Roy Halladay died yesterday in an airplane accident. He had a pilot’s license and his two-passenger aircraft crashed in the Gulf of Mexico. He was only 40 years old. Halladay won the Cy Young Award in both the AL and the NL and he threw a perfect game in his career. When he becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame, he should be enshrined.
Rest in peace, Roy Halladay…
Back in August of this year, I offered up a categorization of the of the NFL Backup QBs for all 32 NFL teams.NFL . In August 2015, I wrote about how the Law of Supply and Demand applied to NFL teams and available QBs to play for those teams. The names may have changed somewhat, but the situation remains the same; the absence of 32 very good QBs forces teams to pursue and pay competent QBs handsomely and the weakness of the “backup QB cadre” puts teams in a severe bind should they have to resort to using a backup. Plus ça change ; plus ça même chose …
Because professional football is played by human beings and not automatons, there is necessarily a difference in the capabilities and the performance of the quarterbacks among the 32 teams in the league. Moreover, NFL fans must have recognized over the years that the difference in performance from the best QB to the worst QB is starkly evident. It is that “performance disparity” that entices NFL Front Offices to look for “franchise QBs” almost over anything else a team may need; and then, when they find a player they consider to be a “franchise QB”, they inundate him with money.
This is the “new normal” in the NFL economy and it is not necessarily rational. Consider:
- The highest paid player in the league in 2017 is Matthew Stafford. He is 29 years old and his stats and the “eyeball test” certainly indicate that he is in the upper echelon of QBs plying the trade today. At the same time, the stats also indicate that Stafford has a losing record as a starting QB (55-62) and that halfway through his 9th season, he has led the team to the playoffs only 3 times and has yet to win a playoff game. He is the highest paid player because he is the most recent QB to sign a long-term “franchise deal”.
- The second highest paid player in the league in 2017 is Derek Carr. He is 26 years old and his stats and the “eyeball test” also indicate that he is in the upper echelon of QBs plying the trade today. Like Matthew Stafford, Carr has a losing record as a starting QB (26-29) and while he did lead the Raiders to the playoffs last year, he was injured for that playoff game. He is the second highest paid player because he signed his long-term “franchise deal” a bit before Stafford signed his.
- The third highest paid player in the league in 2017 is Kirk Cousins. He is 29 years old and his stats and the “eyeball test” also indicate that he is in the upper echelon of QBs plying the trade today. He too has a career losing record as a starter (23-25-1) and he too has never won a playoff game. He is being paid at this level because the Skins’ Front Office/ownership has used the franchise tag on him two years in a row. He will be “franchised” again at the end of this year or become a free agent looking for more money than Matthew Stafford got in his most recent “franchise deal”. He just might be the highest paid player in the NFL in 2018…
I cite these situations not to demean the players in any way nor to suggest that the teams involved should not have signed them when they had the chance to do so. What I am trying to point out here is that the marketplace for competent NFL QBs is so thin that teams are paying very large sums for “potential” instead of for “performance”. No one who watches/follows NFL football even casually would suggest that the troika of Stafford/Carr/Cousins is more accomplished than the threesome of Brady/Roethlisberger/Rodgers. Nevertheless, the compensation rankings might suggest that were the case…
The reason teams fall all over themselves to overpay good QBs can be seen when you look at the folks who are backup QBs on teams that have not needed them to play and then looking at what has happened to teams forced to go to the bullpen – so to speak – recently.
- It took the Colts’ braintrust about no time at all to realize that Scott Tolzein would not cut it as a starter for an extended period of time this year and they rushed to trade for Jacoby Brisset. Make no mistake, however, Brisset does not perform at the level that the “franchise QB” – Andrew Luck – did before he suffered his shoulder injury.
- We have only seen about 6 quarters of play by Brett Hundley in relief of the injured Aaron Rodgers. Nonetheless, I will go out on a limb and say that the results on the field to date assure me that the Packers are in deep doo-doo until Rodgers’ injury is healed.
- The only time “Tom Savage” and “Deshaun Watson” might belong in the same sentence would be in the answer to a Jeopardy category – “Houston Texans Quarterbacks in 2017” …
- When the Ravens had to turn to Ryan Mallett for part of a game when Joe Flacco was concussed, the Ravens’ offense was immobilized.
The entry of Luck/Tolzien/Brisset on the list above raises an interesting point in light of comments earlier this week. Colts’ owner, Jim Irsay, evidently told Tony Dungy privately that Andrew Luck’s shoulder injury/rehab is now “in his head” and not in the shoulder. Jim Irsay is not the most “buttoned-up” owner in the NFL Owners’ Club by any stretch of the imagination but I cannot imagine any scenario that would motivate him to speculate on something like that regarding his franchise QB. After all, he actually has one – and all of the evidence points to the fact that there are not enough of them to go around.
Finally, consider this comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald:
“JJ Redick is commuting from Brooklyn to Philadelphia. An interesting statistic, he could run that far with the ball and not be whistled for traveling.”
But don’t get me wrong, love sports………