Poll - Pay Russell #1 QB Money, or Nah?

[Chukarhawk]

Go back through the games from last year. What four games did we win because we had Russell Wilson that we wouldn't have won with a league average starting QB?

Uh, I don't know, all of them? being conservative, half? this team cant pass block to save its life. What are superbowl visits worth? because we sure don't get there with Andy Dalton.

 

[SeahawkFrost]

I say pay him just over Rodgers money because it will be cheaper in the long run. Once the cap goes up and luck, rivers and Rodgers gets a new deal Russ will drop down the list.

 

[scutterhawk]

Another Wilson/Money thread :17:

What I don't get, is someone griping about a post that they don't agree should have even been added to the forum.
I usually ignore something that I don't find interesting, or worth my time.

 

[SeahawkPQ]

The funny thing about these contracts for NFL players is how they are an inexact science. Baseball has Wins above Replacement (WAR), and it's a very simple calculation to figure out how many millions of dollars 1 WAR is worth.

Fuzzy math alert.

I love Byron Maxwell, but how many 'wins' is he worth on his own? Maybe half a win if we are being generous? How about KJ Wright, a quarter win perhaps? How Cliff Avril? Maybe half a win?

Add those players up, and you get a total AYP of $24.35 million, which buys you probably about 1.25 wins.

By contrast, Seattle was a 7 win team before Wilson, and has averaged 12 wins per year with him, a difference of 5 wins. You can't give Wilson ALL the credit for that difference, but it's probably safe to say that Wilson is a 4 win player.

Okay, I'll bite. By replacement player, are you talking average NFL starter, or are you talking RJ Archer?

I don't know that the "replacement level" premise works the same way, as there is basically zero chance that you would call a guy up from the Arena League and insert him into your starting lineup.

Tarvaris won 7, right? Since then, we have improved at 19 of the 22 starting positions, and have improved at all 31 of the other depth spots.

I would bet good money that Tarvaris would have won AT LEAST ten games with our current roster last season. Does that seem fair?

And Tarvaris by all accounts is below the average NFL starter, correct?

Go back through the games from last year. What four games did we win because we had Russell Wilson that we wouldn't have won with a league average starting QB?

Andrew Luck has proven that he can take an otherwise mediocre at best roster, put an entire team on his shoulders, and get them to a AFC title game. You pay a guy that can do that, unquestionably.

I'm not saying Russell can't do that. I'm just saying that if you pay Russell, there is a bit of an educated guess and hope that he would be able to do the same thing, simply because he hasn't been asked to do it before. Our roster is undoubtedly going to start to become thinner if we give our QB a 25 million per year raise. So it really comes down to this question...do you believe Russell is going to be supremely successful when he isn't on the best roster in the league?

Because I am a little worried about what I believe might be an issue with, and lack of shown improvement in correctly diagnosing blitzes and coverages, and because of what paying a huge money to a QB does to the future success of your franchise, as beaten to death in other threads, I would not personally make Russell Wilson one of the highest paid QB's in the NFL. Run-on sentence be damned.

It is far too easy to sit and theorize about how many wins TJ or John league average Doe would have with this team. But Russell has done it, he has been to two superbowls in three years. That is all that matters, the superbowl. Not wins per dollar. And to win the superbowl it takes a solid team and a quarterback with that magic something. There are a lot of league average guys that don't have that extra little something that lands you on the top of the mountain. And that extra little something comes at a premium price.

 

[Northwest Seahawk]

The funny thing about these contracts for NFL players is how they are an inexact science. Baseball has Wins above Replacement (WAR), and it's a very simple calculation to figure out how many millions of dollars 1 WAR is worth.

Fuzzy math alert.

I love Byron Maxwell, but how many 'wins' is he worth on his own? Maybe half a win if we are being generous? How about KJ Wright, a quarter win perhaps? How Cliff Avril? Maybe half a win?

Add those players up, and you get a total AYP of $24.35 million, which buys you probably about 1.25 wins.

By contrast, Seattle was a 7 win team before Wilson, and has averaged 12 wins per year with him, a difference of 5 wins. You can't give Wilson ALL the credit for that difference, but it's probably safe to say that Wilson is a 4 win player.

So if you pay Wilson an AYP of $24 million, and he gives you more than triple the wins per dollar that Maxwell/Wright/Avril give you for the same money, then how is that a bad thing?

Granted, those are not the three biggest bargain contracts in the world. But they are a fairly good example of the kinds of 'deals' you get in open free agency when the time comes to turn dollars into wins. Remember how much Seattle paid for Rice and Miller?

Even though it's not an exact science, it doesn't need to be, because it's abundantly clear that even at 'big money', Wilson would still be one of the best 'bang for the buck' players in the NFL. Any talk about him being higher paid than X is really just silly, especially when QBs who might be worth 1 win at most are getting $18+ million these days.

Wilson doesn't have those wins on his resume without that elite defense and Lynch. He can't carry a team the way Brady or Rogers can at least not yet maybe with more talent at WR but we haven't seen that kind of elite gameplay game in and game out from him yet. He still goes through long stretches in games where he can't move the ball. Not sayin he doesn't deserve a big contract but I would not make him the highest paid QB in the game because he's simply not the best QB playing right now.

 

[McGruff]

How about the option:

Pay him like a top qb now, because in a year or two he'll be locked into those numbers and he'll drop down into the 5-10 highest paid quarterback range.

That's my thinking. I votes for #1 knwoing the way the market forces work and that in two years his deal will fall right into line.

 

[scutterhawk]

John should ask him and his agent about the last throw of the Super Bowl... :stirthepot:

A single play?, yeah, they should do that :roll:
Calias (sp) Campbell said it pretty well about Wilson's impact on the Seahawks Offense.
IF you can keep Marshawn Lynch from breaking for a big run throughout a game, you still have to keep Wilson on the radar, because he can and does gash you with a run when you think that he won't be able to break containment, and if you do manage to bottle him up, he will kill you with an impressive pass.
Pay the man top 5 money, and quit screwing with him, he's earned it.
The Seahawks are lucky to have a Quarterback that has the mobility and smarts to use it when a play breaks down and goes to shit.
I think there's a huge misconception about who some of y'all be thinking could be just as adept, or even available at playing in Wilson's place.
It's goofy to try'n dis him when you KNOW you don't have an AVAILABLE replacement for what he can and does bring to the table.

 

[Sports Hernia]

How about the option:

Pay him like a top qb now, because in a year or two he'll be locked into those numbers and he'll drop down into the 5-10 highest paid quarterback range.

I'm in line with this. The only thing I worry about is future salary cap problems. Otherwise, pay the man, it's not my money!

 

[Northwest Seahawk]

I'm not worried at all he has very little leverage here. It would be extremely foolish of him to risk injury without a contract and put in jeopardy his long term earning potential over a few million here or there. He will sign .

 

[LickMyNuts]

I feel sorry for the folks in the Seahawks front office if they don't make RW the highest paid player.

God is going to have a field day with them.

 

[Kennedyin92]

John should ask him and his agent about the last throw of the Super Bowl... :stirthepot:

A single play?, yeah, they should do that :roll:...

Yes. A single play that caused them to fall short of the sport's ultimate goal. :roll:

 

[Chukarhawk]

Wilson doesn't have those wins on his resume without that elite defense and Lynch. He can't carry a team the way Brady or Rogers can at least not yet maybe with more talent at WR but we haven't seen that kind of elite gameplay game in and game out from him yet. He still goes through long stretches in games where he can't move the ball. Not sayin he doesn't deserve a big contract but I would not make him the highest paid QB in the game because he's simply not the best QB playing right now.

Tarvaris had and elite defense and beast mode and we won 7 games. Russell is elite. his record speaks for itself.

 

[ctrcat]

Who are these 5-10 QBs that will bump RW's salary in a few years? The 2013 class was all time bad, Johnny Manziel was the most ballyhooed QB in 2014, and the #1 pick this year is a bonafide grade A turd more likely to bust than not. Who are the 5-10?

 

[MizzouHawkGal]

The funny thing about these contracts for NFL players is how they are an inexact science. Baseball has Wins above Replacement (WAR), and it's a very simple calculation to figure out how many millions of dollars 1 WAR is worth.

Fuzzy math alert.

I love Byron Maxwell, but how many 'wins' is he worth on his own? Maybe half a win if we are being generous? How about KJ Wright, a quarter win perhaps? How Cliff Avril? Maybe half a win?

Add those players up, and you get a total AYP of $24.35 million, which buys you probably about 1.25 wins.

By contrast, Seattle was a 7 win team before Wilson, and has averaged 12 wins per year with him, a difference of 5 wins. You can't give Wilson ALL the credit for that difference, but it's probably safe to say that Wilson is a 4 win player.

Yeah football players have such specific roles that it's hard to have one single player move the needle much, except for the quarterback. Based on what Vegas thinks, your estimates are probably fairly close. I like to bet on season win totals a lot and a season-ending injury to a star player (non-qb) will typically cause Vegas to adjust the number downward by 0.5 to 1 win at most. Often an injury to a big name player won't even affect the win total at all.

Now qbs are a different story. Assuming a team has a typical low-level backup qb, an injury to an elite starting qb might result in a 3-5 win swing.

For a clear example of this and the reason why Rodgers is paid 22M just look at Green Bay circa 2013. When Rodgers went down they were done with a capital D. Just like we'd be if Taveris ever does anything more than be our coin flip picker.

Everything funnels through the quarterback, every offensive play is pretty much touched by him when speaking about who has the ball and where it will go unlike baseball which on the offensive side is pretty much a two man individual sport between the hitter and pitcher hence the reason WAR works nicely as a predictor in baseball. It can be isolated far easier statically then more team oriented sports like hockey, football and soccer.

 

[MizzouHawkGal]

I'm not worried at all he has very little leverage here. It would be extremely foolish of him to risk injury without a contract and put in jeopardy his long term earning potential over a few million here or there. He will sign .

Seemed to work just fine for Joe Flacco and he doesn't deserve to hold Wilson's jock. Just pay him already given in a year or two he'll be the 5th highest paid anyway. It's just how this game plays out concerning elite players especially quarterbacks.

 

[HAWKAMANIA]

They'll let him play out the rest of his rookie contract and then they'll franchise tag him next season. That's how I see this playing out.

 

[Rocket]

What we have heah... is a failure... to communicate.
Both the Russell Agent and the Hawks GM pride themselves in their creative skills re: contracts.
Ain't sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
I've laughed at all the groans and moans over Russell's salary, but there's too much press for them all to be yak manure.

 

[AVL]

What's the big deal? The current high contract is 2 years old, given to a player with 2 years left on his contract, who wasn't even thought of as the best at his position at that time, although he was right up there.

 

[Popeyejones]

I think the interesting question is how "deserves" is being used.

Does he "deserve" to be the highest paid or top 5 paid QB based on his play? I don't think so. He could be deserving of that but what the offense he plays in requires from him doesn't really let us know if he is deserving of that.

Alternately, does he "deserve" either of these things because despite the above being true he's 26 years old, already very good, and more likely to be the next top NFL qb than anyone save for Luck? I think a good case could be made for him be "deserving" in this way.

Lastly, does he "deserve" either of these things because on the open market someone would be willing to give him these things (i.e. people "deserve" what others are willing to give them; it's cut and dry). In this way I think he's absolutely deserving of them, as I have no doubt that there's at minimum one team in the NFL that would be willing to give it to him, even if it's a mistake to do so.

So, I guess my answer is maybe not/maybe so/definitely.

I think the Seahawks are quite correctly thinking of the "deserves" that leads them to a "maybe not" answer, and Wilson is also quite correctly thinking of the "deserves" that leads him to the "definitely" answer. Or, put another way, I think they can be at an impasse without either of them expressly being wrong.

 

[StoneCold]

This morning Salk was saying that Russell doesn't deserve to be the highest paid because the Seahawks don't have a pass first offense and you can't pay your QB that much if it's not going revolve around him. And that the Seahawks know this and will never pay him. I think he's missing some of the picture. Our offense does revolve around Russell. We've had many discussions about what other QB could come in and do what Russell does. It's very few and even those, Luck, Rogers, ??? Well they haven't even taken their own teams to the SB as many times as Russell has. Does he deserve top money?

The idea that he deserves or has earned the right to be the highest paid player is, IMHO, not the salient point. The real question is, how much is a Super Bowl worth? On the one hand, if paying Russell 25 mil a year gives you an 80% chance to win? Pay him. But if on the other it means you can't sign some other players, Wagner, Sweezy, et al, and paying Russell 25 mil a year only gives you a 50% chance, you have to ask yourself who else can you put at QB that gives you a better than 50% chance? Is it Tavaris, or some rookie or some unknown?

If it gives you the best chance to win, pay him, if not? Don't. But it has nothing to do with how many times Russell throws it or any other stat other than wins baby!

SC