Sustainability in the Era of the Bajillion Dollar Quarterback

With the playoffs no longer a thing, we’ve entered the information gathering stage of the season. The team is still trying to compete and win, but mostly to infer which players it needs to gain or lose to compete for something much bigger a year from now. That makes this stretch run vitally important for soon-to-be free agents such as Huf and Greenlaw, as well as our quarterback, whose upcoming price tag has yet to be determined.

When people talk about the Niners’ closing contention window, the giant (mostly) unspoken assumption is that Brock Purdy is actually… not that good. Therefore, if we pay him a market QB rate, we will become–like him… not that good. Never mind the fact that in 2017 we gave Jimmy Garoppolo what was then the largest contract in NFL history, and–under his “guidance”–we had a winning percentage of 69% (lol, Jimmy would). The going belief–regardless of how accurate it may be–is that a big deal for a QB will result in a massive dropoff in our ability to surround said QB with the talent needed to compete.

Can We Procrastinate? This would be the ideal scenario. Have Purdy play next season on his rookie deal, get more info on the player he could become, and then happily pay the salary cap inflation surcharge that comes with waiting a year for an extension. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll have a choice. Purdy has one more year on his rookie contract, but now that he’s extension-eligible there’s no way his agent lets him play a snap on that deal.

At his current pay rate, Purdy is making just over $1M this season, with an average annual salary of $934K that ranks 84th among NFL quarterbacks and 1,756th among all NFL contracts, regardless of position. That’s right, despite active rosters being capped at 53 players, there are–on average–54.8 players being paid more handsomely on every team across the league than Brock Purdy. All this while Spotrac puts his calculated market value at $59.7M/year. Even if you hate Brock, you cannot deny that he’s currently one of the greatest bargains in the history of professional sports. He’s about to get paid, and—based on public comments from Lynch and Shanahan—I think the Niners are happy to do it.

How Many Brinks Trucks We Lookin At? If you have an elite quarterback looking for a contract extension, you typically just reset the market with a new deal and hope you can structure it well. But while Brock has looked elite at times in the early goings of the season, his overall play has been closer to above average to good.

If I’m breaking QBs into tiers, I have four dudes indisputably clumped together in Tier 1: Allen, Lamar, Mahomes, and Burrow. These are the guys who are so good that they’re effectively your offensive engine, even if you cut corners around them.

Tier 2 would involve more of the Herbert and Stafford types, guys who aren’t perfect but can play at a high level with heavy responsibility and control in the pure dropback passing game. They’re not a one-man offense, but they can carry you for long stretches.

Tier 3 features above-average-to-good starting quarterbacks who can pop off statistically but need a scheme and a supporting cast. That’s where I’d put Purdy. In tier 3 and somewhere in the 10-15 of overall quarterbacks, clustered around the Baker Mayfields and Geno Smiths of the world but with more youth and growth potential. 

It’s not unreasonable to think that if we’re handing out a big deal to Purdy, we expect him to become (at least) a perennial bottom-of-the-top-10 type guy and solidly in that second tier. But he’s not there yet. And what’s the price tag for a guy like that? Honestly, who the hell knows, but it’s probably more than you’d like.

Here’s the AAV for each of the long-term QB deals that got handed out last off-season: Kirk Cousins ($45M), Trevor Lawrence ($55M), Jordan Love ($55M), Tua ($53M), Goff ($53M), and Dak ($60M). How many of those guys would you consider firmly in the Tier 2 range of quarterbacks? How many would you consider better than Purdy? It doesn’t really matter. This is the market for veteran starting quarterbacks. So if we eliminate the comparison point of the 36-year-old coming off an Achilles injury, we’re probably looking at something in the mid-50M range, adjusted for salary cap inflation. 

Are There Alternatives? Not really. 

A rookie? Dear God, no. This looks to be one of the worst quarterback classes of the past decade, and while I wouldn’t be surprised if some starters emerge from it, I have no idea who those starters might be. While rolling the dice on a rookie and hoping they can learn under Purdy for a year is a fun theoretical exercise, it also assumes two things—that this rookie (unlike Trey Lance) will turn out at least as good as Purdy within a year and that Purdy will be down to play as a lame duck starter for a year at a $1M rate. Neither seems plausible.

What about a free agent? Like Kirk Cousins, the 36-year-old QB coming off an Achilles injury who threw one touchdown to nine picks over his last five starts? Or Mac Jones with his chill 3-13 record and 15-to-17 TD-to-INT ratio over the past two seasons? Justin Fields, whose weaknesses as a passer–anticipation and throwing quickly on underneath routes–overlap entirely with the core of our offense?

Ultimately, there is only one veteran option on the quarterback market who is even remotely plausible/intriguing as a long-term starter. And he was on the roster last year. Let’s entertain this hypothetical. 

Say the Vikings move on from Sam Darnold and–rather than play bridge quarterback to another rookie or start for some woefully shitty franchise–he wants to come back to the bay. As a guy who has gotten paid nothing and is a year removed from MVP consideration, Purdy asks for something like five years at $55M/yr. While Darnold–who has suffered through various terrible organizations and is just now getting a taste of what it’s like to play on a good team–is less desperate for big money and swoops in with something like four years at $35M/yr (kinda like Baker’s deal). 

We sign Darnold then ping the Titans—and friend and GM Ran Carthon—and convince him to opt for Purdy—the proven commodity—over the likes of the second or third-best rookie QB in a bad class. We trade Purdy for something like a 1st rounder and two second day picks over the next two years.

With an additional $20M in cap space spread out over the next four years, two picks in the top 12, and more coming down the pipeline, we’ve effectively jumpstarted our retooling. We’ve swapped out a 25-year-old QB for a 27-year-old one with superior physical tools who we’re already familiar with. We draft an elite defensive line prospect in the top ten and a mauler guard/tackle at 12 and we reload in a hurry with the intent of competing right now and for years to come. 

This is one of the only scenarios outside of “just pay Purdy” that even remotely intrigues me. It’s also not going to happen. But it is fun to think about. And it shows us how few viable options exist outside of just paying our quarterback, hoping he develops, and continuing to build a strong roster around him. 

A Structure to Ease the Pain (For Now). The good news is that–wherever his total dollar amount lands–there’s a way to structure Purdy’s contract so we can continue to spend. And we’ve already seen the blueprint. Coming off a Super Bowl appearance in 2022, the Eagles gave Jalen Hurts a then-record 5-year/$255M deal. But you wouldn’t know it from his annual cap hits:

2023 = $6.1M
2024 = $13.5M
2025 = $21.8M
2026 = $31.8M
2027 = $41.8M
2028 = $47.1M

So how does a five-year extension with an AAV of $51M/yr never once reach that mark throughout its lifetime and average out to $27M/yr cap hits? The key is in the triple bonus structure. NFL teams are allowed to add up to five void years to the end of any contract to spread out the cap hits of guaranteed money. The Eagles added four of those to the end of Hurts’ contract and used them to stash $97.6M(!) worth of guaranteed money until later. In effect, they’re kicking the can down the road, so when Hurts’ contract is up in 2029–the Eagles will owe that bill in the form of a nearly $100M dead cap hit. While pushing off a nine-figure sum sounds financially irresponsible, two things are worth contextualizing.

First off, future costs are somewhat offset by the explosive growth of the NFL salary cap. With the last restructured year of his rookie deal included, Hurts’ extension was for six years. Over the past six years, the salary cap has risen 35%. This despite the temporary downturn of a season played without fans during the global pandemic. It’s safe to expect the cap to continue to rise from now through the next six years, meaning that $100 million will equate to considerably less cap space and spending power once it finally hits the books. 

Secondly, these void years can act as placeholders for another extension down the road. Hurts has four void years tacked onto the end of his deal, each with its own cap figure and structure. If they let him walk once those void years hit, none of that structure will matter—just the total dead cap hit. But if they extend him before the contract voids, those cap hits effectively become the starting point for his restructure—once again pushing a big chunk of the next bill toward the end of that next extension.

Is there risk involved? Absolutely. But by structuring big QB deals like this, teams can continue to spend money on the rest of their roster. And for quarterbacks like Hurts or Purdy–players who you may like but who can’t carry an entire offense ala Josh Allen–committing to extensions under this framework allows you to keep adding the pieces needed for them to perform at a high level. After extending Hurts, the Eagles have handed out a record-setting deal to AJ Brown ($32M/yr), extensions to both DeVonta Smith ($25M/yr) and Jordan Mailata ($22M/yr), and multi-year free agent deals to Chauncey Gardner-Johnson ($9M/yr) and Saquon Barkley ($12.6M/yr). They’ve even had enough cap space to whiff on some big extensions (James Bradberry - $12.6M/yr) and additions (Bryce Huff - $17M/yr).

On the player side, this contract structure provides tons of guaranteed cash and unprecedented job security. Hurts’ new deal has a no-trade clause, but the structure effectively makes it redundant. Because if the Eagles wanted to move on from Hurts right now–or at any point before the contract expires–they’d have to foot a gargantuan dead cap bill. This season it would have tallied $242M, or 95% of their total cap space for the year. 

So what’s the drawback? Well, there’s always a downside to pushing that much money off into future seasons, but the real risk lies in the evaluation. If you structure a deal like this and you pick wrong (see: Watson, Deshaun) you are unequivocally fucked. You basically have to either bite all that dead cash and blow up your roster in a way the league has never seen or just ride it out with a lame-duck quarterback for multiple years. For instance, cutting Jalen Hurts in the second year of his $55M/yr deal would cost the Eagles $242M. But doing the same with Dak—whose $60M/yr contract is NOT backloaded with massive void year hits—would cost the Cowboys a “measly” $152M. The void year structure takes away escape hatches.

But if we’re deadset on Purdy and are gonna pay him that kind of guaranteed cash anyway, structuring the deal this way is not much riskier than any other long-term extension. In fact, by offering him the kind of job security that comes with this type of extension, we may even get a slight discount.

Slight. Maybe. But that’s probably the best we can ask for.

Go Niners 🏈👍