NFL Teams Should Stop Paying for QBs Who Can’t Win the Only Game That Matters

Only a few are truly worth bogging down a team’s salary cap. After that, we’re talking about middling talents, low-end starters or youngsters with unknown futures.

Jones started 2024 with two interceptions, one a pick-six, in a 28–6 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. / John Jones-Imagn Images

Stop paying quarterbacks. Well, stop paying most of them.

By 4:30 p.m. ET Sunday, a host of contracts doled out to quarterbacks over the past few years ranged anywhere from aging like sour milk to actually drinking it. 

An offseason ago, the New York Giants gave Daniel Jones a four-year, $160 million contract. Jones was awful before tearing his ACL last season, ranking 42nd in EPA out of 45 quarterbacks who played at least 150 snaps. 

On Sunday, Jones started 2024 with two interceptions, one a pick-six, in a 28–6 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, with boos raining down at MetLife Stadium. His QBR was 17.4, only better than Bryce Young and Deshaun Watson in Week 1. 

Then there’s Kirk Cousins and his four-year, $180 million deal with the Atlanta Falcons. 

Yes, Cousins is coming off a torn Achilles. But he was incredibly undercut by Atlanta’s stunning first-round selection of Michael Penix Jr., and then in the opener, lost 18–10 to the Pittsburgh Steelers due in part to throwing a pair of picks. 

In Cousins’s case, the question is upside. In 12 seasons, he’s won one playoff game. His stats are consistently solid—he has seven 4,000-yard seasons—but his numbers can feel like empty calories. Since becoming a full-time starter in 2015, Cousins has played against 49 playoff teams, and he’s 11–38 in those games. 

In Miami, 662 miles south of Cousins’s underwhelming performance, it was Trevor Lawrence failing to beat a Miami Dolphins team without much bite in its front seven. Lawrence got five years and $275 million, a record-setting deal at signing. 

Despite leading 17–7 in the third quarter, Jacksonville couldn’t beat the Dolphins, with Lawrence going 3-of-7 for 37 yards while taking two sacks in the second half. On six drives after halftime, Jacksonville had five three-and-outs. 

Last season, Lawrence was 18th in EPA among quarterbacks with at least 150 plays, barely ahead of Taylor Heinicke, Derek Carr and Russell Wilson. In 2022, by far Lawrence’s best campaign, he finished 11th. And while Lawrence’s skill set is evident, he’s inconsistent. Last year, he was 23rd in on-target percentage while making a league-high 104 bad throws, per PFR. 

After being traded from the Texans in March 2022 and signing a fully guaranteed $230 million contract, Watson has played in only 13 games. / Jeff Lange / USA TODAY NETWORK

Finally, we saw another uninspiring Deshaun Watson performance.

Watson, who is the quintessential example of throwing huge money at a major risk, stunk in a 33–17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

After being traded from the Houston Texans to the Cleveland Browns in March 2022, Watson has played in 13 games and hasn’t thrown for 300 yards in any of them, while only twice averaging at least 8.0 yards per attempt. 

Nothing should be surprising about Watson’s play at this point. 

Since arriving in Cleveland for the 2022 season after a trade and subsequent five-year, $230 million, fully guaranteed contract, Watson ranks 36th of 39 quarterbacks with at least 500 plays in success rate, besting only Zach Wilson, Bryce Young and Davis Mills. In adjusted EPA, he’s 35th of 39, again ahead of Wilson, Young, Mills and Joshua Dobbs. 

The examples go on. 

And on. 

And on. 

Just ask Russell Wilson, who was released by the Denver Broncos this spring, despite having $85 million in dead money over this season and next. And while Arizona’s struggles aren’t totally due to Kyler Murray, he was given $230.5 million over five years after one of the most uninspiring playoff performances in recent memory. Since then, Arizona has gone 8–27, with Murray sitting 33rd in EPA over that span.

In today’s NFL, quarterback play has never been more important. This truth has led general managers to pay eye-popping contracts, even for players whose performances haven’t dazzled. 

It’s a mistake, and it’s something teams are increasingly dealing with as contracts soar and the pressure to have passable quarterback play grows by the year. 

Of the aforementioned names, Lawrence is the only one remotely worth his current deal, and even that’s debatable. In three seasons, he has been to the playoffs once. He’s thrown 58 touchdowns against 39 interceptions along with 33 fumbles, and his record is 20–31. 

Nobody would argue Lawrence’s talent, but why pay early? It’s an epidemic with front offices trying to get ahead of an even bigger payment, and there’s value in that. Just ask Jerry Jones. But when there’s a looming question as to whether the quarterback in question can be the driving force behind a Super Bowl team, patience is the prudent move. 

Looking across the league, there are only a few quarterbacks truly worth bogging down a team’s salary cap. Patrick Mahomes. Josh Allen. Joe Burrow. Lamar Jackson. Beyond them, it’s hard arguing against paying Justin Herbert, Aaron Rodgers and Matthew Stafford. After that, we’re talking about middling talents, low-end starters or youngsters with unknown futures. 

Next offseason, this won’t be an overwhelming topic. With Prescott extended, there’s a barren quarterback market and nobody looking for an extension after their third season … with one exception.

Purdy doesn't have a fifth-year option like first-round quarterbacks. / David Gonzales-Imagn Images

Come 2025, the San Francisco 49ers will face a decision on Brock Purdy. 

Of course, it’s impossible to speculate on what general manager John Lynch should do without knowing how 2024 plays out. If Purdy has another MVP-caliber season, he’ll make it tough for the Niners not to extend him. This is doubly true considering he doesn’t have a fifth-year option like first-round quarterbacks. Yet the risk is Purdy will play much of his hypothetical second contract without tight end George Kittle, left tackle Trent Williams, running back Christian McCaffrey and receiver Deebo Samuel. 

And to the larger point, finding competent quarterback play is easier than ever, even if identifying great performance remains a quest. Just in the past two seasons, Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield and Joe Flacco have all led playoff-bound teams after being discarded by other teams, all on cheap, short-term contracts. Gardner Minshew II was a dropped pass away from doing the same.

More than ever before, college football is being played through the air, with offenses going to the spread and air-raid schemes replacing the option and wishbone attacks of a quarter-century ago. 

For example, Troy Aikman came to the Dallas Cowboys as the No. 1 pick in 1989. He played four seasons at Oklahoma and UCLA and had 637 pass attempts. 

Comparatively, Caleb Williams threw the ball 1,099 times in three years. In Joe Burrow’s final year at LSU, he had 527 attempts. Patrick Mahomes had 591 during the 2016 season before being drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs.

While drafting a quarterback in the first round is far from a guarantee of prosperity, it results in five cheap years with a young talent who, if he’s the long-term answer, you can build around. 

Of the 13 Super Bowl champions since the rookie wage scale began in 2011, eight were quarterbacked by Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Mahomes, all first-ballot Hall of Famers. The other winners were Nick Foles on a cheap veteran deal, and Flacco and Wilson on rookie deals. (Foles, of course, took over as the backup for a team also built around a quarterback on a rookie deal, Carson Wentz.)

The only two quarterbacks to win a Super Bowl over that span on non-rookie deals who aren’t legends are Eli Manning and Stafford, and both may find their way to Canton.

Bottom line: Pay for greatness, draft to find it or almost certainly live in purgatory.

Teams will keep paying quarterbacks. They’ll keep paying to avoid bottoming out, even though that’s preferable to fighting for the seventh seed from a long-term scope. It won’t change, because ultimately the allure of being respectable over rancid is too big of a carrot to chase. 

But if a team doesn’t have a star under center, history says it’s in football jail. And paying for mediocrity is the equivalent of locking your own cell. 

Stop paying for what can’t win the only game that truly matters.