“Finally, football has come back to our television screens!”
That was the mood four weeks ago, captured eloquently by the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. As we enter Week 5, many questions remain unanswered. Is Tampa back to being just Tampa? Does Eli have anything left? What’s happening in Pittsburgh? How far can Aaron Rodgers lead a team on one leg? One question that hasn’t gotten the coverage it deserves though is, “Are we sure we need a ‘franchise’ quarterback anymore?”
That may sound idiotic when the MVP conversation is always crowded with the best signal-callers in the league, but hear me out. There are some pretty solid indicators that maybe the impact of the quarterback position is on its way to being drastically modified from how we see it today.
Saturdays On Sundays
Over the passed decade, the NFL has liberally stolen schemes and concepts from college football to the point that there isn’t much difference in how the sport looks from Saturday to Sunday (or Monday). College teams used to be lauded for playing a “pro-style offense”, only now it seems NFL teams like the Eagles, Bears and Cowboys are playing an “amateur-style offense”, with varying degrees of success.
With the style of play we are seeing spread around the league, teams can get by with a lesser skilled quarterback than in years past. The name of the game is getting the ball out of the quarterback’s hands as soon as possible and “scheming” to get their fastest players the ball in space. With that said, no one in their right mind would turn down having Tom Brady at quarterback. But with the way offense is being played now and how it appears to be moving into the future, the transition from college to the pro game is easier than ever, and you may not need a hall of famer to win a championship.
Fools With Rules
The NFL is trying to balance keeping the integrity of the game of football with trying to make the game as profitable as possible. Offense sells tickets, quarterbacks sell jerseys (and everything else), and as such, the league has done as much as they can to ensure that the signal callers are all but untouchable. The so called “Aaron Rodgers Rule” cost its namesake a W in Week 2 when Packers linebacker Clay Matthews’ textbook tackle on Vikings QB Kurt Cousins drew a flag which erased an interception that would have effectively ended the game. Instead of a Green Bay home win, the two teams ended in a tie like a couple of losers!
I totally understand why the league is trying to protect quarterbacks, and to a lesser extent wide receivers, but they continue down a path of making the game unbalanced towards offenses. Few people want to watch a 9-6 defensive struggle but if Von Miller, Khalil Mack or Luke Kuechly take down a quarterback with a crucifix pin move, then something is lost from the game we all love. You can’t hit quarterbacks low, high or hard in the middle if you are a defender and you certainly can’t touch their pass catchers, so what are you supposed to do? With the rule changes every year, the game gets just that much easier for quarterbacks. Many an old man have exclaimed how Dan Marino could throw for ten thousand yards with these rules and they’d be right. The game just isn’t as hard for quarterbacks as it used to be.
C.R.E.A.M
The immortal words of the Wu-Tang Clan ring true again. Like most things in life, this too comes down to the “all ighty allor“. In the NFL, you can be a contender basically two ways: have a young questionable quarterback on their rookie deal and use the savings on high level skill players elsewhere OR pay for an elite talent at quarterback and draft well enough to support him, and hope he can carry the load of the rest of the roster.
We are seeing this play out across the league today. The Chiefs and Rams are trendy Super Bowl picks this year because of how they have built their teams and game plans around their young quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Jared Goff—the Chiefs specifically having moved out a competent veteran QB for a more affordable and productive player. It’s much easier for the Rams to pony up the dough for every great defensive lineman they have when Jared Goff is making pennies on the dollar for the next two seasons. The Raiders paid their quarterback big money and decided, idiotically, that they could therefore not afford to pay Kahlil Mack and traded him to Chicago, who not-so-coincidentally is watching a young Mitchell Trubisky grow into the quarterback Bears management hopes he can become. Mahomes is setting the world ablaze in Kansas City and the sophomore gunslinger’s salary saves their general manager more room to spend elsewhere. Mahomes may win MVP, yet his deal only accounts for 2% of the Chiefs’ payroll. It all comes down to asset and salary cap management when building these rosters; if a GM can select a quarterback of average talent and supplement them with an above average-to-great defense and running game, they can write their own ticket to contention. It’s easier said that done, but it’s also easier than getting into the quarterback Mount Rushmore of surefire legitimate “franchise” QBs.
In fact, it arguably makes more sense to cycle out older QBs, who were the face of the franchise, as their deal is set to expire. Why give Matthew Stafford $100M just to go 9-7? Isn’t it more shrewd to draft a QB every year, move on from the passer who hasn’t proven he can elevate his team to championship contention once he’s angling for that juicy nine-figure extension, and use those dollars to field a more well-rounded roster?
Well Actually…
There is one caveat that can not be denied here—that would be the human element. As much as NFL owners, coaches, GMs and fans would love for the rosters to be filled with unthinking, unfeeling, unkneeling football machines, players are human beings. If a GM opted to cast off a well-liked and respected quarterback for a cheaper option, they’d run the very real risk of seeing a mutiny form in the locker room that would end with multiple heads rolling, including their own, as well as one from fans, if that player was a local hero. In Tampa Bay, they came across some conflicting thoughts in their locker room when faced with the notion of going back to Jameis Winston and re-benching Ryan Fitzpatrick. However New England made their quarterback “Sophie’s Choice” last season by shipping Jimmy Garoppolo out of Boston—a decision that (according to reports) nearly broke up the Kraft-Brady-Belichick troika. This draws a fairly simple conclusion: In the current football construct, if a team does not count the quarterback amongst its leaders, there’s likely a ceiling on that team’s potential that doesn’t include the Super Bowl.
The first GM to win a championship using the “cast out the established quarterback for a younger/cheaper option” technique will be rightfully lauded as a pioneer (imagine if Sam Hinkie won an NBA championship with the 76ers). The NFL is a copycat league and paying the wrong quarterback can easily yield disastrous results, which is precisely why the Redskins didn’t want to commit to paying Kirk Cousins, the Vikings let Case Keenum walk, etc.
I truly believe that we are heading towards a new paradigm on how teams view the quarterback. The position will always be important, but the influx of collegiate schemes, offense-friendly rule changes and (most importantly) NFL economics could make the position more interchangeable than we ever thought imaginable. The only thing missing is one brave general manager to fully embrace this model. After that, there may be no looking back.