The Mid Round QB fallacy

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

OK I've read this over a couple times now and it's still not making a lick of sense to me. The contract structure and salary paid to the player has no bearing, either now or down the road. Whether you pick a LT or a QB at 4 overall, you're still talking about a big contract. But there's no contract risk with either player. If the QB fails and we have to cut bait, there will be no signing bonus acceleration because any bonus would have been paid to him in an uncapped year and thus not relevant under a capped year, if there ever is one again.

In fact, the uncapped year is the best time to dole out large bonuses.

In an uncapped world like baseball, you have contract risk with signing players to big contracts for long terms. But this rookie QB would not have a guaranteed contract like a Vernon Wells does.

Cap consequences are irrelevant, and cash consequences are not a concern with Dan Snyder in charge.

The risk you run with a QB is not financial in any way. It is only that you'll miss on the player. But higher risk, higher reward. An LT might pan out more often, but I don't really care to go 8-8.

Well, there are assumptions here about a future CBA that we simply can't really prepare for: if 24 owners see nothing wrong with punishing the Redskins for spending like they are the only team in the league, then they can impose whatever consequences for large contracts they want to against us.

With that said, I don't believe the agreement that they will eventually come to with the players association in 2012 is going to include a salary cap. Maybe some form of a luxury tax, which wouldn't be an issue for this franchise.

The crux of my argument, and it was poorly stated, was: even though any signing bonus we would pay to the 4th overall pick becomes a sunk cost at the point it is spent, we can't assume that the team would act rationally in the face of facing a potential sunk cost. I think it's a very safe assumption that, if the pick is poor, we will lose games over what we would have had if we had just never used the pick at all. (This, is of course, if we assume the level of the replacement player to be equal to Jason Campbell).

Basically, I should have just stated that I am rejecting the premise it's just money and a pick that we would be spending on the high-volatility selection. If the selection was poor for any reason, either poor player evaluation or poor evaluation of environment conditions, it's not just a pick or money that's sunk (in a rational world, it would be), it's also many football games.

The practical figure of guaranteed money for a quarterback is far beyond what the actual figure is. If the actual figure is $25 million, his salaries for three or four years are also guaranteed. If you look at Russell, it's hard to see any other rational move for the Raiders than to cut ties with him. But the Raiders are going to throw $13 million more at the problem, plus the salary of a new quarterback coach, to not have to eat the $45 million or whatever they've already sunk into one of the worst QB prospects of the decade.

Without getting into all the reasons that the Redskins have a greater chance of succeeding with a QB at No. 4 overall this year than the Raiders had at No. 1 in 2007 (a very poor QB draft to this point), I think the above very clearly is a case of contract risk. Large contracts and irrational decision making have gone together since the beginning of the free agency era. There's no real reason to suggest that the new brain trust is above that influence.

But, of course, if you guess right on a great quarterback, then the contract is, in some ways, a value. But the problem is that you're guessing at all. You really do have to know, to justify the pick, and a No. 1 or No. 2 ranking on the big board constitutes knowledge (as opposed to hope) to me.