don’t want to sign to a massive extension. Since he and the Raiders inked a five-year extension worth $125 million, Carr has failed to reach the heights he hit in his second and third year as a pro and has since become another quarterback hovering around the “Andy Dalton zone”.

Would one good year of Lock be worth potentially another three to four years of having an up and down quarterback with a hefty cap hit?

All that to say, that even though the future looks bright in the Mile High City, the time is now for the Broncos to make their run for a fourth Lombardi trophy. John Elway has changed his strategy when it comes to the NFL Draft and has been able to build a good core of young, cheap talent since 2018. If the 2018, 2019 and 2020 Draft classes pan out and show the makings of a legitimate playoff-contender, 2021 could be when the Broncos push all their chips to the center of the table.