Listed are the top 15 QB in order of cap hit for the given season. After that is the offensive ranks in YPG and PPG for that year:
2013:
Eli- 28th/28th
Stafford- 6th /13th
Peyton- 1st /1st
Brees- 4th/10th
Brady- 7th/3rd
Rivers- 5th/12th
Big Ben- 20th/16th
Sanchez- 25th /29th
Bradford- 30th/21st
Vick- 2nd/4th
Romo- 16th /5th
ARod- 3rd/8th
Schaub- 11th/31st
Cutler- 8th/2nd
Ryan- 14th/20th
A Smith- 21st/6th
2014:
Eli- 10th/13th
Ben- 2nd/7th
Cutler- 21st/23rd
Brees- 1st/9th
Bradford- 28th/21st
ARod- 6th/1st
Peyton- 4th/2nd
Ryan- 8th/12th
Rivers- 18th/17th
Stafford- 19th/22nd
Flacco- 12th/8th
Brady- 11th/4th
Palmer- 24th/24th
Romo- 7th/5th
Dalton- 15th /15th
2015:
Brees- 2nd/8th
Rivers- 9th /26th
Ryan- 7th/21st
ARod- 23rd/15th
Stafford- 20th/18th
Peyton- 16th/19th
Ben- 3rd/4th
Cutler- 21st/23rd
A Smith- 27th/9th
Kaep- 31st/32nd
Romo- 22nd/31st
Flacco- 14th /25th
Eli- 8th/6th
Brady- 6th/3rd
Cam- 11th/1st
2016:
Eli- 25th/26th
Ben- 7th /10th
Ryan- 2nd/1st
Flacco- 17th /21st
Stafford- 21st/20th
Romo- 5th/5th
Cousins- 3rd/12th
Newton- 19th/15th
ARod- 8th/4th
Wilson- 12th /18th
Luck- 10th/8th
Palmer- 9th /6th
Smith- 20th /13th
Brees- 1st/2nd
Cutler- 15th/28th
2017:
Flacco- 30th/19th
Palmer- 17th /27th
Cousins- 13th/12th
Ryan- 8th/16th
Tannehill- 31st/32nd
AROd- 23rd/14th
Newton- 16th/18th
Eli- 25th/28th
Luck- 27th/25th
Brees- 2nd /3rd
Ben- 10th/13th
Bradford- 9th/10th
Rivers- 18th/23rd
Smith- 5th/5th
Stafford- 15th/6th
I have been meaning to do this. Last week on the Ravens board, Flacco was (of course) a big topic and we were discussing his cap hit. Ricker brought up that we can't have a successful team (or offense?) with a QB making this much money unless they were really playing at a high level. The quick analysis I did for this season said Ricker was right.
So, i wanted to go back 5 years and see if that held up. I know using YPG and PPG has flaws but generally speaking, I think we can at least get some idea about things using those stats.
This era has been dominated by Brady, Peyton, ARod, Ben and Brees. Those are 5 sure fire HOF QBs that have all won titles and been great in their careers. Of the 56 times the above QB's teams finished in the top 10 in either points or YPG, 32 of those times were by those 5 QBs. That is 57% of the time. Romo appears on the list 5 times but last year he didn't really play and of course, you had Dak and Zeke making no money. Romo is a borderline HOFer IMO. Matt Ryan appears 5 times and he could be on his way to a HOF career. So, that's up to 42 of the 56.
So, what do we learn with this? Again, this has flaws but I think what you see is that when you pay a guy who isn't a top QB big money, your teams tend to struggle. I know some of these teams may have had great defenses and won a lot of games but overall, their teams were not able to build successful offenses and the cap hits these QBs had were a big part of that.
The question is always asked, if you aren't going to sign your guy, who do you replace him with? Maybe the better question is, does that really matter? Maybe the answer is, you replace him with a better all around team. I get that you can't win without a QB but you also can't win WITH a QB if he is paid stupid money and you don't get top production from him. So, instead of being locked into a bad contract for several years, maybe you just give them the second deal and make sure you can walk away from it around age 30 without a big cap hit.