Rookie QB Deal Window

[GreenCornBengal]

It’s time for a new thread, it’s getting boring in here...

I’ve seen a lot of talk about the short window we have before Burrow gets paid. “We have to win NOW while Burrow is on his rookie contract!”. It’s true to some degree, but it’s not do or die from what I’ve seen. We can still make the Super Bowl with a well paid Burrow over the next decade.

3/4 of the championship teams have pretty wealthy QBs with substantial cap hits. Rodgers, Brady, Mahommes with Josh Allen being the exception.

When looking at the 14 teams they made it to the playoffs, the majority of them have a QB with a cap hit in the top half of their position.

Yes, winning now with Burrow is our best chance and what we all desire, but paying him doesn’t mean it’ll be the end of the line for this teams chances...

Well, maybe since we are the Bengals, but...

[PDub80]

(01-30-2021, 09:00 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: It’s time for a new thread, it’s getting boring in here...

I’ve seen a lot of talk about the short window we have before Burrow gets paid. “We have to win NOW while Burrow is on his rookie contract!”. It’s true to some degree, but it’s not do or die from what I’ve seen. We can still make the Super Bowl with a well paid Burrow over the next decade.

3/4 of the championship teams have pretty wealthy QBs with substantial cap hits. Rodgers, Brady, Mahommes with Josh Allen being the exception.

When looking at the 14 teams they made it to the playoffs, the majority of them have a QB with a cap hit in the top half of their position.

Yes, winning now with Burrow is our best chance and what we all desire, but paying him doesn’t mean it’ll be the end of the line for this teams chances...

Well, maybe since we are the Bengals, but...

When you have a QB who is truly elite level, you do not have to have a bunch of high paid skill position guys. Maybe 1 or 2, but that kind of QB will make everyone around him better. He's an elevator.

One of the first things I loved about Burrow was when, in an interview, he discussed learning where each guy wants the ball,  learning their strengths,  etc. He sees that it's his job #1 is to put them in the best position to succeed.

So, I'm not worried about paying the Joe Burrow's of the world. They will pay him and find good players to fit under the cap along with strong young players on rookie deals. Burrow's job is to get them to be great.

^ Think about it like this: With a QB who took a tram friendly deal and a bunch of money spent on skill guys, how did that turn out? Not great, IMO.

[2MinutesHate]

I think if you have a QB like Rodgers, Brady, Mahomes or Allen, they simply elevate the entire team to where you don't have to break the bank at other positions.  If Burrow becomes one of these guys, it would definitely be worth paying him.  Because we save so much on his rookie deal, we should invest heavily in the OL so he can survive long enough to see what we've got.

They tried a different approach last year.  It failed.  Let's hope they do not make the same mistake again this year.  I do not trust the Bengals FO to do this.  I hope to God they prove me wrong.

[*jason*]

(01-30-2021, 09:48 PM)PDub80 Wrote: When you have a QB who is truly elite level, you do not have to have a bunch of high paid skill position guys. Maybe 1 or 2, but that kind of QB will make everyone around him better. He's an elevator.

One of the first things I loved about Burrow was when, in an interview, he discussed learning where each guy wants the ball,  learning their strengths,  etc. He sees that it's his job #1 is to put them in the best position to succeed.

So, I'm not worried about paying the Joe Burrow's of the world. They will pay him and find good players to fit under the cap along with strong young players on rookie deals. Burrow's job is to get them to be great.

^ Think about it like this: With a QB who took a tram friendly deal and a bunch of money spent on skill guys, how did that turn out? Not great, IMO.

While I agree with you for the most part... I'd say the guy that took the team friendly deal actually got burned. They spent on one skill position player (Green), and let 2 excellent complimentary WRs walk. They replaced those dudes with Brandon Lafell, a rookie WR (Boyd), and eventually an absolute bust. They let his All Pro LT walk. Zeitler... Gone. They did pay their 2 stud D Linemen, but I think that was before Dalton was re-upped. The Browns put a lot of that money saved in their pockets. They won't be able to get away with that this time around.

I guess what I'm sayin' is that they botched that whole situation. Maybe they should've moved on from Marvin after 2013. Maybe they should have spent on FA (like they did last spring). It's great that they finally did that... But it would've made more sense to do it when we were right there instead of now when we just plain suck.

[Essex Johnson]

(01-30-2021, 09:00 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: It’s time for a new thread, it’s getting boring in here...

I’ve seen a lot of talk about the short window we have before Burrow gets paid. “We have to win NOW while Burrow is on his rookie contract!”. It’s true to some degree, but it’s not do or die from what I’ve seen. We can still make the Super Bowl with a well paid Burrow over the next decade.

3/4 of the championship teams have pretty wealthy QBs with substantial cap hits. Rodgers, Brady, Mahommes with Josh Allen being the exception.

When looking at the 14 teams they made it to the playoffs, the majority of them have a QB with a cap hit in the top half of their position.

Yes, winning now with Burrow is our best chance and what we all desire, but paying him doesn’t mean it’ll be the end of the line for this teams chances...

Well, maybe since we are the Bengals, but...

If we win under Burrow we will work a deal to resign I think .. I think the issue is more if we dont win under Burrow we should really think is he worth resigning but if we dont win his 2nd contract wont be that big like other QBs who had won ie Goff so he will be cheaper to resign anyway.

[*SHRacerX*]

(01-30-2021, 09:00 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: It’s time for a new thread, it’s getting boring in here...

I’ve seen a lot of talk about the short window we have before Burrow gets paid. “We have to win NOW while Burrow is on his rookie contract!”. It’s true to some degree, but it’s not do or die from what I’ve seen. We can still make the Super Bowl with a well paid Burrow over the next decade.

3/4 of the championship teams have pretty wealthy QBs with substantial cap hits. Rodgers, Brady, Mahommes with Josh Allen being the exception.

When looking at the 14 teams they made it to the playoffs, the majority of them have a QB with a cap hit in the top half of their position.

Yes, winning now with Burrow is our best chance and what we all desire, but paying him doesn’t mean it’ll be the end of the line for this teams chances...

Well, maybe since we are the Bengals, but...

I think if you have the right QB, you can always be in the discussion as long as your roster is not very inept (see the last two seasons).  The point of the rookie wage scale for a QB is that you might not have a QB that is 100% ready for primetime, but you can surround him with a solid team because of the rookie wage scale.  It certainly happened with Dalton and Green, but once Dalton had an even average (below average, actually) NFL QB salary, those few extra pieces on the roster that they could no longer afford hurt the team.  

I don't believe any "window" will be shut after Burrow gets his 2nd bite of the apple, but he will clearly be getting a massive pay raise and the roster had better be pretty solid around him by then or it will be a very big challenge.  

[PV Bengal]

(01-30-2021, 09:56 PM)2MinutesHate Wrote: I think if you have a QB like Rodgers, Brady, Mahomes or Allen, they simply elevate the entire team to where you don't have to break the bank at other positions.  If Burrow becomes one of these guys, it would definitely be worth paying him.  Because we save so much on his rookie deal, we should invest heavily in the OL so he can survive long enough to see what we've got.

They tried a different approach last year.  It failed.  Let's hope they do not make the same mistake again this year.  I do not trust the Bengals FO to do this.  I hope to God they prove me wrong.

Just because Bengals management screwed up the last "team friendly" deal they made, doesn't mean that "team friendly" deals don't work out. To wit ... https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/05/03/tom-brady-patriots-team-friendly-deals-gisele-bundchen-jimmy-kimmel-live/

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(01-30-2021, 09:56 PM)2MinutesHate Wrote: I think if you have a QB like Rodgers, Brady, Mahomes or Allen, they simply elevate the entire team to where you don't have to break the bank at other positions.  If Burrow becomes one of these guys, it would definitely be worth paying him.  Because we save so much on his rookie deal, we should invest heavily in the OL so he can survive long enough to see what we've got.

They tried a different approach last year.  It failed.  Let's hope they do not make the same mistake again this year.  I do not trust the Bengals FO to do this.  I hope to God they prove me wrong.

Ummm...


2 of Kansas City's Top-4 cap hits in 2020 are WRs (t-7th and 30th highest WR cap hits in the NFL). Their 8th highest cap hit is a TE (2nd highest TE cap hit in the NFL).

They also have another 1st round WR and 1st round RB on rookie deals.


- - - - - - -

The Bills highest cap hit in 2020 is a WR. In fact, their 1st, 6th, AND 11th highest cap hits are all WRs (16th, t-30th, 37th highest WR cap hits in the NFL).

[QueenCity]

I'm hoping that by the time Burrow contract up the NFL works out a deal with the players union. We need QB salaries separate from the rest of the roster Cap.

However if Burrow is who we think he is.... he will be able to win with less talented teammates. That was always the huge issue with Dalton you needed the perfect team around him to sniff the playoffs and we still were 0-5

[Murdock2420]

(01-30-2021, 09:48 PM)PDub80 Wrote: When you have a QB who is truly elite level, you do not have to have a bunch of high paid skill position guys. Maybe 1 or 2, but that kind of QB will make everyone around him better. He's an elevator.

One of the first things I loved about Burrow was when, in an interview, he discussed learning where each guy wants the ball,  learning their strengths,  etc. He sees that it's his job #1 is to put them in the best position to succeed.

So, I'm not worried about paying the Joe Burrow's of the world. They will pay him and find good players to fit under the cap along with strong young players on rookie deals. Burrow's job is to get them to be great.

^ Think about it like this: With a QB who took a tram friendly deal and a bunch of money spent on skill guys, how did that turn out? Not great, IMO.

One player isn't going to fix a team no matter how good he is. If you look at the elite QB's most people mention, Brees, Brady, Rodgers, and Mahomes as the up and coming guy.

What do those guys all have in common outside of talent? Good teams. Not talking about the players around them, I'm talking good Owners, good coaching, good scouting, etc.

You can win with a Brees like or Wilson like contract on the team if you know what you are doing and have talent you develop and find at other positions... have you ever seen that with the Mike Brown owned Bengals??? 

To better show this point... 

Everyone calls Ben a sure fire 1st ballet HoF QB. Meanwhile, people debate if Rivers will be in. Look at every stat and metric out there and you'll see that Rivers is actually a better QB then Ben. Ben just had the luck of being drafted by a team with an owner committed to winning no matter what, and the chin as a coach, and a cleaner from the local sheriff department to clean up messes and etc, etc, etc...  Rivers goes to Pitt and Ben to San Diego, and pig has zero rings.

The rookie QB window here is a real issue, because once we have to pay Burrow the big money there will start being holes everyone else that we are filling with guys like Sims and Tony Brown.

[*ochocincos*]

(01-31-2021, 03:15 PM)QueenCity Wrote: I'm hoping that by the time Burrow contract up the NFL works out a deal with the players union.  We need QB salaries separate from the rest of the roster Cap.

However if Burrow is who we think he is.... he will be able to win with less talented teammates.  That was always the huge issue with Dalton you needed the perfect team around him to sniff the playoffs and we still were 0-5

Having the QB within the same cap as the rest of the players is actually a benefit to small market teams like the Bengals.
If you have QB salaries separate, you essentially give a bigger advantage to the big market teams, who are able to throw more money at players to keep/bring in the best talent. Look at baseball to see what I mean.

The Bengals just need to get better at identifying and acquiring talent.

[QueenCity]

(02-01-2021, 11:30 AM)ochocincos Wrote: Having the QB within the same cap as the rest of the players is actually a benefit to small market teams like the Bengals.
If you have QB salaries separate, you essentially give a bigger advantage to the big market teams, who are able to throw more money at players to keep/bring in the best talent. Look at baseball to see what I mean.

The Bengals just need to get better at identifying and acquiring talent.

I'm not talking about making it free for all like MLB is you'd still have the same cap as you currently do.


The QB position just has a separate Cap so it doesn't take 60% of your caps salary.

The only advantage is drafting well still and being able to keep the players you draft?

[thompson19osu]

(01-30-2021, 09:00 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: It’s time for a new thread, it’s getting boring in here...

I’ve seen a lot of talk about the short window we have before Burrow gets paid. “We have to win NOW while Burrow is on his rookie contract!”. It’s true to some degree, but it’s not do or die from what I’ve seen. We can still make the Super Bowl with a well paid Burrow over the next decade.

3/4 of the championship teams have pretty wealthy QBs with substantial cap hits. Rodgers, Brady, Mahommes with Josh Allen being the exception.

When looking at the 14 teams they made it to the playoffs, the majority of them have a QB with a cap hit in the top half of their position.

Yes, winning now with Burrow is our best chance and what we all desire, but paying him doesn’t mean it’ll be the end of the line for this teams chances...

Well, maybe since we are the Bengals, but...

Our chance with Burrow is now. The dude is competitive and loves to win. ZT keeps up the losing culture here and Burrow is good as gone.

[TSwigZ]

We need a solid OL across the board. Not one with a couple elite guys and a couple scrubs. We need some speed/playmakers on offense and a few upgrades on defense and we should be fine. In today's NFL you just need an elite offense with a mediocre defense that can play with a lead. The days of dominant defenses at least in the near future are over.

[*ochocincos*]

(02-01-2021, 09:01 PM)QueenCity Wrote: I'm not talking about making it free for all like MLB is you'd still have the same cap as you currently do.


The QB position just has a separate Cap so it doesn't take 60% of your caps salary.

The only advantage is drafting well still and being able to keep the players you draft?

Obviously no QB takes up 60% of a team's salary cap. The highest AAV for QB is $45 mill, which is to Mahomes. He's not even 25% of the team's cap space from what I've looked up between 2021 and 2026.

It's the team's decision what they want to pay a player. But by having the same cap that includes the QB, it forces the teams who pay big money to QBs to figure out how they can field the rest of the team with a lesser pool of remaining money. That's the challenge, and it's what helps keep parity in the league along with how the draft order is determined.

If you remove QB from the salary cap, that means every team now will have the same amount of money to field the rest of the team.
Do you think it'd be fair for the Chiefs to be able to have Mahomes at $45 mill APY but also the same amount of money for the rest of the players as a team with a rookie QB?
I don't think that's fair to the rest of the teams.

[GreenCornBengal]

(02-01-2021, 09:52 PM)thompson19osu Wrote: Our chance with Burrow is now. The dude is competitive and loves to win. ZT keeps up the losing culture here and Burrow is good as gone.

I suppose now that we are in the age of whiney azz QBs like DW maybe. I just don’t see Burrow as that kind of guy. He wants to win for Ohio, he will want to win to prove them all wrong. Just my opinion based on what I’ve seen.

[Weazzel80]

This year Burrow is coming off a major injury and our team is still growing (hopefully) but in 2022 I think we go balls to the wall for a super bowl run. I hope and expect we spend all our cap money and maybe even trade some future picks for high end talent right now.

Seems like half the league does that every year so what ever just deal with the consequences later.

[TecmoBengals]

We shouldn't compare Burrow's rookie deal experience to the successful example of Mahomes and the Chiefs. They had Reid as a coach, we have an historically all-time worst NFL coach. Unfortunately, Burrow's rookie deal is going to be squandered under the Taylor years.

[samhain]

(01-30-2021, 09:48 PM)PDub80 Wrote: When you have a QB who is truly elite level, you do not have to have a bunch of high paid skill position guys. Maybe 1 or 2, but that kind of QB will make everyone around him better. He's an elevator.

One of the first things I loved about Burrow was when, in an interview, he discussed learning where each guy wants the ball,  learning their strengths,  etc. He sees that it's his job #1 is to put them in the best position to succeed.

So, I'm not worried about paying the Joe Burrow's of the world. They will pay him and find good players to fit under the cap along with strong young players on rookie deals. Burrow's job is to get them to be great.

^ Think about it like this: With a QB who took a tram friendly deal and a bunch of money spent on skill guys, how did that turn out? Not great, IMO.

They key here is "strong young players on rookie deals".  That's much easier said than done.  The Bengals have done a less than outstanding job of getting the most bang for their buck out of first round picks with the exception of last year.  Last year's class looks great, but it's not exactly as if they had to do a lot of contemplating on the 1OA, and the second round pick was practically a no-brainer, too. 

If Burrow becomes what many of us think he will be, they will need to get much better at avoiding the Billy Prices and John Rosses of the draft.  It won't help a lot if they end up with Jonah types either, ie players that come out and need a season to actually see the field.  

Joey B may be a guy like Brady that will take less money to allow the team to spend cap on other players and maintain a stronger roster, but you can hardly bank on that.  

The answer to the main subject here IMO is to give him all you can right now while he's recovering/still developing, and get ready to step your game up in scouting/drafting by the time the bill comes due.  

[samhain]

(02-02-2021, 12:22 AM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: I suppose now that we are in the age of whiney azz QBs like DW maybe. I just don’t see Burrow as that kind of guy. He wants to win for Ohio, he will want to win to prove them all wrong. Just my opinion based on what I’ve seen.

Maybe, but there are only a handful of guys that can get away with what DW is doing right now.  He'll demand a huge haul in draft assets and can absolutely turn the entire fanbase against the organization for the next decade if he succeeds and the Texans don't find a capable replacement.  As much as the Brown family has disappointed me over the years, I still would rather play for them over a team run by Jack Easterby.  That team has been torn down by a series of absolutely egregious front office decisions over the last few years.