Recently, this tweet from NFL on ESPN was brought to my attention, which contains the following image.

Some people wondered why Jay Cutler, with his reputation for being a turnover machine, was not on this list.  A quick search of statistics indicated Cutler has 89 turnovers in that 5-year span, just missing the cut.  However, total turnovers is a misleading statistic; Cutler has played in only 66 games in that 5-year span, while Brees, Rivers, and Manning have all played 80.  Thus, it will be more accurate to look at the frequency with which turnovers occur.

Turnovers per game

I expanded the search to include all quarterbacks who have been (more or less) full time starters for the last five years, a list that includes 15 quarterbacks.  The table below shows the number of games they have played, the turnovers they have committed, and their turnovers per game in that period.

Here we see that Cutler is among the worst quarterbacks at turning the ball over, but he is certainly not an outlier.  Eli Manning and Carson Palmer both average more turnovers per game than he does, and Ryan Fitzpatrick is very similar to him.

Turnover percentage

Of course, just looking at turnovers per game can be a bit misleading, as some quarterbacks handle the ball more than others.  Therefore, the best way to look at this is by the number of turnovers relative to the number of plays in which turnovers were possible.  Turnovers included both interceptions and fumbles lost, while I counted a quarterbacks’ touches (pass attempts, rushing attempts, or sacks) as their total plays.  Thus, the formula is turnover percentage = (interceptions + fumbles lost)/(pass attempts + rush attempts + sacks).  The table below shows the results.

Here we see Cutler once again is among the worst quarterbacks, and in fact he comes off a little worse in turnover percentage than turnovers per game.  Cutler is still not the worst full-time quarterback in the NFL at turning it over, but he is up there.

Discussion

While there are other factors involved in quarterback play than avoiding turnovers (which is why Peyton Manning is widely considered to be better than Alex Smith), turnovers are certainly very important.  Turnover differential is vital for determining wins in a season and has a very strong correlation to success  in games when the Bears have Jay Cutler under center.

So what can Chicago’s new coaches do to limit Cutler’s turnovers going forward?  One big step will be running the ball more; this limits Cutler’s touches per game, which will limit his turnovers.  Of course, Cutler has averaged only 36.9 touches per game over the last 5 years, 2nd fewest of the 15 quarterbacks in this study.  But that number was at 42.5 in 2014, which would be higher than every quarterback in this study except Drew Brees and Matthew Stafford.  Going back to a more balanced offense like what Cutler saw from 2010-2013 will help some.

One area the Bears can definitely look to improve on is Cutler’s fumbling. His 22 fumbles lost over the last 5 years lead all quarterbacks in this study, and he fumbled on 0.9% of his touches, also the highest mark of any quarterback.  In fact, only Ben Roethlisberger (0.8%) comes even close to that; everybody else was between 0.3% and 0.6%.  Chicago can look to improve this through a combination of better fundamentals and better pass protection, as many fumbles come on sacks.  Cutler has been sacked on 7.5% of his dropbacks over the last 5 years, which is far too high a number. As an added bonus, a more balanced offense, like we discussed before, can slow down the pass rush as well.

Conclusion

Jay Cutler turns the ball over too much.  This is not a shock to anybody, but the numbers say he has a few peers with similar turnover rates.  No matter what Chicago’s new coaches do to help Cutler improve, he is always going to turn it over more than you would like; it’s in his DNA as a gunslinger quarterback.  They should be able to help a bit by focusing on running the ball and pass protection, but Cutler’s high turnover rate is a big part of the reason why he is unlikely to be in Chicago for more than the next 2 years.

DBB will return with original content next week as we begin our draft coverage with a podcast featuring Scott Wright of NFL Draft Countdown.

The Bears on Tuesday signed Ray McDonald.

When I heard that, when I heard the team I spend so much time thinking about and cheering for signed this man with a checkered past, my initial reaction was a simple, “Ugh”.Ugh as in how could the Bears overlook a track record of violence towards women in the name of good defensive line play. Ugh as in how could this new Bears leadership be so eager to ship Brandon “Tartikoff” Marshall to New Jersey for less than a Rutt’s Hut ripper in the name of personality problems while bringing in McDonald on the recommendation of their new defensive coordinator alone. Ugh as in how, after the NFL’s dark troubles of 2014, could the Bears so willingly enter that conversation in 2015?

(The Tribune provides a legal timeline for McDonald HERE.)

But there was an even worse Ugh. Ugh as in the realization that the first time McDonald buries Aaron Rodgers or Matthew Stafford or Teddy Bridgewater I will be the first one to applaud and forget all his transgressions.

Read More …

“You can’t win with Jay Cutler.”

That’s been a common argument by many fans fed up with Cutler, who was the poster child of a disappointing 2014 year, as they campaigned for the Bears to move on and find a fresh face for the 2015 season.

Since then, the Bears have committed to Cutler as their quarterback for 2015.  So let’s get away from the debate about whether or not that was a good idea (I believe reasonable arguments can be made for both sides) and instead focus on how Chicago can maximize their 2015 success with Cutler under center.

Contrary to what some might say, the Bears have actually won with Cutler in the past, as they are 44-38 in games he has started, but their winning percentage in games he plays in each season has fluctuated from 33% to 70%. Let’s take a look at what changed in seasons where the Bears won with Cutler compared to times when they lost with him in an effort to figure out how they can win with him again in 2015.

Methods

In an effort to try and figure out what changed in those seasons, I looked at the correlation between Chicago’s win percentage in games Jay Cutler started for his six seasons in Chicago and 12 different variables across a number of general areas.  In order to evaluate Cutler’s performance, I examined passer rating, touchdown percentage, interception percentage, and touchdown/interception ratio.  Since the average NFL passer rating has increased by about 6 points in those 6 years, I used the difference between Cutler’s passer rating and the NFL average that year.

In order to evaluate the offense as a whole, I looked at their rankings out of the 32 NFL teams in both yards per game and points per game.  In order to evaluate the defense, I looked at their NFL rankings in both yards per game and points per game allowed.  In order to examine the importance of turnovers, I looked at turnovers per game, takeaways per game, and turnover differential per game.  In order to account for the caliber of opponent the Bears faced, I looked at opponent win percentage. In all of these categories, I only included data for the games Cutler started.  For the offensive and defensive NFL ranks, I slotted the Bears where they would have fit based on their per-game stats for this sample set.

For the categories where lower numbers are better, I manually changed the sign of the correlation to accurately reflect the results.  This applied to interception percentage, all of the offensive and defensive rankings, turnovers per game, and opponent win percentage.

Results

The table below shows the correlation between Chicago’s winning percentage in games Cutler starts each season and their performance in the 12 categories for those games.

Discussion

The first and most important point to make here is that correlation does not equal causation.  This is especially true since this data set spans two different coaches who operated with very different philosophies, which can skew the numbers. Only having six years is also a small sample size, which is why I looked at multiple variables in a category when possible.  However, there are still some clear trends that can be seen here, and it seems reasonable to suggest there is some merit to them.

For starters, Chicago’s offensive performance seems to have little to do with their team success when Cutler is under center.  Points per game scored has a low correlation to winning percentage, and offensive yards per game actually has a negative correlation, though again it is fairly small, and I don’t think it means anything.

Likewise, Cutler’s individual performance does not seem to have much impact on Chicago’s overall success with him under center.  The only two factors that have a somewhat meaningful correlation to win percentage are touchdown percentage and interception percentage, but touchdown percentage is actually negatively related to winning percentage.  Opponent win percentage also proved to be negligible.

The two areas that clearly impact the Bears’ winning percentage when Cutler is under center are defensive performance and turnovers, which were also the two hallmarks of Lovie Smith’s teams during Cutler’s first four years in Chicago.  Both defensive categories had a correlation above 0.5, and defensive points per game had a very high value of 0.89, indicating a strong relationship between the defense’s performance and Chicago’s overall winning percentage.

Turnovers are an interesting category to look at, as the biggest knock against Cutler as a quarterback is that he turns it over too much.  Indeed, the largest correlation between Cutler’s performance and Chicago’s success is interception percentage, though a 0.43 correlation is still not overly large.  The turnover differential per game has the largest correlation to team success, though turnovers per game and takeaways per game were both extremely important as well.

One important point to make about turnovers in this case is that they do not only include interceptions; other players can turn the ball over too, and Cutler can fumble the ball away.  Total interceptions and interception percentage are also two very different numbers; Cutler actually threw interceptions at the 2nd lowest rate of his Bears career in 2014 despite throwing the 2nd most interceptions that same season, a reflection of his 561 passing attempts that marked a new Chicago high for him.  Total turnovers had a much higher correlation than interception percentage, which is partially due to fumbles being added in, but it also suggests that the Bears would do well to limit Cutler’s passing attempts and establish a more balanced offense.

Conclusions

While not conclusive by any means, this data suggests that coaches of a team with Jay Cutler as their starting quarterback should focus on defense and turnovers, which can be limited in part by running the ball more.  This is not exactly earth-shattering news, but it is refreshing to see numbers match up with what common sense seems to dictate.  It should also make Bears fans happy to think that Chicago’s coaching hires this offseason indicate a desire to focus on defense and running the ball.

One logical question that can be raised in response to this conclusion is whether Cutler’s contract is too financially cumbersome for the Bears to build a quality defense.  While Cutler’s contract is in line with the quarterback market around the NFL, this is a fair question to ask.  Quarterbacks, especially mid-tier quarterbacks, making as much money as Cutler does are a relatively new occurrence, and early evidence indicates that these salaries may in fact be too cost prohibitive to build a championship-caliber roster around.

Based on that fact alone, I think looking for Cutler’s eventual replacement in one of the next two drafts is an excellent idea.  A solid quarterback on a rookie contract is the biggest bargain in the NFL, and acquiring one in the near future needs to be Ryan Pace’s top priority.  In the meantime, the good news for Bears fans is this: the Bears have won with Jay Cutler before, and there is a clear blueprint they can follow to do it again.

Thought #1. Bears should meet the $4M a year demand for Stefan Wisniewski. Per a report from Brad Biggs in the Tribune:

Wisniewski is recovering from shoulder surgery after last season when he played with a torn labrum. The former second-round pick of the Raiders has made visits to the Seahawks and Bucs, and the Rams and Chiefs are also known to be interested. No team has been willing to meet his request of $4 million per season and it could be he winds up on a one- or two-year prove-it contract. At this point, it would be a mistake to rule out the Bears.

Wisniewski is young and talented and the kind of physical presence needed to anchor a John Fox offensive line. An interior offensive line of Slauson-Wiz-Long would set a new tone on the that side of the ball.

Thought #2. Jarvis Jenkins and Mason Foster are smart, short-term solutions on defense. No, neither of these players is going to the Pro Bowl. No, neither of these players are going to make Bears fans forget Dan Hampton or Dick Butkus. But they would be a solid, professional additions to a defensive unit desperate for such. (I’m assuming Mason Foster ultimately ends up in Chicago.)

Read More …

I recently talked about just how quickly the salaries of established quarterbacks are increasing relative to the salary cap.  In it, I found the top 15 or so quarterbacks have salaries that are increasing at a rate disproportionate to the salary cap.

Today, I want to look at the amount of money Super Bowl teams spend on their quarterbacks.  So I looked at the cap hit (as a percentage of the total cap) of the highest paid quarterback on the roster for every Super Bowl participant since 2000, as well as where that ranked among NFL quarterbacks.

A few quick notes:

• Since there have been a few instances of teams having a guy who was not their highest paid quarterback start for them in the Super Bowl, I decided to go with the highest cap hit for a quarterback on the roster instead.
• 2010 is not included because it was an uncapped year.
• All salary cap data from 2000-2009 comes from the USA Today database.  All data since 2011 comes from Spotrac.

The data

There are several interesting tidbits I’d like to point out here.

It is possible for teams to spend a premium on a quarterback and still compete for the Super Bowl.  7 of the 28 teams in the list (25%) had a quarterback who had one of the top 5 quarterback cap hits in the NFL that year and made the Super Bowl, and 4 of those 7 teams won.

This might illustrate Peyton Manning’s career pretty well: he’s the only quarterback taking up more than 12% of his team’s cap to go to the Super Bowl, and he did it twice: once at 14.2% and once at 17.8%.  Both of them dwarfed the 11.8% any other quarterback has accounted for while making the Super Bowl.  Of course, he lost both times, which might reflect that he was taking up too much money, leaving his team weak in other areas.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Seahawks made the Super Bowl in back to back years without a quarterback accounting for even 1% of the cap.  And in both instances their highest paid quarterback was Tavaris Jackson, not Russell Wilson.  That helps explain why they were able to afford so many high quality players at other positions.  Overall, this isn’t really a repeatable pattern, as it’s extremely rare to land a quarterback outside of the first round of the draft who plays at such a high level so quickly.  When that happens, your team basically gets an extra 10% of the cap to work with over everybody else.

How much is too much?

So how much is too much to pay a quarterback?  That’s the question teams are going to have to answer in the coming years as quarterback contracts continue to climb.

The answer obviously varies depending on the caliber of quarterback.  Somebody like Peyton Manning deserves to be paid more than Matthew Stafford.  But no quarterback in the NFL, no matter how good, has won a Super Bowl in the last 15 years while using up more than 12% of his teams’ salary cap.  Of course, with quarterback contract inflation, that may not hold, as nine quarterbacks are currently slated to have a cap hit of at least 12% of their teams’ total cap ($17.2M) in 2015, including presumed Super Bowl contenders like Green Bay and Denver.

I am skeptical that a middle of the road quarterback like Stafford (or Alex Smith, Jay Cutler, Andy Dalton, Colin Kaepernick, etc.) can win a Super Bowl while on a contract paying him more than 10% of his teams’ salary cap.  I am also skeptical that anybody can win a Super Bowl when their quarterback’s cap hit is astronomical, such as we see in 2015 with Drew Brees (18.5%, $26.4M) or Tony Romo (19.4%, $27.8M).

In my opinion, it’s not a coincidence that we are seeing players like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning take contracts, pay cuts, or restructures that keep their cap hits a little lower.  Brady won his 4th Super Bowl in 2014 with a deal that guarantees him almost all his money but never puts his cap hit above $16 million.  Manning just agreed to come back to Denver on a reduced contract that dropped his cap hit to $17.5 million.

Tipping point reached?

Between those moves, the financial disarray teams like Dallas and New Orleans are in due to absurd quarterback contracts and restructures, and the pay-as-you-go deals signed by Colin Kaepernick and Andy Dalton last offseason, I can’t help but wonder if we have reached a tipping point with quarterback contracts.  They have absolutely exploded in the last 3-4 years, and teams might be starting to realize they overpaid.

I wouldn’t be surprised if teams make more of a concerted effort towards more reasonable quarterback contracts going forward, but that is going to be difficult to do, as players typically like to be paid more than the guy before them was (as we just saw with Ben Roethlisberger’s new deal, which set several records).  With Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Cam Newton, Russell Wilson, and Andrew Luck all coming up on new deals in the next 12 months, it will be fascinating to see if the quarterback market continues its (possibly counterproductive) upward trajectory, flattens out, or begins to decrease.

I recently wrote an article explaining why Jay Cutler’s contract is actually right in line with the NFL’s quarterback market, as dictated by other quarterback contracts around the NFL.  Near the end of that article, I wrote a sentence that intrigued me: ” Whether or not giving an average quarterback that kind of money is a good idea remains to be seen.”

Today, I want to look in greater detail at that question, or at least a slightly reworded one: is paying a massive portion of your salary cap to a non-elite quarterback a good idea?

I looked at this issue in 2013, and found that “The early results suggest big contracts for non-elite quarterbacks will come back to haunt their teams, but it is too early to say for sure.”  Remember, having more than just a few of the top quarterbacks take up massive amounts of salary cap space is a relatively new trend in the NFL.  Now that we have another years’ worth of data, let’s see if the same trend holds.

Methods

I split all 32 teams in the NFL into one of six groups based on their current quarterback status.

1. Elite veteran: these teams have one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL locked down on a big contract.  He’s expensive, but he’s also really good.  I applied this to Denver, Green Bay, New England, and New Orleans.  I’m not 100% convinced that Drew Brees is in the same tier as those guys, but I had him there last year, so I figured I’d leave him here again.
2. Non-elite veteran: these teams are committed to their starting quarterback for 2015.  He’s on an expensive deal and is not as good as those top guys listed above, but is still a solid player.  I applied this to Atlanta, New York Giants, San Francisco, San Diego, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Arizona, Baltimore, and Dallas.
3. Established young guy: these teams have a starting quarterback they feel good about on a rookie deal.  I applied this to Miami, Carolina, Indianapolis, and Seattle.
4. Need a quarterback: these teams need to upgrade their quarterback situation, as they don’t have the answer on their roster currently.  I applied this to Tampa Bay, Tennessee, New York Jets, Houston, and Buffalo.
5. Recent Pick: these teams spent a 1st round pick on a quarterback last year.  They all experienced varying success, but are likely to get another shot as the starter in 2015.  I applied this to Jacksonville, Oakland, Cleveland, and Minnesota.  Note: I almost put Minnesota in the established young guy camp, but since this study looks at 2014 results and Teddy Bridgewater wasn’t established until the final few games, I decided to leave him in the recent pick camp for now.
6. Up in the air: these teams have potential answers for the quarterback situation on their roster, but the teams are not clearly committed to those guys.  I applied this to Washington, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Chicago (as the Bears have indicated through their actions they are not sold on Cutler as their guy long term).

This isn’t a perfect method, especially for the non-elite veterans, as there is clearly some differentiation between guys like Ben Roethlisberger and Tony Romo compared to Andy Dalton and Alex Smith.  However, for the purposes of this study I believe it will suffice.

2014

I then looked at the 2014 on-field success for teams in each group, examining the average number of wins, the number of teams they put in the playoffs, and how successful they were in the playoffs.  Let’s take a look in the table below.

This more or less follows the same trends as 2013.  Teams that need quarterbacks are generally pretty bad, as are teams with rookie quarterbacks learning how to play in the NFL, though some of the teams in that group approach respectability with .500 records.  Teams with quarterback options on the roster that are not fully entrenched did a little better, but still not very good, and none of them made the playoffs.

Teams with highly paid non-elite veterans seemed to form a middle class.  These teams ranged from bad (5 wins) to good (12 wins), but none of them were among the league’s truly terrible or truly great teams.  Over half of them made the playoffs, but none of them did much once they got there, as they all bowed out before the conference championship games.

The groups with the most success are teams with elite veteran quarterbacks or proven starters on rookie contracts.  Most of these teams made the playoffs, and they were the only real title contenders, making up all of the last 4 teams standing for the second year in a row.

2013+2014

In order to increase the sample size and see the trends more clearly, I combined the data from 2013 and 2014, so we are now looking at 64 teams instead of 32.  Let’s see how it looks now.

Here we see the same pattern.  The worst teams are those that need a quarterback, and the only teams that make the playoffs have a starting quarterback they feel good about (the one exception was Cincinnati in 2013; I put them as up in the air because rumors were they might move on from Dalton when I wrote that article in January; they later gave him a big extension and moved into the established non-elite quarterback category for 2014).

Here’s the kicker: when teams get to the playoffs with a highly-paid quarterback who is not elite, they lose.  Sure, they have managed three playoff wins over the last two years, but those three wins were over Cincinnati, Detroit, and Pittsburgh, 3 teams with non-elite quarterbacks themselves.  When going up against teams with quality starters on rookie deals or elite veterans, teams with non-elite veterans are 0-5.  All 8 teams in the conference championship games the last 2 years-the true title contenders-have been teams with either an elite veteran or a solid starter on a rookie deal.

Conclusions

This is still a very small sample size, so it is dangerous to draw too many conclusions.  But it is beginning to look more and more like the new glut of highly-paid, non-elite quarterbacks are dooming those teams to an NFL middle class.  They are never bad enough to truly be terrible, but spending so much money on a good but not great player also prevents them from being good enough to win a championship.

If this pattern continues to hold over the next few years, it will be interesting to see how teams respond.  Will the secondary quarterback contracts begin to take up less of the salary cap?  Will the top few quarterback contracts continue going up, while the middle class remains fairly steady, thereby creating more of a financial difference between players like Aaron Rodgers and Matthew Stafford? Will teams be willing to let good but not great players like Andy Dalton or Colin Kaepernick leave in free agency, deciding they’re better off trying their luck in the draft instead of handing them massive extensions?

Of course, the problem with that last option is that it’s an incredible risk.  There are worse fates than being a good but not great team.  If you let a solid quarterback leave instead of overpaying him and then whiff on his replacement, you’re stuck being a terrible team for several years, and it typically only gets better once you find another quarterback, at which point you’re likely right back where you started once their rookie deal runs out.  And that is the seeming catch-22 of having a good but not great quarterback in today’s NFL.

As I recently discussed when talking about Jay Cutler’s contract, quarterbacks are becoming very expensive in the NFL.  There are 17 quarterbacks with a cap hit of $14 million or more in 2015, a number that might increase as players like Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson look for extensions this offseason.  With a salary cap of $143 million, that means more than half the teams in the NFL have at least 10% of their salary cap devoted to their starting quarterback.

That seems like an awfully high number to me, so I want to look back and see how that has changed through the years.  The NFL salary cap started in 1994, but I was only able to find salary cap data back to 2000 online, so that’s how far this study goes.

The logistics

Since the NFL salary cap has risen from $62.2 million in 2000 to $143.3 million in 2015, using raw cap numbers obviously isn’t going to be feasible.  In order to adjust for salary cap inflation, I will be looking at the percent of the total cap quarterback cap hits use.

All salary cap data from 2000-2009 comes from the USA Today database.  All data since 2011 comes from Spotrac.  2010 was not included in the study for two reasons: that was an uncapped year, and I couldn’t find the necessary data.

I looked at the top 32 cap quarterback cap hits for each year from 2000 to 2015 (excluding 2010).  The 2015 data is included so as to show how the trends are continuing, but it should be noted that not all of the top 32 quarterback contracts have currently been signed.  That data set does not include any free agent contracts from 2015, and two rookie quarterbacks are likely to add to the mix as well.  This won’t impact the top 20 or 25 quarterback cap hits, but it might factor into the bottom part of the top 32.  Note the data was also compiled before Ben Roethlisberger’s recent contract extension, and does not include that.

The data

Overall, the average cap hit of the top 32 quarterbacks has increased from 5.6% in 2000 to 8.4% in 2015.  This number actually stayed fairly constant from 2000-2008, then it took a big jump in 2009, backed down slightly, and has been steadily rising since 2012.

The jump in 2009 was due to a combination of ridiculous rookie deals (Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, JaMarcus Russell, Carson Palmer, and Philip Rivers were all among the top 10 quarterback cap hits on their rookie deals) and big contracts for star veterans like Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Brett Favre, and Tom Brady.  The other player among top 10 cap hits was Matt Cassel, who received a laughably large contract from Kansas City after they acquired him via trade.

As the rookie contracts expired and were replaced by rookie on reasonable deals, the average quarterback cap hits took a slight dip (though still higher than 2000-2008 levels) in 2010 and 2011.  Over the last 3 years, they have been rising very rapidly, and 2015 (which will end up slightly higher than 8.4% due to the reasons I stated above) makes it look like that trend will continue.

However, this has not been a case of all contracts being inflated evenly, as you can see when you spread out the data.  This is illustrated quite clearly by the graph below, which tracks the cap hits by year for the highest quarterback, 5th highest, 10th highest, and so on every 5.

Here you can see that the growing gap in quarterback cap hits between the 15th and 20th highest paid quarterbacks.  The top 15 or so quarterbacks are all seeing their salaries skyrocket, while the rest are staying relatively constant, once you account for inflation.

Clear dropoff

Why the clear distinction?  Well, here is a list of the guys currently on big contracts ($15 million or higher average salary per year): Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Drew Brees, Colin Kaepernick, Jay Cutler, Tony Romo, Matthew Stafford, Alex Smith, Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, Andy Dalton, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Tom Brady.

The other 16 teams in the league either have quarterbacks on rookie deals or are looking at starting players like Chad Henne, Brian Hoyer, Josh McCown, Ryan Mallett, Ryan Fitzpatrick, or similar guys.  You get the idea.

This is why there’s a gap in average contract value (excluding rookie deals) from about $15 million a year to roughly $5 million a year (Josh McCown, Matt Cassel), with only Matt Schaub’s soon to be expired $7 million a year contract in the middle.

If you have one of the guys in the first group, you are ok at quarterback.  Sure, you could do better than many of them, but you could do a whole lot worse, and teams are putting a premium price on that reliable production, even if it is only reliably average.

Is it worth it?

Now we are presented with the (multi) million dollar question: is it worth paying the lowest guys in that solid group such significant money to be average?  Are players like Jay Cutler, Colin Kaepernick, Alex Smith, Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton, Eli Manning, Joe Flacco, and Matthew Stafford really worth committing more than 10% of your salary cap to?

Stay tuned for my next article in this series, when I will look at some recent trends around the NFL to see what the early results might suggest.

Per a report from Brad Biggs in the Chicago Tribune, the Bears will not be waiting until a few weeks prior to the coming season to sign a long snapper. They have agreed to terms with Dave Toub’s long snapper, Thomas Gafford. From the article:

Gafford, 6-foot-2, 250 pounds, spent two weeks with the Bears during training camp in 2008. The University of Houston product had two stints with the Green Bay Packers and one with the Seattle Seahawks before sticking with the Chiefs. He’s been credited with 13 solo tackles, four assists and one fumble recovery in his career.  Assistant special teams coach Derius Swinton was on the staff in Kansas City in 2012, so he has worked with Gafford.