Starting to Think We Go QB Early

[CJD]

I wouldn't mind it.

I am not one of those people who thinks Andy Dalton is the worst thing ever. I think he is a good QB who is capable of winning games.

The problem is...this is a QB driven league now. Especially now that rookie contracts are so insanely affordable. So, back in the early 2000s, a team could draft a star QB, but then they'd have to immediately have a lot of cap space wrapped up in that QB. Nowadays, with players like Jared Goff making a measly 4 million dollars a year, it's much harder to compete with teams that are getting elite production out of their QB without paying a premium for it (as they did pre-Bradford, who was the last #1 overall pick to make an absurd amount of money.)

With that in mind, it will be incredibly difficult for us, as a team, to ever truly compete with those teams unless we just have the most amazing (and cheap) defense ever. Which will be very difficult because, in order for Dalton to be good, he "needs" several weapons built around him.

Now, I'm not saying elite QBs don't need good pass catchers to be good. But they aren't as reliant on them Dalton is. Without good receivers, Dalton is actually just a bad QB. We've seen that every year Green or Eifert (or both) gets injured.

So, if your odds of ever being successful with Dalton are incredibly low, even with an amazing team built around him, why not just replace him? Does finishing 8-8 or 9-7 even do anything for you at this point?

I want a playoff win...and it seems like that is something Dalton is just incapable of providing for us.