With the influx of wide receivers in the National Football League getting paid premium salaries, the natural question becomes, is it sustainable for teams to sign their quarterback and top wide receivers to max deals? This is what many general managers around the league are staying up late at night to figure out.
The Los Angeles Chargers and the Buffalo Bills, teams with two of the top five highest-paid quarterback salaries, admitted through the transactions they made this off-season, that this strategy is unsustainable. The Chargers traded their veteran receiver, who signed a team-friendly deal while paying the third-richest deal in the league of $52,500,000.00, to Justin Herbert, their fourth-year quarterback. The Bills are paying sixth-year quarterback Josh Allen, the league’s fifth-richest deal at $43,005,667, and similarly traded their high-priced wide receiver this off-season.
The Miami Dolphins recently signed third-year receiver Jaylen Waddle to a new three-year extension worth 72 million dollars this off-season. They will face a similar decision, as they already have the third highest-paid receiver on the team in Tyreek Hill, or at least until the Minnesota Vikings or the Cincinnati Bengals sign their wide receivers to new deals. Eight-year veteran Hill will cost the Dolphins $31,323,750. Pair that with Waddle’s $9,094,326, the Dolphins have 15.8% of
their salary committed to their wideouts. This is before they sign their fourth-year quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, to an extension.
There are some concerns for the Dolphins with signing Tagovailoa. Whether it is his lack of arm strength, his propensity for injury, or his inability to win big games, there’s a thought that Tagovailoa can only thrive in Mike McDaniel’s offense, which cunningly schemes things up perfectly for Tagovailoa. He finished only one of his four seasons without an injury, some more gruesome than others, not to mention that the Dolphins had an unimpressive 1-5 record against playoff teams last season.
“It’s all about breaking that cycle,” Dolphins Pro Bowl running back Raheem Mostert said during Dolphins OTA’s last week. “These past two years have been B.S., in my own view,”
Only the Philadelphia Eagles and the Detroit Lions have found it possible to pay their quarterback and receivers top ten salaries at their positions. On average, the Eagles have signed their quarterback Jalen Hurts to $51,000,000 and their receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith a combined $57,000,000 this season. In his fifth season as the quarterback, Hurts will be accounting for 5.2% of the team’s cap room this season, in his sixth season, Brown will account for 4.6% of the cap room, and Smith will account for 3.1% of the team’s cap room this season.
Similarly, the Lions have signed their eighth-year veteran quarterback Jared Goff to an average deal of $53,000,000 per season and their third receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown to an average deal of $30,000,000. These contracts will account for 10.6% and 1.9% of the team salary this season respectively, yet these percentages will balloon significantly in future years.
The Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, Joe Burrow, was signed to a five-year extension paying him $55,000,000 per season on average. They are trying to figure out how to get their third-year premiere wide receiver, Ja’Marr Chase paid in addition to fourth-year wide receiver Tee Higgins. This trio, who has made a Super Bowl appearance in their young careers, has seemingly earned them their salary extension, though Higgins could be the odd man out.
In comparison, Tagovailoa has yet to win a playoff game as the starting quarterback and this team has had trouble competing in cold weather. Head coach Mike McDaniel spoke on their initial plan with Tagovailoa going into this season during his press conference at Dolphins Organized Team Activities last week.
“In year three, we really got to take a step back and assess not just the things that he liked, or the things he looked comfortable with. But what are some of the things, that he hasn’t looked comfortable with in the past that we can get him some comfort levels with,” Mikc McDaniel told the media during OTA’s.
“We kind of challenged ourselves on how we verbalized stuff, and the bottom line is our connectivity with how we see things and what we are trying to do with every different assignment can always be cleaner. I think it really has,” McDaniel added. “We’ve seen some growth and development with what we’re specifically asking him to do.”
So, should the Dolphins focus more on the run game this season? Can they find a quarterback that can perform at this level or better? If the answer is yes to either of those questions, do they need to pay a still-developing quarterback over $50,000,000 on average per season? The Dolphins front office must address these challenging questions when deciding to extend Tagovailoa’s contract.
