Mike Brown Genius? New strategy with QBs born?

[DC Grid]

Mike Brown (Bengals Owner) recently talked about a trend that is worth highlighting...especially for fans of teams like the Bills. For all this talk of trying to find the next Brady / Brees / Manning etc, the old guard / well-established QBs just aren't winning SBs. Brown suggests that a lot of this has to do with cap numbers and a QB like Brady, Manning, Brees draws so much money it drains the team and compromises their ability to fund other positions. But whether this is the reason, or some other cause is the real culprit, it is still valuable to realize that the NFL is skewing younger than it ever has at QB, and perhaps teams need to focus on not just finding good young ones, but even letting the good old one go. I know that seems counterintuitive, but a little over a decade of data is hard to ignore. Looking at the last 11 SBs, if I were a GM I would be focused on finding a young QB to build with or insert (duh) but then dumping them shortly after 30 (obviously the more controversial idea). Is this crazy or might Mike Brown be onto something? If nothing else looking at this data has me completely uninterested in looking for a veteran starter...which is a view that OBD clearly seems to share.

 

2014 SB - 2004 SB (11 SBs):

-Only 3 SB winners were over 30, the oldest was 31

-8 of the 11 winners were 28 or younger

-7 of the 11 were 27 or younger

-Average age of the winning QBs - 28

 

-The list:

2014 - Wilson - 25

2013 - Flacco - 28

2012 - E.Mann - 31

2011 - Rodgers- 27

2010 - Brees - 31

2009 - Roth - 27

2008 - E.Mann - 27

2007 - P.Mann - 30

2006 - Roth - 24

2005 - Brady - 27

2004 - Brady - 26

[BringBackFergy]

It's a team sport. The QB touches the ball 50% of the time. The defensive unit is trying to get the ball back the other 50% of the time. I wouldn't be upset if we signed Rothlisburger, Manning or Rogers...but I do see the guy's point. The trick is trying to find a solid QB at a young age before he gets the big "break the bank" (Brees and Brady) contract.

[BigBuff423]

It's a team sport. The QB touches the ball 50% of the time. The defensive unit is trying to get the ball back the other 50% of the time. I wouldn't be upset if we signed Rothlisburger, Manning or Rogers...but I do see the guy's point. The trick is trying to find a solid QB at a young age before he gets the big "break the bank" (Brees and Brady) contract.

 

Mainly b/c there too many other moving parts that require money spent as well...it does cause me to wonder, if the BILLS had Jim Kelly today, could they afford to keep him for the 4 year Super Bowl run? I don't know...one reason why Seattle was so dominant was because they excelled in all 3 phases of the game, while having a young, talented QB run an efficient Offense at essentially a bargain-basement price....when you pay the QB big, it hinders the capacity for th rest of the team to operate to some degree as well.

[Last Guy on the Bench]

Interesting, but it's a little too skewed to winning the Super Bowl, which requires a whole lot of luck (plus talent) and leaves you with a small sample size. I'd like to see some data for the age of QBs getting to the playoffs and advancing through the different rounds.

 

Older Brady lost Super Bowls he could easily have won (i.e., that turned on a handful of plays). Manning was back in the bowl last year at a ripe-old age.

 

For me a team's long-term goal should not be to win the Super Bowl except in the most abstract sense, since there are so many factors that go into that, many of which are beyond management's control. The goal should be to build a consistent winner - which maximizes your chance to win a Super Bowl. And even if you never win the big one, you can have a great, entertaining, profitable team (as we know all too well from the 90s).

 

It's possible that even sustained success is threatened by too much money invested in a QB, but I'm not so sure. A lot of the old guys seem to make the playoffs pretty regularly.

[NoSaint]

sounds like a guy that might not want to pay dalton and is laying the groundwork for tough negotiations.

[Kirby Jackson]

Another random counter argument would be that you can get really good veteran players on bargain basement prices (see TJ Ward in Denver) for a chance to win a championship. No one takes less money to play with Dalton but they may to play with Denver or New England as examples. I am not suggesting that it completely offsets the large salary of the QB but it does help somewhat. To use TJ Ward as the example, the market probably dictated that he was roughly an $8M-$8.5M player (annually) but he took $5.5M (I think) in Denver.

[Nanker]

sounds like a guy that might not want to pay dalton and is laying the groundwork for tough negotiations.

This. And he's getting his fan base tempered to the shock of losing a valuable player soon.

I wonder if the Cincy press has done any puff pieces on Dalton's agent - like how he's so fair and only negotiates from a position of strength and how his take-it-or-leave-it number is a final offer which the team better not turn down because his client will walk.

 

[BigBuff423]

Interesting, but it's a little too skewed to winning the Super Bowl, which requires a whole lot of luck (plus talent) and leaves you with a small sample size. I'd like to see some data for the age of QBs getting to the playoffs and advancing through the different rounds.

 

Older Brady lost Super Bowls he could easily have won (i.e., that turned on a handful of plays). Manning was back in the bowl last year at a ripe-old age.

 

For me a team's long-term goal should not be to win the Super Bowl except in the most abstract sense, since there are so many factors that go into that, many of which are beyond management's control. The goal should be to build a consistent winner - which maximizes your chance to win a Super Bowl. And even if you never win the big one, you can have a great, entertaining, profitable team (as we know all too well from the 90s).

 

It's possible that even sustained success is threatened by too much money invested in a QB, but I'm not so sure. A lot of the old guys seem to make the playoffs pretty regularly.

 

You may be right...but couldn't it also be viewed from a different perspective: in that by paying Brady so much, that limited the ability to sign some of their own players and other FAs as well on Defense and a top-flight WR, which other than Moss and their lone Super Bowl appearance but not win, the Pats never truly had...in fact, in their early Super Bowl winning years with Brady, the OPs original point held true...Brady was a 6th round Rookie and the Pats had a great cast of characters on Defense during those first few years with relatively little stardom at the Offensive skill positions....just posing a different spin to basically the same idea...

[chris heff]

Interesting, but it's a little too skewed to winning the Super Bowl, which requires a whole lot of luck (plus talent) and leaves you with a small sample size. I'd like to see some data for the age of QBs getting to the playoffs and advancing through the different rounds.

 

Older Brady lost Super Bowls he could easily have won (i.e., that turned on a handful of plays). Manning was back in the bowl last year at a ripe-old age.

 

For me a team's long-term goal should not be to win the Super Bowl except in the most abstract sense, since there are so many factors that go into that, many of which are beyond management's control. The goal should be to build a consistent winner - which maximizes your chance to win a Super Bowl. And even if you never win the big one, you can have a great, entertaining, profitable team (as we know all too well from the 90s).

 

It's possible that even sustained success is threatened by too much money invested in a QB, but I'm not so sure. A lot of the old guys seem to make the playoffs pretty regularly.

Good thing your not a GM, one of the many things that led to Andy Robustelli's demise as the Giants GM was that he once said something to the effect that the best place for teams to finish was to just miss or get knocked out of the playoffs early. That way the fans stayed interested and you didn't have to over pay players.

 

How many elite QBs are there in the NFL at any given time? Four maybe five? Right now, Brady, P. Manning, Brees and Rogers. Money issues aside it is very hard to find an elite QB.

[MikeSpeed]

Good thing your not a GM, one of the many things that led to Andy Robustelli's demise as the Giants GM was that he once said something to the effect that the best place for teams to finish was to just miss or get knocked out of the playoffs early. That way the fans stayed interested and you didn't have to over pay players.

 

How many elite QBs are there in the NFL at any given time? Four maybe five? Right now, Brady, P. Manning, Brees and Rogers. Money issues aside it is very hard to find an elite QB.

Correct! An once you find one you pay whatever it takes to keep them, or have Andrew Luck to take over. Players will want to play for an elite QB so FAs will sign for less. See Byrd? Edited March 24, 2014 by MikeSpeed

[White Linen]

I can go either way on this argument. I understand it appears these championships were won prior to the QB "breaking the bank" but a couple were after (Brees and Eli), even though they did cost a bit more later. But the counter argument could be that these teams haven't been irrelevant after the QB got paid, yes it got harder, but everyone of these continue to go to superbowls, make playoff, are competitive, in the discussion of being able to come back, or at the least have a chance of trimming down and rebuilding with cheaper options at other positions because of the QB's they have.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Triple Threat

[Last Guy on the Bench]

You may be right...but couldn't it also be viewed from a different perspective: in that by paying Brady so much, that limited the ability to sign some of their own players and other FAs as well on Defense and a top-flight WR, which other than Moss and their lone Super Bowl appearance but not win, the Pats never truly had...in fact, in their early Super Bowl winning years with Brady, the OPs original point held true...Brady was a 6th round Rookie and the Pats had a great cast of characters on Defense during those first few years with relatively little stardom at the Offensive skill positions....just posing a different spin to basically the same idea...

 

I get that line of argument, but I think you can extend it to making the playoffs as well. If Brady's contract is a definitive restriction, why does he keep making the playoffs?

 

Basically, since the Pats' winning or losing was basically determined by one or two plays, the end result of the game doesn't tell me all that much. Brady could easily have lost the early ones and won the later ones.

 

More generally, the idea the best team wins the Super Bowl is often nonsense, and pretty much everyone will admit this. So I wouldn't say the best GM is the GM of the team that happens to win the Super Bowl. You could take the same 12 teams from any given year and replay the playoffs/SB and get wildly different results every time. Which suggests that the distinction between a Super Bowl winner and an also ran is at least partly mythical in terms of talent level. The Hawks this year do seem like they were the best team, but they could easily have lost to the 49ers. In other years (Ravens, Giants, etc.), the winning team has an even less convincing claim to being the team that is best put together.

[NoSaint]

 

 

You may be right...but couldn't it also be viewed from a different perspective: in that by paying Brady so much, that limited the ability to sign some of their own players and other FAs as well on Defense and a top-flight WR, which other than Moss and their lone Super Bowl appearance but not win, the Pats never truly had...in fact, in their early Super Bowl winning years with Brady, the OPs original point held true...Brady was a 6th round Rookie and the Pats had a great cast of characters on Defense during those first few years with relatively little stardom at the Offensive skill positions....just posing a different spin to basically the same idea...

 

the cap is there to create parity.... if a GREAT qb could have the same team assembled around him that any joe could, then the great ones would be constantly winning it all.

 

the trick is come the 3rd or 4th year of the rookie contract you are hopefully getting great play at a forced discount still, so thats the prime time to sneak a championship in with an allstar cast surrounding a very good QB getting no money.

 

from there, the great qbs, despite their high pay, have shown they will still keep you constantly competitive. really, the issue hes addressing is that guys like romo, cutler, or in his franchises case, dalton getting paid the same amount as brady manning and brees means they are sinking money into someone without getting the value other franchises are. right now the qb market isnt insane for the top 5 qbs, its crazy that guys 6-12 are getting paid what amounts to identical to the top 5. every other position has some sort of ledge after you pay the ELITE guys, before stepping into the good players.

Edited March 24, 2014 by NoSaint

[JESSEFEFFER]

Going forward you have to wonder about the contracts Eli Manning and Joe Flacco got. These two guys performed worse than Bills' QBs last year and the demise of their team's roster makes you think that they might not return to succcess any time soon. Once a QB gets the huge deal which eats up 15+% of the cap, it is may more difficult to keep a championship roster together.

[Last Guy on the Bench]

Good thing your not a GM, one of the many things that led to Andy Robustelli's demise as the Giants GM was that he once said something to the effect that the best place for teams to finish was to just miss or get knocked out of the playoffs early. That way the fans stayed interested and you didn't have to over pay players.

 

How many elite QBs are there in the NFL at any given time? Four maybe five? Right now, Brady, P. Manning, Brees and Rogers. Money issues aside it is very hard to find an elite QB.

 

It's definitely a good thing I'm not a GM, but not for the reason you give. The idea that winning the Super Bowl is the only way to judge team management is pablum.

 

And I said nothing about how much to pay players. The original argument was that a great QB, once they get the big contract, can hurt your team. I was saying, not so fast. I'm more inclined to agree with you that I would happily overpay one of the elite QBs and scramble to fill out the roster every year. I think that might give me the best chance of consistently making the playoffs and therefore the best chance of bringing home a Lombardi trophy or two.

 

I can go either way on this argument. I understand it appears these championships were won prior to the QB "breaking the bank" but a couple were after (Brees and Eli), even though they did cost a bit more later. But the counter argument could be that these teams haven't been irrelevant after the QB got paid, yes it got harder, but everyone of these continue to go to superbowls, make playoff, are competitive, in the discussion of being able to come back, or at the least have a chance of trimming down and rebuilding with cheaper options at other positions because of the QB's they have.

 

Exactly.

[NoSaint]

Going forward you have to wonder about the contracts Eli Manning and Joe Flacco got. These two guys performed worse than Bills' QBs last year and the demise of their team's roster makes you think that they might not return to succcess any time soon. Once a QB gets the huge deal which eats up 15+% of the cap, it is may more difficult to keep a championship roster together.

 

especially when neither of those guys have shown to be ELITE qbs week in and week out, year in and year out, as much as they look to be good players that got HOT at the right time (and the franchise couldnt possibly let them walk, despite their shortcomings).

[D. L. Hot-Flamethrower]

This is all retrospective thinking, and a very small data sample to draw any conclusions from. It is not predictable that next season or any season, that it will be a younger QB or a higher priced veteran QB that wins the SB. It is not some simple formula that's wins the SB. People seem hell bent on ignoring the randomness of such a small sample. How do you know that it wasn't just well timed luck? ie David Tyree catching a 4th and 30 on the top of his helmet, well-covered. What does make sense is that you have to find bargains, and not overspend for talent, regardless of the position.

[DC Grid]

sounds like a guy that might not want to pay dalton and is laying the groundwork for tough negotiations.

100% agree, Brown's motives are clear...but his observation still seemed worth noting. Dalton is also a guy I would NEVER give a big contract to. All he does is just enough to lose first round. I think we've seen his upside and it's not enough. With the team he has around him I'm not sure Weeden or some other like bum might not have eeked out similar results.

[jletha]

Interesting, but it's a little too skewed to winning the Super Bowl, which requires a whole lot of luck (plus talent) and leaves you with a small sample size. I'd like to see some data for the age of QBs getting to the playoffs and advancing through the different rounds.

 

Older Brady lost Super Bowls he could easily have won (i.e., that turned on a handful of plays). Manning was back in the bowl last year at a ripe-old age.

 

For me a team's long-term goal should not be to win the Super Bowl except in the most abstract sense, since there are so many factors that go into that, many of which are beyond management's control. The goal should be to build a consistent winner - which maximizes your chance to win a Super Bowl. And even if you never win the big one, you can have a great, entertaining, profitable team (as we know all too well from the 90s).

 

It's possible that even sustained success is threatened by too much money invested in a QB, but I'm not so sure. A lot of the old guys seem to make the playoffs pretty regularly.

 

This for sure. Many superbowls are decided on single plays that if they were re-run could go the complete other way. So while the list of QBs winning superbowls is accurate in containing many younger players, saying that the reason they won was because of those QBs is the wrong conclusion. If Welker makes the catch in 2012, if Tyree doesnt have gum on his helmet, if Holmes bobbles the ball on the sideline, etc then this list looks completely different and OP might be saying that we need older QBs if we want to win a SB. The QBs now a days may draw too much of the cap, thats for the teams to decide, but many of the teams winning the superbowls were built in the draft not in free agency signings (Ravens, Seahawks, Packers, Steelers, Giants). We had a good draft last year and we need another.

 

Go Bills

[DC Grid]

This is all retrospective thinking, and a very small data sample to draw any conclusions from. It is not predictable that next season or any season, that it will be a younger QB or a higher priced veteran QB that wins the SB. It is not some simple formula that's wins the SB. People seem hell bent on ignoring the randomness of such a small sample. How do you know that it wasn't just well timed luck? ie David Tyree catching a 4th and 30 on the top of his helmet, well-covered. What does make sense is that you have to find bargains, and not overspend for talent, regardless of the position.

 

Small sample size yes, but not so small it's insignificant. The losing teams are below and you can see in the close games the QBs were mostly young. The old guys (like manning this year) got blown out twice, sort of underscoring the point of not being able to win with an old QB. It wasn't a fluke play that determined the outcome, like the Tyree catch. So even expanding it to all QBs for the past 11 SBs the trend generally holds true and may even underscore how it is a money issue. Only 3 QBs are over 30 who's teams even had a shot to win those games. One was Brady who gave money back in negotiations to help his team remain competitive was 33, one was Warner, a guy playing on a discounted contract late in his career, and one was Hassleback who wasn't exactly a big money QB.

 

SB Losers from last 11 years:

 

2014 - Manning - 37

2013 - Kapernick - 25

2012 - Brady - 33

2011 - Roth - 29

2010 - Manning - 32

2009 - Warner - 37

2008 - Brady - 28

2007 - Grossman - 27

2006 - Hasselback - 31

2005 - McNabb - 28

2004 - Delhomme - 29

Edited March 24, 2014 by DC Grid