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

Several reports state Russell Wilson is asking for a top 3 QB contract, with a report from Bleacher Report today saying it very well may be asking to be the highest paid QB over Aaron Rodgers.

So, where do you fall in the list of options the two sides are faced with right now?

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 love ya Rock, but I promised myself, 'No more RW Contract,' posts. Sorry, but I've taken the pledge.

G-d grant me the serenity...........

Ten minutes after the Seahawks make him #1, some other team will pay their QB and make Wilson #2. By the time Wilson is at the end of his deal, he'll probably be in the 5-10 range for pay.

Wilson is an elite QB. Our team is several wins better with him than without him. Elite QBs are worth WAY more than $20 million in terms of wins added. If theoretically the Seahawks let Wilson walk to save money, and they didn't have Steve Young 2.0 backing him up, it would be one of the dumbest moves ever in any sport.

I hope the rumors aren't true about Seattle insisting on signing Wilson to Cam Newton money. There is no way Wilson would sign for that, nor should he. If that's true, then I'd blame the FO for not getting a deal done this offseason.

Another Wilson/Money thread :17:

I would be happy for the team to offer Wilson $22 million per year in new money, even as much as $24 million per year. The issue is how much more money does Wilson want than the current highest paid player in the league, a salary that the most recent franchise QB contracts have not topped. I would not offer him $25 million per year, which is the level above the $22 million threshold where I think the demands become unreasonably greedy and risk hurting the team.

Where is the "pay him the least amount possible dictated by the market" option? I don't see it

If he makes more than Rogers, it doesn't mean he's perceived as better. Contracts escalate (call it QB inflation), so a top paid QB may drop just because the next QB signs their contract several years later. This is why comparing contracts can be a bad starting point.

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.

lobohawk":177y4emy said:

If he makes more than Rogers, it doesn't mean he's perceived as better. Contracts escalate (call it QB inflation), so a top paid QB may drop just because the next QB signs their contract several years later. This is why comparing contracts can be a bad starting point.

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Several franchise QBs have signed extensions since Rodgers' deal (Roethlisberger, Newton, etc.) and none of them have topped that deal. That's not to say Wilson won't. When he does, the question is by how much?

The difference between Top 3 and "Highest Paid" is so small that it can't be what is holding up this negotiation.

There are two things we know for sure: (A) Russell Wilson should make more money than Cam Newton ($20.8M/year); and (B) Aaron Rodgers is the highest paid QB by APY at $22M/year.

If Russell is saying, "hey, give me $22M plus a penny in new money, and I'll sign right now" then Seattle would be pretty foolish to drag this thing out. Reportedly, they've already offered him 21.8M/year. Do you really believe this delay is due to a few hundred thousand dollars? No chance.

I have a feeling it's not about getting #1 QB money. It's about getting "Neil Armstrong--Land on the Moon" money -- Russell and his agent want him to go where no man has gone before (whether that's tearing up his current deal or giving him $25M/yr on the extension). If this is truly the case, it would be a tad disheartening. Earl and Sherm got their deals done early, and for a little less than some people were projecting. They didn't demand that their rookie deals get torn up either, and they were both the consensus #1 at their position. I imagine they won't be too pleased if Seattle changes the rules for the QB.

kearly":1dltfe0y said:

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.

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Fwiw, the Panthers were a 2 win team before Newton (beat John Skelton and David Carr). They've averaged 8 wins with him for a difference of 6 wins, even counting last year's wacky season tie as a loss.

With the ring and two conference titles among other factors, more for RW would be ok or accepted if I'm JS, but by how much? The win differential favors Newton.

kearly":1ynf8doj said:

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.

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Kip?

Call holding for you, line 3.

A, Mr. Schneider. He says you know him?

kearly":g2qwbhr8 said:

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.

Click to expand...

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.

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

kearly":5la4n5j2 said:

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.

Click to expand...

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.

Tical21":2sry71jf said:

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?

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I can think of one candidate. I have my doubts on whether Tarvaris could manage that come back in the NFC Championship game after tossing 4 ints. If you think Tjack just wouldn't have had 4 ints to begin with I can't argue since there is no way of knowing for sure, but 2 of those ints were pretty bad tips so Wilson really wasn't playing as bad as the 4 ints say.

therealjohncarlson":1eqqrdgd said:

Where is the "pay him the least amount possible dictated by the market" option? I don't see it

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Hmmm...maybe ! and Rock are the same person?

Kennedyin92":1oddmdok said:

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

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Well, Kip did say he was only worth four extra wins. That was the fifth.

kearly":1oddmdok said:

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.

Click to expand...

He's outplayed his salary by a huge margin the last 3 years. Make him No. 1 in pay this year and he'll be a bargain in just a few years. Easy for me to say, though, not my money and I don't have to manage the cap.