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Quarterback play falls into three categories for the most part. There are star quarterbacks capable of elevating a team and leading them to a Super Bowl. There are the struggling quarterbacks who make it quite clear it’s time to move on. Then there’s the middle ground — QB purgatory: The average-to-above-average starters aren’t quite good enough to lead their team to the holy grail, but not quite bad enough to start over from scratch. They can win a playoff game once in a while and maybe even a title if all the stars align, but usually they leave a team muddled in mediocrity.
QB purgatory is the worst space for a team to be in. Take the Giants for example. It looked like Daniel Jones’ days in New York were numbered through three seasons, but then Brian Daboll came along. Jones cut down the turnovers, showed upside with over 700 rushing yards and led New York to a playoff win in his contract season with a bad supporting cast.
That put the Giants in a tough position. They could have let Jones walk and started over at quarterback. But drafting one is a complete crapshoot. First-round quarterbacks under the new CBA (since 2011) sign a second contract with their debut team less than 40 percent of the time. The success rate isn’t even a coin flip.
They could have given Jones a franchise tag, but they preferred slapping the tag on Saquon Barkley, their injury prone star running back. So the Giants did what a lot of teams do in QB purgatory. They overpaid for an average starting quarterback because that’s the going rate for them. In case you don’t believe me, these quarterbacks — Joe Flacco, Derek Carr, Matthew Stafford, Jimmy Garoppolo, Carson Wentz, Jared Goff and Dak Prescott — all once got the “highest-paid QB of all time” label by some financial measure.
Jones didn’t join that club, but he did get a four-year pact worth $160 million. It was such a lucrative deal that the…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/qb-purgatory-path-for-giants-browns-and-five-other-teams-to-change-their-fate-at-nfls-most-crucial-position/
Author : Douglas Clawson
Publish date : 2024-05-31 14:20:22
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