The first thing I need to do in this post is define what I mean by a valuable quarterback. By value I mean the return on investment, that is, the team received a performance on the field that was higher than what they had paid for. These may not necessarily be the names you’re thinking of, but the teams that have them got more than their money’s worth.
Also, I need to go over the criteria I used to rank QBs. First, I took the best QB from each team in 2017, used their 2017 cap from Spotrac, used their passing yards, wins and TD:INT ratio from nfl.com, and their total QBR from ESPN. I adjusted wins, TD:INT, and QBR to be on a similar scale to passing yards. That is, I found the average variance of all the QBs between them and multiplied it to scale. From this, I divided the cap total achieved by average passing yards, adjusted wins, adjusted TD:INT ratio, and adjusted QBR. This gave me the ‘value’ of a quarterback. Just FYI, using this scale, the lower the ‘value’ the better, as that is the amount of money the team spent for each adjusted stat.
Let’s get started, okay?
5.Trevor Siemian; Value: 313.95
This was a bit of a surprise. Trevor Siemian didn’t have a good year, but he was helped by a very low cap hit (as is the case with most top 5s). Looking at the stats, Trevor Siemian had the lowest QBR and a TD:INT ratio of 0.85:1; nor jump However, he had 2,285 passing yards, which helped tremendously in his case. Believe it or not, the Broncos actually got more than they paid for.
4. Jimmy Garoppolo; Value: 231.67
I think a lot of people expected Jimmy Garoppolo to be here. As the bright spot for the 49ers in 2017, he led them to 5 wins to close out the year and put up pretty good stats. Although he had few passing yards due to a lack of games, his QBR was 80.5. He combined that with a reserve cap and he was a great pick for San Francisco. The future looks pretty bright for them.
3. Josh McCown; Value: 217.25
Another somewhat surprised here. The old veteran put up decent stats last year for the Jets with nearly 3,000 passing yards and a 2:1 TD:INT ratio. Leading the Jets, who had arguably the least talented roster in 2017, makes him a player who easily topped his salary scale.
2. Jacoby Brissett; Value: 212.40
The Patriots’ second backup on that list is also a surprise. He started most of the year for the lowly Colts, and put up almost respectable numbers for them. What really propelled him is the fact that he had the absolute lowest salary cap of any quarterback on this list; in fact, he was the only one under $600,000. Unfortunately for Brissett, he most likely won’t get a chance to play much next year with the return of Andrew Luck.
1.Dak Prescott; Value: 170.05
Dak easily crushed the competition on this one. Ranking in the top half of the league in most categories except salary made him an easy number one choice. Combine that with the fact that he’s still on his rookie contract and has a salary cap of just over $635K, and he was by far the best value quarterback. I think the most interesting part of this is looking into the crystal ball and trying to determine how much money he will demand in the future.
takeaway
I think the biggest thing I got out of this is that a team can survive with a valuable quarterback. However, it is difficult for a team to be successful most of the time simply with value at quarterback. Dallas was the only team represented to have a winning record (highest value playoff QB was Case Keenum with 6; Value: 313.95). Many quarterbacks we would consider ‘elite’ were in the bottom half of this list. The only thing I wish I could renew would be the additional income. Tom Brady adds a ton of revenue to the Patriots, for example, by taking more of his salary. That’s hard to quantify, but something to consider for the future. I’d love to see what everyone thought of this in the comments, so comment on a few quarterbacks you thought should be here, other things you want to see, anything!