I've been a Bills fan all my life. The Eagles will always be close to my heart, though.
Their performance yesterday was, to say the least, embarrassing. Granted, the Browns are no joke this season. It's also no doubt that there were glimmers of brilliance from the defensive front which basically stuffed Chubb and Hunt.
There might actually be two elephants in the room though. One is that the NFL has transitioned into more college-style offenses recently, which makes the QB position even more important than it was. Even the Bills, who have been playing well this year, have been lifted up or knocked down depending on how Allen throws the ball. Philadelphia currently, in Carson Wentz, effectively has the worst performing QB in the NFL.
Wentz is:
- Dead last in completion percentage
- Second to last in yards per reception
- Worst in the league in interceptions
- He's been sacked more than any other QB
When you watch him right now, he's worse than his statistics.
Which brings us to the second elephant: salary cap.
Despite the NFL being the only major sports league in the USA other than the NHL with a strict salary cap, QBs have seen massive amounts of money thrown at them the moment teams think that they have a franchise guy. Patrick Mahomes signed the largest contract in sports history, valued at a half billion dollars over ten years. Deshaun Watson signed a four year contract with $177.54 million per year with $111 million in guarantees.
The NFL has a cap of under $200 million per team and it's going to be lower next season due to the pandemic. Teams have to carry 53 man rosters with massive chunks of that going to one person. Wentz is on the first year of a four year $128 million dollar contract. Even if the Eagles cut him, they'd have to cover nearly $100 million in guaranteed money over the next two seasons.
For anybody wondering why contracts carry so much money on guarantees which could have players raking in millions for not playing, it's because it's a violent sport and your career could be over in a second.
I think that the NFL is going to hit a wall soon. I think that one of four things are going to happen.
- The NFL just coughs up more money for player salaries.
- The NFL abandons the salary cap altogether.
- Teams go back to 90s style offenses.
- Teams will wake up and start cutting QBs, even if they're truly good, after their rookie contracts and starting over by either drafting a new player or getting into bidding wars with free agents which may bring salaries down to a reasonable value.
Either way, this game showed a man making $32 million per season to throw a ball like a college kid.