Are the Detroit Lions building their team the right way?

The Detroit Lions watched the Rams and Chiefs having success with young quarterbacks, is Bob Quinn building the team the right way? We’ll discuss it.

The Detroit Lions have weeks to review their staff and personnel prior to the NFL Draft. Recently, Lions beat writer for the Detroit Free Press, Dave Birkett, suggested that quarterback Matthew Stafford‘s (and other top QB’s) salary violates how winning teams are built in the NFL now. It is worth examining because that’s what the offseason is for, re-evaluation of the team.

In the 2018 NFL environment fourteen quarterbacks make 20 million dollars or more per season if you look at their cap hit number. Infamously, the top five highest paid quarterbacks did not make the playoffs. Obviously, only twelve of 32 teams make the playoffs every year.

Here at Kick In the Crotch Weekly we think that there could be some lessons that we can learn from looking at the issues that exist when you have your top salary be your quarterback. Does it hinder a team’s ability to field a competitive roster?

Birkett’s article, “The Matthew Stafford conundrum: Paying QBs big money no longer works in NFL”, is a rebuke of all NFL teams that spend big money on a signal-caller, not just the Lions. He admits that it is the most important position and that the quarterback is the face of the franchise off the field, as well as on.

In particular he uses Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, as an example of a player on a very friendly deal. Jared Goff is on his rookie deal, paying him $7.6 million dollars this year, good for the 26th-ranked cap hit among his peers. The two will square off in Super Bowl 53, this weekend.

A couple of sentences struck me in particular. Birkett states the following:

"“But it’s inarguable that life in the NFL is easier when you pay your quarterback less, if you have a functional quarterback, of course. Since the Patriots dynasty started in 2001, 10 of 18 Super Bowl winners have either had Tom Brady under center, a quarterback on a rookie contract or both.”"

For the record, Brady has always used unorthodox pay structures to help the Patriots deal with salary cap issues. His fifteen million dollar base salary does sound like a volunteer rate considering his production. Also, though, Brady made $22 million in 2018-2019 with bonuses, making him one of the players who was in the top eleven salaries at quarterback. That is a significant oversight.

Let’s look at how the quarterback salary affects the rest of the roster …