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Taylor Heinicke- Extend, Redo, or Keep Current Contract?

Chris

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No matter how the remainder of the season plays out Heinicke is on a very cheap deal for the QB position.

Considering the team’s history with the position, how would you move forward at this point with Taylor contractually?
 
I think at a minimum they need to redo his existing contract and pay him a reasonable starting QB salary. He’s getting chump change even with incentives.

I don’t know what the team thinks in terms of his long-term potential as a starter. But if he continues playing at the level he has over the past 4 weeks to close out 2021, for me that’s enough to go all in on him and sign him to a long-term deal as the starter.

I get it - it’s always going to come back to measurables like the oft-mentioned arm strength. But at some point you can’t ignore the intangibles .
 
IF they decide that he's the starter for an extended period of time, they should pay him that way. Re-do his contract, 3 years, $35m, and firmly entrench him as the starter for the next few seasons. That's a MASSIVE pay raise, it's still on the 'low' end of starting QBs, and it sets the tone that he's the guy. I imagine his agent will want more, which absolutely is do-able, so it could be north of $40m. He's 1000% outplayed his salary, and I hope we don't play hard ball with him and string him along.
 
He should at least make top 5 backup QB money at this time which puts him in the 5-7 million a year range, now IF as ST stated they believe he's going to have a couple year stretch as the starter than a larger bump would be in order.
 
We haven't really had a franchise QB since Joey T was here. If we can sign him to a decent/fair deal, I think we should keep him for at least 3-5 years.
 
IF they decide that he's the starter for an extended period of time, they should pay him that way. Re-do his contract, 3 years, $35m, and firmly entrench him as the starter for the next few seasons. That's a MASSIVE pay raise, it's still on the 'low' end of starting QBs, and it sets the tone that he's the guy. I imagine his agent will want more, which absolutely is do-able, so it could be north of $40m. He's 1000% outplayed his salary, and I hope we don't play hard ball with him and string him along.

This sound reasonable to me. If he goes for it.

Fortunately the team has him locked up for another year so their back isn't against the wall like it was for Cousins. Still, they need to decide what they want to do with him very soon, and then they need to do it.
 
This isn't a Cousins situation and I for one am totally glad we screwed that up since all Cousins has done is steal Minny's money and watch their championship window close around him.....end side bar rant
 
This could become a Cousins situation if we're not careful. I'm sure his agent is going to push to get more money this offseason, and if we play hardball resting on the idea that he's under contract for antoher year, and we don't commit to him... I wouldn't blame him if he got pissed off and decided to move on after 2022.

Taylor strikes me as a reasonable guy, so I imagine he WANTS to be here, and will do whatever he thinks is necessary to do so... I just hope we don't go into next season with the 'Well you're under contract so suck it' type mentality. I dont THINK that will happen, because Bruce is gone, but.....
 
Cosuins situation was totally different, the media hyped up his stats like he was a top 5 QB even though he never beat a team with a winning record and his stats were inflated because of garbage time. Case in point, Minny even bought into the BS the media hyped him out to be. Only thing we did wrong with Cousins was tag him twice, shoulda bounced his ass after the first tag. And I concur I don't see the FO playing hardball with him but is he's looking for crazy starter money, ala Cousins, adios.
 
Cosuins situation was totally different, the media hyped up his stats like he was a top 5 QB even though he never beat a team with a winning record and his stats were inflated because of garbage time. Case in point, Minny even bought into the BS the media hyped him out to be. Only thing we did wrong with Cousins was tag him twice, shoulda bounced his ass after the first tag. And I concur I don't see the FO playing hardball with him but is he's looking for crazy starter money, ala Cousins, adios.


Have you seen what starting QBs are getting paid? Garoppolo got PAID. Goff, Garoppolo, and Tannehill all count more than $25m against the cap in 2022. Matt Ryan will count $48M+. Darnold will count $18M+ himself. It would not shock me if a team out there would pay him $15-$20M RIGHT NOW if the season ended today because of how starved (ahem) some teams are for 'winnable' QB play.
 
If you believe he's worth 15 million ok, at this point I don't. Yes all those people listed got paid all under different circumstances, Goff and Ryan came off crazy good years and got paid, Garoppolo was actually on a relatively team friendly contract since they had outs and Tannehill similar to Goff and Ryan got paid after a very good year. All of those QB's also had a larger sample size body of work. Look if the team decides at the end of this year, hey we're rolling with TH for the next 2-3 years I won't hate it, I sure as hell won't enjoy it if we shell out 20 million a year because I can't think of any other team that would pay him that. Jets?? Giants?? Houston?? Who?? Those teams as bad as their FO's are can't see him as the QB savior.
 
This could become a Cousins situation if we're not careful. I'm sure his agent is going to push to get more money this offseason, and if we play hardball resting on the idea that he's under contract for antoher year, and we don't commit to him... I wouldn't blame him if he got pissed off and decided to move on after 2022.

Taylor strikes me as a reasonable guy, so I imagine he WANTS to be here, and will do whatever he thinks is necessary to do so... I just hope we don't go into next season with the 'Well you're under contract so suck it' type mentality. I dont THINK that will happen, because Bruce is gone, but.....

I agree with all this. I think TH is also very appreciative and thankful that Rivera and the WFT gave him his big break. It’s all going to boil down to whether the team thinks they can ride with him for the foreseeable future and is willing to commit. Now if they don’t do a deal and draft a youngster, I think anything could happen.

As far as money goes, none of these QBs are ‘worth’ the money they are being paid. But you can’t expect Heinicke (if the team pursues him as a starter for the next contract period) to sign for some kind of ‘I’m not a legit starter’ compensation package. He is literally making chump change right now. That’s fine in a ‘prove it’ season. But if he continues to prove he’s starter material we will have to pay him the appropriate starting QB salary. Note I didn’t say crazy money, but average starter money would be expected.
 
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If you believe he's worth 15 million ok, at this point I don't. Yes all those people listed got paid all under different circumstances, Goff and Ryan came off crazy good years and got paid, Garoppolo was actually on a relatively team friendly contract since they had outs and Tannehill similar to Goff and Ryan got paid after a very good year. All of those QB's also had a larger sample size body of work. Look if the team decides at the end of this year, hey we're rolling with TH for the next 2-3 years I won't hate it, I sure as hell won't enjoy it if we shell out 20 million a year because I can't think of any other team that would pay him that. Jets?? Giants?? Houston?? Who?? Those teams as bad as their FO's are can't see him as the QB savior.


I said my price. 3yr $35mil. ~$11.5Mish per year. Looking at the market, I dont know that it gets done at that price because I think the average will just go up with the Cap now being expected to jump almost $30m. $15m is about average for a starting NFL QB right now... in 2021. The point that they got paid because of circumstances is not what matters. It's the fact that every dollar an 'average' QB is making, it brings the floor with it. Agent's aren't stupid, and they'll look at Goff as a bench mark. "You wanna pay my guy $11mil when Goff is getting $25M+? Who's the better QB?!"

The market for QB's have less to do with the 'ability' of a QB, and more to do with how much the guys with less ability are making. Bad QBs making good money means good QBs make that much more.
 
I don't necessarily disagree, it's just I don't wish the team to get stuck with an albatross contract on a "maybe" he's the guy, you're initial contract offer I'm all in, I think he's worth that at this point since we paid Fitz 10 mil on a flyer season. I also wonder if the QB market at some point in time won't reset itself. While some MLB contracts have continued to rise overall the huge deals we saw late 90's early 2000's aren't happening across the bored anymore, yes two different sports I recognize.
 
I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Taylor would get 3 years $60M (incentive heavy) on the open market from a team that wants to go forward with him. $20M is the going rate for an above average starting QB right now, and that's under the CURRENT cap number. It's going to balloon up big time over the next 2 seasons. Not only is the cap going to hit the expected cap this coming season, but with the new NFL deal, the NFLPA is going to launch itself at CBA time. We could see the cap absolutely explode.
 
If only real business worked that way where all of a sudden I was worth 180% more than my current value
 
We’ve talked about this before… while it’s not fair at all, ‘pedigree’ is a big factor in salary decisions. It shouldn’t matter whether a guy was a first round pick or an UDFA, but those things have mattered in the past in terms of what teams are willing to pay. So that’s going to be a factor no matter what team might be interested in signing his next deal.
 
The good news is we have I think what 60 million in projected cap space for next year but we've got Terry to extend, Payne, Sweat and will need to sign someone to replace Scherff. I don't think we cut Collins but re-structure. We can afford to give TH a raise but how deep in the pockets can we without sacrificing some other good talent.
 
If only real business worked that way where all of a sudden I was worth 180% more than my current value


If you look away from $$ and look toward % of cap it changes that dynamic. If the Cap goes to 208M, the QB at $20M accounts for just about 10% of your cap. For a STARTING NFL Qb, that's a bargain regarding NFL standards. The top QBs are routinely up between 15% - 20%.
 
Referred to as utilization percentage in my line of work but you are correct the numbers realistically are based off how much is a team willing to sacrifice when it comes to being able to sign other players, the opportunity cost percentage. Eventually there is a market equilibrium that will exist, TV rights etc. will go up but that is finite. There is only so much ad revenue etc. that can overcome the cost a network is willing to pay. DirecTV has never made a dime off Sunday Ticket it was always a loss leader but in todays markets that strategy doesn't work. Ticket prices cannot continue to increase at the stadium as well as concessions because it is outpacing customer income and that will only work in large markets where they can sustain having only 20% of the local fanbase being able to afford going to the game. I'm getting down in the weeds here essentially my point, this system works for now but when it hits threshold (hell could be 30 years from now) it'll be painful to have a player taking up 15-20% of the cap and unlike the former NBA (that's not basketball anymore, sorry) ya need more than 3 capable players to win. On a side note, with QB's playing longer in age at what point is a 35 year old QB not a placeholder but a 5 year starter?
 

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