There are some very well written passages in here.
“The Quarterback Trap is part Catch-22, part carnivorous plant, part kindergarten finger puzzle. Its mechanisms are simple. NFL teams cannot maintain success without excellent quarterback play. But excellent quarterback play is usually so expensive that it prevents NFL teams from maintaining success.”
and this should ring very familiar…
“Cousins needs a top-notch supporting cast to be successful. But his salary makes it nearly impossible for the Vikings to maintain a top-notch supporting cast. And so the trap springs shut.”
and this:
But the need to get better at quarterback, no matter the cost, is the lure of the trap. "
I would tend toward spending the bulk of my resources, if I were in charge of building a team, on OL, DL, and the rest of the team.
Then I pick a system and stick to it. I plug in Offensive Skill Players that fit the system, including and especially QB. I use draft picks both high (2nd/3rd round) and low (5th and lower and udfa) and pick up at least 1 QB per year, preferably 2. You rotate the crops until you get one that works for a few years, then replace. Or the starter takes a team friendly deal, which he might do if you give incentives based on winning games, especially playoff games.
Mark Sanchez was not a great QB, but the Jets won 2 road playoff games with him 2 years in a row when he was a rookie and 2nd year player. THAT is the team I try to build. You might, also, stumble on to the next Kurt Warner or Tom Brady that way, too. But you don’t when you hang onto a guy for 10 years, pay him top dollar, and never bring in another rooster to challenge the spot. I’d have loved to see the Lions with the option to go cheaper with only some loss in performance. That option might bring more wins than we’ve seen so far.
I keep wondering if the dam will break on QB salaries. Teams can’t keep shooting themselves in the foot like this without realizing that the old logic no longer applies. Half of the teams in the league have friend zone QBs that they will never win with. You can’t get rid of him because he’s the best you can do, but he’s still not good enough to lead your team to a championship.
I keep wondering that too. Surprised it hasn’t already happened.
I don’t think the dam will ever completely break, but I think teams are slightly more leery about paying certain QBs than they were even a few years ago. At one point teams signed extensions with any QB that showed any signs of life whatsoever. The problem is that when one teams sacks up and doesn’t automatically hand out big bucks to a QB, the next team is there to scoop in and give him the money. Or in the case of the Vikings, they refused to sign a big money deal with the guy they had but then immediately went out and got a different guy on a big money deal.
But honestly I don’t think the Vikings are a bad team, and I don’t think it was Kirk Cousins that let them down last year. He played well. They took one bad loss to the Bills. Every other team they lost to was in the playoffs with 2 of those teams playing in the Super Bowl and another one playing in the championship game.