You lost me as soon as I read 'clearly inferior'. I would take either of those QBs over Smith.
No sane person would ever choose Geno Smith over Aaron Rodgers.
It all depends on whether last year was an outlier for Smith, or a rebirth. For those biased toward outlier, your points are correct. If it was an outlier year, then there is no argument, Rodgers, Carr, and Jones are preferable. If it was a rebirth, then it's not so obvious.
Rodgers is clearly the superior QB, the best of these four. Given the same supporting cast, adjusted for playing style, he's somewhere between the 3rd and 5th best current NFL QB.
But therein lies the problem. It's a package deal, and you have to compare the entire package for the players under consideration. Assuming it was a rebirth, would you rather have Smith at 30 mil, or Rodgers at 50? That's a more difficult decision between two aging players. That's a big chunk of change for the supporting cast, and we've seen what happens with Rodgers when the supporting cast is necessarily sacrificed.
Like Geno, Carr and Jones come with some big question marks. Carr less so, and I think it's hard to make a case for Geno over Carr, even when considering the total package.
If it's a rebirth, gambling on Jones at 40 mil makes no sense to me.
Both the outlier camp and the rebirth camp are correct right now since we can't see the future to know for sure. Both camps will lobby loudly for their point, until we see the results of next season.
This contract allows us to find out without killing us if it's an outlier nor penalizing him if it's a rebirth.
