There’s some truth to this and one of the reasons it’s always mentioned about Brady taking a “pay cut” to help build a team around him. I’d say that helped, if not the actual difference in winning vs not.Oh good, somebody else posted a list so I didn't have to. Here's what I see in that list above, QBs who either won or got to a SB still on their rookie contracts, in bold. This is why I believe teams that chase QBs in the draft year after year don't win Super Bowls. I want the QB to be the final piece in the puzzle, NOT the first. That mentality is old think now. I want a decent OL squad, a decent WR squad, defense, etc, already in place when I get a QB.
This article does a good job breaking it down;
There’s an urgency to win in NFL while QB is on rookie contract. Here’s why
Pat Mahomes won a SB in his third year, still in rookie contract. He's also the outlier to my argument given that he's continued to win even after being awarded the large contract. But I think that's a testament to just how good of a talent he is. Even still though, the Chiefs team was very much in place by the time Mahomes was drafted - and because they didn't have a lot of needs at the time, they positioned themselves to move up in the draft to take their QB.
from the article;
Russell Wilson took the Seattle Seahawks to a Super Bowl championship in his second year. Like the Chiefs, they returned to the Super Bowl a year later and lost. With Wilson entering the final year of his four-year, $3 million rookie contract, the Seahawks gave him a four-year contract for $87.6 million in the off-season. They haven’t returned to the Super Bowl since then.
Ben Roethlisberger took the Pittsburgh Steelers to the Super Bowl and a victory in his second year in the league while still playing on his rookie contract of four years and $22 million. The Steelers gave him a big extension — six years, $88 million. He took the team to two more Super Bowl appearances, the last time in 2011 (a loss), and he played out the last 11 years of his career without a return to the big game.
Eli Manning took the New York Giants to the Super Bowl and a victory in his fourth season (2007) when he was still on his rookie contract. He was awarded a huge contract extension — six years, $97.5 million. He made one more Super Bowl (four years later) and played the last 10 years of his career without another appearance.
Jared Goff took the L.A. Rams to the Super Bowl in his third season
Now there’s Burrow showing up in the Super Bowl in his second season still working on his rookie contract, a bargain-basement four-year, $36 million deal.
Rich quarterback contracts might explain why Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre won only one Super Bowl each, or why Dan Marino appeared in the Super Bowl his second season and never again.
All of this puts pressure on teams to win with young quarterbacks. The New York Jets have never been able to make this happen even though they have chosen six quarterbacks in the first two rounds of the last 16 drafts. They used the second overall pick of the 2021 draft to choose BYU’s Zach Wilson and agreed to a contract with a cheap cap hit of about $8 million. They won only four games. If Wilson doesn’t play well the next few years, the Jets of course won’t have to pay him a huge contract, but they won’t be any closer to winning, either.
Look around the league at what percentage of a team’s salaries were devoted to the quarterback position in 2021: The Packers and Falcons — about 24%; the Vikings 22%; the Texans almost 20%; the Titans almost 19%; the Cowboys, Chiefs, Seahawks all in the 17% range. The two Super Bowl teams — Rams and Bengals — were 11% and 4%, respectively.
So if I'm reading this right, Tannehill just this year will earn a base salary of $27 million and cap hit of $36 million, which is exactly what I don't want; a mediocre QB making a ton of money. The Cowboys wouldn't do it obviously, but in a perfect world I would have traded INTannehill (love that btw) for Cooper Rush, then signed him to a $15 million deal. He'd be my stop gap QB while I built up the team around him, then just as a the Chiefs shipped off Alex Smith, I'd send him packing while I traded up to grab my rookie QB and start the rookie contract stopwatch.
(Tannehills #s btw came from this source)
Ryan Tannehill.
I think THill has a rough contract for the team just by coincidence of the contract. I think he’s a capable QB, yes even enough to win the SB, the team just doesn’t go through him.
I would have been absolutely fine extending THill for another 3 years but at a much lower rate and much smaller cap hit per year knowing that the goal is to find his replacement (on a rookie contract).
but I also argue that this touches on the problem RBs have, probably other positions, maybe less vocal.
QBs are eating up too much of the cap space. Argue all you want for importance (not you specifically) but whenever guys like Flacco negotiate a new contract as if they’re “the best” and increase the total cost of QBs everywhere, other positions feel that pain nevermind he never should have been paid as if he was the best.
Christian Kirk’s contract last year set the market for WR. Why other WR cannot accept that Kirk was overpaid and that teams don’t negotiate like that is somewhat of a mystery to me.
Unfortunately stupid teams like Jax actually F up things for every other team and while the players haven’t done this yet, they should be discussing with the NFLPA about how some positions are getting paid so much that other quality players are going unsigned in FA and/or just disappearing.
RB is THE prime example. They’re not dead at 30, they just ask for reasonable contracts (mostly) for that much of a vet and often you can take a small step down in quality for HUGE amounts of money steps down.