Post by riczaj01 on Nov 17, 2016 13:38:09 GMT -6
bleacherreport.com/articles/2674584-expensive-quarterback-mistakes-in-the-nfl-and-how-to-avoid-them
Expensive Quarterback Mistakes in the NFL, and How to Avoid Them
By Mike Tanier , NFL National Lead Writer Nov 17, 2016
The Texans are in first place in the AFC South, inexplicably, unsustainably, thanks to some defensive turnovers and a soft schedule. Their defense has played well despite the loss of J.J. Watt, and the skill-position corps looks loaded. It makes you wonder how good they would be if they hadn't overpaid for a bad quarterback.
The Ravens are also in first place, thanks to Texans-like reasons and the faltering Steelers. They have a rare opportunity to catch the other AFC North contenders in decline and win the division. But even if they reach the postseason, they won't go very far, and their future looks cloudy, because they are overpaying for a mediocre quarterback.
The Bears are in disarray. Their roster, which didn't exactly stack up to the Bill Walsh-era 49ers talent-wise in the first place, has been riddled with injuries and suspensions. The organization needs a thorough, reinvigorating overhaul. Imagine how much easier that would be if they hadn't spent years overpaying for a notoriously unreliable quarterback.
The directionless Jets are spending their bye week soul-searching. They fooled themselves with last year's 10-win season, fueled by aging free-agent mercenaries. Their rebuilding project begins next year. It might have started this year, but the Jets instead decided to overpay for an old journeyman quarterback.
Contrary to popular belief, the NFL is full of very good quarterbacks, from Hall of Famers to up-and-comers. There are also some bad quarterbacks who are easy on the bankbook. Say what you will about Blake Bortles, but he's affordable and still salvageable.
But then there are the quarterbacks of the Island of Expensive Mistakes. Jay Cutler is their emperor. Brock Osweiler their crown prince. Ryan Fitzpatrick is their vizier. Joe Flacco is their Joe Flacco.
These aren't established, pricey stars in a slump, like Carson Palmer or Philip Rivers. They didn't come with contracts full of escape hatches the way Colin Kaepernick does. These expensive quarterback mistakes looked like risky propositions the day they signed their contracts. Their teams are not just paying the price now, but may keep paying in other ways long after the checks stop clearing.
Expensive quarterback mistakes drag their teams down in the short term, as well as their team's ability to get better. They don't just gobble up cap and budget space; they delay the development of their replacements.
Take Osweiler, and begin with the caveats that a) he could still improve (it's hard to imagine him getting worse), and b) the Texans could well reach the playoffs this season. Osweiler will cost the Texans $19 million next season and cannot really be cut. Releasing him before his $21 million 2018 season would still cost the Texans $6 million in dead money. So the Texans are at the start of a three-year commitment to a young veteran quarterback who currently appears incapable of accurately hitting a calm lake with a boat oar.
If Osweiler was playing to his price tag, the Texans would be in the Super Bowl conversation right now. Instead, bobbing along near the top of the AFC South, getting pushed around by the big boys and squandering the best years of Watt, DeAndre Hopkins and many others now looks like an extended sentence.
Flacco is a much better quarterback than Osweiler, but with a much worse contract: a reverse mortgage worthy of The Big Short, with cap figures in the mid-$20 million range and significant dead-money penalties stretching through 2020. The difference between Peak Flacco and Trough Flacco has never been more than about one interception per month, so the Ravens are getting guaranteed non-horrendous quarterbacking at super-premium prices, with minuscule potential for truly great quarterbacking for the next several seasons.
You know how Aunt Ethel pays so much in life insurance premiums that she cannot afford to visit her friends down in Clearwater? That's the Ravens, so over-insured against catastrophe that it hampers their ability to build. The Flacco contract also makes drafting and developing a potential replacement/challenger non-cost effective—the replacement would be gone by the time the Ravens could move on without igniting a dead-money bonfire. (See Tyrod Taylor for an example of how this works.)
Cutler has hung like an albatross around the neck of the Bears for years and is only now sinking them into the watery deep. The good news is Cutler's meltdown of a contract is finally reaching its radioactive half-life; cutting him after this season brings just a $2 million dead-money hit. The bad news is Cutler's presence and salary have kept the Ryan Pace-John Fox Bears in a holding pattern for two full seasons. There's no quarterback of the future on the roster and no forward momentum for the Pace-Fox program.
Cutler's seven-year, $127 million 2013 extension was a watershed moment in bad contract history. Nothing like it will ever be structured again. The Bears may be done paying it soon, but they won't be done paying for it until the roster (and perhaps football operation) is churned over again for the second time since the deal was signed.
And then there's Fitzpatrick. Give the Jets credit for not getting fooled into a long-term deal after his 31-touchdown 2015 mirage. But pity them for their half-measured-yet-pricey approach to the most important position on the field. The Jets will eat a $5 million cap proration fee on Fitzpatrick next year while sorting among their second-tier quasi-prospects. They could have gotten the same results this season by starting Geno Smith, Bryce Petty or Cheap Journeyman X and banking the leftover cap space toward a real rebuilding plan.
We veer close to defeatist Ryan Grigson-level logic when bemoaning the impact of overpriced quarterbacks. Woe is us, how can we build a competitive roster while paying for Andrew Luck? Excellence is a priced-in assumption of a massive quarterback contract. The problem arises when the expensive quarterback is less than excellent. The problem compounds when a contract guarantees several future years of exorbitant less-than-excellence. That's when a team starts rationalizing and "making do" at quarterback while building on the cheap elsewhere.
So the Texans have buyer's remorse. The Bears have wasted several years. The Jets went from the toast of the Big Apple back to the gutter in a few months. The Ravens are unsweetened oatmeal.
But quarterbacks are gonna get paid, and paid a lot. Even the second-tier ones are destined for hefty deals. How does a team avoid an expensive setback at a position of high scarcity and absolute necessity?
Shorter contracts are a step in the right direction. Russell Wilson's contract is unlikely to cause anyone regrets because it comes to a hard stop in 2019; Luck's deal is also shorter and more front-loaded than those old Cutler-Flacco gut busters. Avoiding cap-credit shenanigans is also key: Extending a quarterback's contract to free cap space is no different than using one credit card to pay off another.
But most important, teams need to draft real quarterback prospects, even when they don't think they need them, and keep the development pipeline open at all times.
You may have noticed that the most expensive quarterback mistake of all is not on this list. Tony Romo's contract is practically a masterpiece of accounting science fiction after years of cap-management tomfoolery. If Romo had played this year, the Cowboys (like the Texans and Ravens) would probably be OK, though with a lingering sense they were falling short of their potential and facing down $70 million in unpaid bills.
Thanks to Dak Prescott, however, the Cowboys are the feel-good story of the year, with Romo retreating gracefully to the bench and his $20 million (yes, $20 million) in looming dead-money cap charges looking more like a major inconvenience than financial Armageddon.
The Texans should have drafted a developmental quarterback instead of paying $72 million for one. The Bears and Ravens should have been auditioning replacements for years. The Jets need to stop simply drafting quarterbacks and try drafting good ones. If a team drafts a developmental quarterback who turns out to be Landry Jones, Garrett Grayson or Logan Thomas, it needs to draft another one.
It's what the Patriots do, after all.
There are plenty of future expensive mistakes to be made, starting if and when Cutler and Romo hit the job market next year. Yes, they are better than anyone the Browns and a few other teams have right now. But buyers beware. Be stingy. And be ready to develop alternatives.
Expensive Quarterback Mistakes in the NFL, and How to Avoid Them
By Mike Tanier , NFL National Lead Writer Nov 17, 2016
The Texans are in first place in the AFC South, inexplicably, unsustainably, thanks to some defensive turnovers and a soft schedule. Their defense has played well despite the loss of J.J. Watt, and the skill-position corps looks loaded. It makes you wonder how good they would be if they hadn't overpaid for a bad quarterback.
The Ravens are also in first place, thanks to Texans-like reasons and the faltering Steelers. They have a rare opportunity to catch the other AFC North contenders in decline and win the division. But even if they reach the postseason, they won't go very far, and their future looks cloudy, because they are overpaying for a mediocre quarterback.
The Bears are in disarray. Their roster, which didn't exactly stack up to the Bill Walsh-era 49ers talent-wise in the first place, has been riddled with injuries and suspensions. The organization needs a thorough, reinvigorating overhaul. Imagine how much easier that would be if they hadn't spent years overpaying for a notoriously unreliable quarterback.
The directionless Jets are spending their bye week soul-searching. They fooled themselves with last year's 10-win season, fueled by aging free-agent mercenaries. Their rebuilding project begins next year. It might have started this year, but the Jets instead decided to overpay for an old journeyman quarterback.
Contrary to popular belief, the NFL is full of very good quarterbacks, from Hall of Famers to up-and-comers. There are also some bad quarterbacks who are easy on the bankbook. Say what you will about Blake Bortles, but he's affordable and still salvageable.
But then there are the quarterbacks of the Island of Expensive Mistakes. Jay Cutler is their emperor. Brock Osweiler their crown prince. Ryan Fitzpatrick is their vizier. Joe Flacco is their Joe Flacco.
These aren't established, pricey stars in a slump, like Carson Palmer or Philip Rivers. They didn't come with contracts full of escape hatches the way Colin Kaepernick does. These expensive quarterback mistakes looked like risky propositions the day they signed their contracts. Their teams are not just paying the price now, but may keep paying in other ways long after the checks stop clearing.
Expensive quarterback mistakes drag their teams down in the short term, as well as their team's ability to get better. They don't just gobble up cap and budget space; they delay the development of their replacements.
Take Osweiler, and begin with the caveats that a) he could still improve (it's hard to imagine him getting worse), and b) the Texans could well reach the playoffs this season. Osweiler will cost the Texans $19 million next season and cannot really be cut. Releasing him before his $21 million 2018 season would still cost the Texans $6 million in dead money. So the Texans are at the start of a three-year commitment to a young veteran quarterback who currently appears incapable of accurately hitting a calm lake with a boat oar.
If Osweiler was playing to his price tag, the Texans would be in the Super Bowl conversation right now. Instead, bobbing along near the top of the AFC South, getting pushed around by the big boys and squandering the best years of Watt, DeAndre Hopkins and many others now looks like an extended sentence.
Flacco is a much better quarterback than Osweiler, but with a much worse contract: a reverse mortgage worthy of The Big Short, with cap figures in the mid-$20 million range and significant dead-money penalties stretching through 2020. The difference between Peak Flacco and Trough Flacco has never been more than about one interception per month, so the Ravens are getting guaranteed non-horrendous quarterbacking at super-premium prices, with minuscule potential for truly great quarterbacking for the next several seasons.
You know how Aunt Ethel pays so much in life insurance premiums that she cannot afford to visit her friends down in Clearwater? That's the Ravens, so over-insured against catastrophe that it hampers their ability to build. The Flacco contract also makes drafting and developing a potential replacement/challenger non-cost effective—the replacement would be gone by the time the Ravens could move on without igniting a dead-money bonfire. (See Tyrod Taylor for an example of how this works.)
Cutler has hung like an albatross around the neck of the Bears for years and is only now sinking them into the watery deep. The good news is Cutler's meltdown of a contract is finally reaching its radioactive half-life; cutting him after this season brings just a $2 million dead-money hit. The bad news is Cutler's presence and salary have kept the Ryan Pace-John Fox Bears in a holding pattern for two full seasons. There's no quarterback of the future on the roster and no forward momentum for the Pace-Fox program.
Cutler's seven-year, $127 million 2013 extension was a watershed moment in bad contract history. Nothing like it will ever be structured again. The Bears may be done paying it soon, but they won't be done paying for it until the roster (and perhaps football operation) is churned over again for the second time since the deal was signed.
And then there's Fitzpatrick. Give the Jets credit for not getting fooled into a long-term deal after his 31-touchdown 2015 mirage. But pity them for their half-measured-yet-pricey approach to the most important position on the field. The Jets will eat a $5 million cap proration fee on Fitzpatrick next year while sorting among their second-tier quasi-prospects. They could have gotten the same results this season by starting Geno Smith, Bryce Petty or Cheap Journeyman X and banking the leftover cap space toward a real rebuilding plan.
We veer close to defeatist Ryan Grigson-level logic when bemoaning the impact of overpriced quarterbacks. Woe is us, how can we build a competitive roster while paying for Andrew Luck? Excellence is a priced-in assumption of a massive quarterback contract. The problem arises when the expensive quarterback is less than excellent. The problem compounds when a contract guarantees several future years of exorbitant less-than-excellence. That's when a team starts rationalizing and "making do" at quarterback while building on the cheap elsewhere.
So the Texans have buyer's remorse. The Bears have wasted several years. The Jets went from the toast of the Big Apple back to the gutter in a few months. The Ravens are unsweetened oatmeal.
But quarterbacks are gonna get paid, and paid a lot. Even the second-tier ones are destined for hefty deals. How does a team avoid an expensive setback at a position of high scarcity and absolute necessity?
Shorter contracts are a step in the right direction. Russell Wilson's contract is unlikely to cause anyone regrets because it comes to a hard stop in 2019; Luck's deal is also shorter and more front-loaded than those old Cutler-Flacco gut busters. Avoiding cap-credit shenanigans is also key: Extending a quarterback's contract to free cap space is no different than using one credit card to pay off another.
But most important, teams need to draft real quarterback prospects, even when they don't think they need them, and keep the development pipeline open at all times.
You may have noticed that the most expensive quarterback mistake of all is not on this list. Tony Romo's contract is practically a masterpiece of accounting science fiction after years of cap-management tomfoolery. If Romo had played this year, the Cowboys (like the Texans and Ravens) would probably be OK, though with a lingering sense they were falling short of their potential and facing down $70 million in unpaid bills.
Thanks to Dak Prescott, however, the Cowboys are the feel-good story of the year, with Romo retreating gracefully to the bench and his $20 million (yes, $20 million) in looming dead-money cap charges looking more like a major inconvenience than financial Armageddon.
The Texans should have drafted a developmental quarterback instead of paying $72 million for one. The Bears and Ravens should have been auditioning replacements for years. The Jets need to stop simply drafting quarterbacks and try drafting good ones. If a team drafts a developmental quarterback who turns out to be Landry Jones, Garrett Grayson or Logan Thomas, it needs to draft another one.
It's what the Patriots do, after all.
There are plenty of future expensive mistakes to be made, starting if and when Cutler and Romo hit the job market next year. Yes, they are better than anyone the Browns and a few other teams have right now. But buyers beware. Be stingy. And be ready to develop alternatives.
