Realizing the true value of an NFL quarterback in today’s game

Quarterbacks have never cost more, and in today’s NFL, the league must reckon with the value of the game’s paramount position.

Over the past 10 years, the NFL passing boom has resulted in an explosion of quarterback contracts. Not only are teams tying up a large percentage of their salary cap into one position on a 53-man roster, but they’re also emptying the cupboards to get their guy.

Sometimes not even their guy, just a guy.

Anybody who can throw a football.

The league has decided there’s no price too high for a starting-caliber quarterback.

NFL front offices are so afraid of not having a quarterback they’ll do anything to have someone who might be able to turn into a top-10 quarterback, one day… maybe.

If you look at the past 10 Super Bowl winners, it’s hard to argue with that sentiment; Matthew Stafford, Tom Brady (4x), Patrick Mahomes, Nick Foles, Peyton Manning, Russell Wilson, and Joe Flacco. Four of those guys will be dawning the gold jacket when they’re eligible to do so, and Manning already is. The other two, Foles and Flacco, went on two of the greatest Cinderella runs in recent sports history.

But the numbers tell a different story.

How Valuable is a Quarterback?

There is no sure-fire way to figure out how valuable the quarterback is to any given franchise. Quarterback wins shouldn’t be a stat; it’s still a team sport, and there are not many players who could overcome a bad roster or subpar coaching to get wins on their own. Times this sentiment by ten-fold for Super Bowl wins.

We can look at two things to roughly determine how much value teams have put into the quarterback position. Draft capital given up to acquire a quarterback, and the percentage of the cap taken up by the quarterback on teams that go on deep playoff runs (conference title games and Super Bowl appearances).

Draft Capital Spent to Acquire a Quarterback

Using Jimmy Johnson’s NFL Draft Pick Trade Value Chart, we can estimate how much teams would usually give up to move up for a quarterback in the first round.

In the 2017 Draft, the Houston Texans acquired the 12th-overall pick (valued at 1200 points) to select Deshaun Watson. They traded the 25th-overall selection in 2017 (720 points) and what turned into the fourth-overall pick in 2018 (1800 points) to move up to 12th. So the Texans spent 1320 points to draft Watson (1800 + 720 = 2520 | 2520 – 1200 = 1320).

Fourteen teams traded up to draft their quarterback of the future between 2012 and ’20. The average cost is 558 points in that time frame, but the price varies wildly depending on how far the team moves up and who they’re moving up for.

What stands out is how rare trading up for a quarterback actually works. Of the 14 quarterbacks on this chart, only six or seven — depending on your feelings about Carson Wentz — of them turned out to be good. Only three of them made it or will make it to play through a second contract with the team that drafted them (Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and likely Lamar Jackson).

It doesn’t get any better the further you go back: Rewinding to 1998, when it started to become more common for teams to trade up, 12 additional quarterbacks could be added to the mix (Blaine Gabbert | Tim Tebow | Mark Sanchez | Josh Freeman | Joe Flacco | Brady Quinn | Jay Cutler | Jason Campbell | J.P. Losman | Kyle Boller | Michael Vick | Ryan Leaf).

Only three of those guys turned out to be above-average (Flacco, Cutler, and Vick). And even then, none of them became the long-term starter the team that drafted them thought they were getting.

It’s becoming more common for teams to trade up for quarterbacks every season. Last year, the San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears (for the second time in four years) traded up. Don’t be surprised to see someone trade up for a quarterback in the 2022 Draft, either. It doesn’t matter how maligned Kenny Pickett and the quarterbacks in this year’s draft become, a desperate team will overpay for their guy.

Look at the 2011 quarterback class. Outside of Cam Newton, none of the prospects should have been considered very good. Yet, the Jaguars traded up to 10th for Blaine Gabbert. At eighth, the Titans drafted Jake Locker, who couldn’t throw accurately. At 12th, Christian Ponder, who couldn’t throw at all, was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings.

General managers are chomping at the bit to overdraft garbage quarterbacks.

Every time a team trades up for a quarterback, it is mortgaging a small part of its future. Franchises don’t do that for a quarterback that might make the roster; but for one who can win a Super Bowl and will be the starter for 15 years.

Only the Bills and Chiefs definitely got that with Allen and Mahomes. Everybody else has questions.

Quarterback Cap Percentage

No team has ever won the Super Bowl by paying its starting quarterback over 15 percent of the salary cap. The closest was Matt Ryan in 2016; he made precisely 15 percent and lost.

In the past 12 seasons (going back to ’10, the start of the passing boom), no team has won the Super Bowl paying their quarterback more than 12.2 percent of its annual cap. The quarterback who won that Super Bowl was Tom Brady.

So, is the quarterback a team is about to pay an unfathomable amount of money to good enough to cover up the inevitable holes this will create in a roster? If you’re a general manager, that’s the question to answer.

Look at the Vikings. Kirk Cousins is a better quarterback than Case Keenum. There’s no arguing this. In fact, most numbers you look at will tell you Cousins has been a top-10 quarterback during his time with the Vikings. During one season with Keenum, the Vikings went 13-3 and upset the Saints before losing in the conference finals to that miracle Eagles team with Nick Foles.

During the four seasons with Cousins at the helm, they’ve made the playoffs once, won one playoff game (again against the Saints, the North remembers bountygate), and haven’t won more than ten games in a season. If Case Keenum isn’t better than Kirk Cousins, then what the hell happened to the Vikings?

Keenum’s slice of the pie was only 1.1 percent, while Cousin’s contract averaged out to nearly 14 percent of the cap. Cousins is better than Keenum, but he wasn’t good enough to make up for the roster deficiencies his contract caused. Especially once you consider Cousins’ strengths and weaknesses and where the Vikings decided to cut corners. It’s front office malpractice.

Cousins isn’t a very mobile quarterback and has fumbling issues, so Minnesota decided the offensive line was where it would pinch pennies. That’s insane when you consider it just paid a record $84 million guaranteed for him, but then decided he wasn’t worth protecting.

Very few quarterbacks would have had much success behind that offensive line. It has consistently ranked in the bottom five during Cousins’ time with the Vikings. Agreeing to pay Cousins meant the Vikings were going to settle elsewhere. That’s not Cousins’ fault; that’s the reality in a hard salary cap league.

"Numbers To Remember7.5% – That’s the average cap percentage for every quarterback to make it to the conference title game or further since 2010.5.1% – That’s around the percentage where the rookie wage scale tops out. Twenty-one teams that made it to the conference championship games or beyond were paying their starting quarterback equal to or less than that since 2010, against 18 quarterbacks being paid over 10 percent making it that far. The nine quarterbacks who made it being paid between 5.1 percent and 10 percent were either Tom Brady (4x) or quarterbacks who restructured for a higher salary the following years.$36.8 million – That’s the average yearly salary for a starting Pro Bowl level quarterback who’s off his rookie contract. Tom Brady ($25 Million) and Jimmy Garoppolo ($27.5 Million) are on the low end. Deshaun Watson ($46 Million) and Aaron Rodgers ($50 Million) top out the list. $36.8 million equals out to 17 percent of the cap.12.2% – Tom Brady’s cap hit as the Super Bowl winning quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, the highest cap hit ever for a Super Bowl-winning quarterback."

The questions about Watson’s off-field activity aside, when you look at everything the Browns gave up and how much they’re going to be paying Watson after the 2022 season, will they be able to win a Super Bowl? Unfortunately, unless they do it this season, the answer is no.

Not only did Cleveland give up too much (three first-round picks, a third, and two fourths), but they doubled down by giving him the highest-guaranteed contract in NFL history. As a result, the Browns will have Watson at a bargain price of $10 million this year (4.6 percent of the cap) before his contract balloons to an astronomical $46 million per season (24.4 percent).

So a quarter Cleveland’s salary cap is going to one guy. That’s preposterous, considering it will have around 18 guys set to hit the market next season, including safety Ronnie Harrison, corner Greedy Williams, running back Kareem Hunt, and tight end David Njoku. The Browns have unloaded so much draft capital on one player that they won’t be able to improve their roster through the draft or by trading away first-rounders either.

Watson is better than Cousins, who’s better than Keenum, but the situation is the same for the Browns as it was for the Vikings. Is Watson so much better than Baker Mayfield that he’ll be able to drag a much worse roster to the playoffs consistently?

Looking to the Rams isn’t a good comparison. The Rams had made the playoffs three of the four previous seasons and even reached the Super Bowl with Jared Goff. They also boast the best defensive lineman, one of the best receivers, and one of the top cornerbacks in the league, all while having the best pass-blocking line, according to PFF.

The Browns get very close on a lot of those qualifiers. Myles Garrett is a brute, Denzel Ward is a stud, and their offensive line is consistently towards the top of the league. However, their receiver room isn’t close to the Rams last season, and nobody is putting Kevin Stefanski in the same breath as Sean McVay. We also haven’t seen Watson play without a receiver like DeAndre Hopkins and win.

The Browns have gone all-in on a quarterback, and if history is any indicator, it’ll yield disappointing results.

How Should Teams Look at their Quarterback Situation?

Don’t overvalue the position. Yes, it might be the most crucial position in sports, but one can’t forget the other 52 roster spots when putting the team together.

The Russell Wilson-era Seahawks are a perfect example of this.

With Wilson on his rookie contract, he made two Super Bowls, winning one. Then, he signed a new contract in 2016 that paid him 13.5 percent of the team’s salary on average. Since then, the Seahawks have missed the playoffs twice and never made it past the Divisionals.

That’s not Wilson’s fault. The whole team got worse, and while Wilson is one of the best quarterbacks in the league, he’s not good enough to make up for a deteriorating team.

It’s not just the Seahawks, either.

For example, when the Green Bay Packers won with Aaron Rodgers, he only accounted for around six percent of their cap space. Drew Brees’ cap was at 8.7 percent when the Saints won. Neither of those guys was on their rookie contract, but their teams got them for cheap because of particular circumstances. Both their careers are often viewed as a disappointment to many fans because of their failure to win more than one. I disagree with that sentiment. It’s lazy and too narrow of scope to judge a players’ worth through.

However, those are the two best quarterbacks outside of Brady from the last 15 years, and combined, they only have two Super Bowls. It’s hard not to point at their contracts as at least part of the reason.

When they won their Super Bowls, Flacco, Wilson, and Mahomes were all on their rookie contracts. Foles didn’t even account for one percent of the cap (Wentz was still on his rookie contract too). The other Super Bowl winners of the past 12 years have the last name Stafford, Brady or Manning. Stafford (10.7%) is the outlier here, but we already covered the unique situation he walked into. So these quarterbacks either football royalty, or you make well under 10 percent of their team’s total cap space.

The Chiefs started navigating life with Mahomes under his market value contract this offseason, and it’s already led to some surprise cap casualties. The Browns and Bills will go into the next offseason with their quarterbacks getting paid. It will be interesting to see if their Super Bowl chances remain high as they have been for these teams.

What is the True Value of an NFL Quarterback?

Unless you’re talking about Brady, Rodgers, Mahomes, or Allen, teams should be very nervous paying more than 12-15 percent of the cap to most players.

Obviously, there’s room for Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert on this list, but it’d be surprising if there were ever more than six elite quarterbacks in the league at one time. Elite means the ability to bring an imperfect roster to the playoffs, then being talented enough to win the three or four games necessary to win a Super Bowl with some obvious holes in the roster. That is what’s required when one player is taking up that much of the cap.

Coaches and general managers will probably disagree that teams should walk away from most quarterback contract situations when the number gets past a certain percentage. They rarely have the job security necessary to be patient. Front office personnel will keep jobs longer overpaying a quarterback who can consistently go 10-7 and squeak into the playoffs. Yet they end up stuck in mediocrity.

Even trading up for a rookie quarterback also doesn’t have a strong record, as we discussed, but the Ravens, Bills, and Chiefs were all able to move up for their MVP-level players without giving up future firsts. Teams should remember this before they start giving away picks like Oprah gave away cars.

More likely than not, the player you’re trading up for will be Wentz, Goff, Sam Darnold or Josh Rosen. Allen and Mahomes were the exceptions.

Market value tells us no cap figure too high for a quarterback. The media shouts from rooftops that stability at the position is invaluable. The numbers have painted a different picture. Overpaying at the position comes at a cost; playoff success. Finding and paying a quarterback will always remain a crapshoot.

If a team doesn’t overpay for the wrong guy, though, it should be able to keep a balanced roster while waiting for the right guy.

However, giving up too many draft picks and paying the wrong guy will leave a team stuck in 9-10 win purgatory for a decade.