Panthers quarterback Cam Newton has a top five contract, but it’s possible he’s not even a top-10 quarterback.
Sure, the knee-jerk reaction is that Newton has earned a spot among the 10 best quarterbacks in the game. If, however, every quarterback who in isolation was regarded as being in the top 10 were actually in the top 10, the top 10 would consist of at least 15.
During Wednesday’s PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio, producer Rob “Stats” Guerrera and I came up with a consensus list of nine quarterbacks who definitely belong in the top 10. They are, in alphabetical order, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Joe Flacco, Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Tony Romo.
So who would get the last chair at the top-10 quarterback table? Stats pushed for Matt Ryan; I picked Russell Wilson. Other possibilities include Eli Manning, Ryan Tannehill, Matthew Stafford, Carson Palmer, and Newton.
That’s 16. And then there’s Andy Dalton, Colin Kaepernick, and Alex Smith, who each have have been to the postseason multiple times. How about veterans who are good enough to stay employed, like Jay Cutler and Robert Griffin III? Finally, it’s impossible to ignore up-and-comers Teddy Bridgewater, Blake Bortles, Derek Carr, and Nick Foles. And what about rookies Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota?
That’s 27 teams with quarterbacks who either are established or in time could be. Which leaves five teams with clear long-term question marks at quarterback (currently, the Jets, Bills, Browns, Texans, and Eagles). And it’s because of those five vacancies that guys like Newton get paid so much more than their position on the list of best quarterbacks in the NFL would merit.
When it comes to quarterback contracts, it doesn’t matter whether a given quarterback is better or worse than another quarterback. The most important factors are: (1) how close the quarterback is to free agency; and (2) whether one of the teams that is looking for a franchise quarterback would pounce on the chance to give up two first-round picks to sign the quarterback to an offer sheet under the non-exclusive franchise tag.
Some think Joe Flacco squeezed $20.1 million per year out of Baltimore only because he won the Super Bowl. While that didn’t hurt, the Ravens likely weren’t going to expose him to the non-exclusive tag even if they hadn’t won the championship, because someone like the Browns would have gladly overpaid Flacco and given up two first-round picks to stop the never ending list of names on the back of that fan’s jersey listing all the starters since Tim Couch in 1999.
Contract-year Super Bowl win or not, the closer Russell Wilson or Andrew Luck or Cam Newton or Ryan Tannehill get to free agency, the more it will cost to keep them. The Dolphins got Tannehill for less because he had two years to go under his rookie deal, and because the jury was still out on whether another team would jump at the chance to pilfer him via the non-exclusive tag. The Panthers got Newton for a top-five contract and not a top-two contract because they closed the deal while Newton still had a year left before free agency.
To truly cash in like Flacco, the quarterback needs to keep the injury risk and push through the last year of the contract. Once that happens, the team has to decide whether to use the non-exclusive tag and risk losing him, apply the exclusive tag which, by next year, could cost up to $25 million for one year (that becomes $98 million if it’s stretched out to three years of the tag), or sign the player to a long-term deal. Under option three, the player who is otherwise going to be franchise-tagged has maximum leverage.
For teams like the Seahawks, the only hope at that point would be to push Wilson’s “Go Hawks!” buttons in order to get him to leave money on the table. The 49ers pulled it off last year, but Kaepernick was still a season away from free agency when his new contract was signed. Once a quarterback’s rookie contract is complete, there’s no reason for the quarterback to do anything other than do what the owner of the team would do in a similar business position -- squeeze the situation for every last dollar.