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Originally Posted by Direckshun
I was talking with a friend of mine and QB contracts came up.
What if Mahomes secures a contract that is actually a % of the upcoming cap? That makes the most sense if you're Mahomes, because the cap is set to explode within the next few years. And if that's the case, no contract Mahomes could sign that is ostensibly "resetting the market" going to match whatever that % would be.
I think that contract would be the only contract that would fairly compensate Mahomes, and it would also spell trouble for the NFL. Because every halfway elite QB for the rest of your league's history is going to want %'s.
Which isn't terrible in and of itself, except everyone is going to want a higher % than the player before them, and given the incredible value of even merely really good QBs like Dak, the teams will have to pay them. Eventually the % will get higher and higher until you have all of your most bankable star QBs squandered on teams that can't pay the rest of their roster well.
I'm not sure what the solution to that would be.
Except perhaps to give QBs their own salary cap, or to remove QBs from the salary cap altogether and let it become an uncapped position. That would remove the threat of a QB crushing your team's cap, but it also seems like opening pandora's box, as LTs, edge rushers, lockdown CBs, and so on might eventually fight to become uncapped as well.
All of this to say, really, that I don't know where the future of the QB contract goes. Maybe it stays the same for the rest of my life, and owners are relatively happy with QB contracts being hamstrung by the need to field 54 other players.
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It may actually work out well for the NFL.
Let's say Mahomes wants, I dunno, 18% of the cap for the rest of his career. So his salary will always be in line with the cap.
What argument could anyone POSSIBLY have for asking for 19%? None. "Well times have changed and the cap has gone up so my value has". That's the argument for it now, when every top 5 player wants to argue that he's worth the top #.
Well guess what, for the next decade the best QB in the NFL will be Patrick Mahomes and his salary will always be proportional to the cap. So the race to the top should damn sure end because that question is decided.
It could get a little more hairy at other positions because the question isn't as clearly decided. But at QB it's usually not terribly difficult to rank order guys or at least put them in similarly situated tiers.
It could really prevent shit like Goff being the highest paid guy in the league. There would NEVER an argument for it.