Art Thiel ask if its Time to trade Russell

[Hasselbeck]

I would love to see a GM with stones elect to trade a top tier QB for a high draft pick with hopes they can develop a new QB on a much smaller salary. I just don't think such a GM exists. You whiff on a move like that and you lose your job.

If the Browns called and offered the #4 and some other fun bells and whistles for Russ with Sam Darnold on the board though, that would be crazy tempting. I HIGHLY doubt it would ever happen. But it would be tempting.

What are the success rates with even first round QBs? I'm thinking well under 50%. That's not stones. That's stupid. About the only time something like that makes sense is Montana with Young in the wings. Even then you don't know if Young has what it takes, but you do know Montana is at the end of the road. Can't remember if Favre was traded out of GB or how that went down, but that would be another case of it potentially working.

Montana/Young/Favre are irrelevant to this. For starters, QB's weren't making the money they do now. By the time Russ' deal is up, you're looking at a minimum of $30M a year for one guy. Times have drastically changed.

As far as QB success .. Nick Foles just won a Super Bowl. Blake Bortles narrowly missed getting to one. Tyrod Taylor got to the playoffs. The Vikings used a trio of game managers to get to the NFC Championship. The common thread here (well maybe not in the Bills case but the others) is that they had cheaper QB's that allowed them to load up at other positions.

None of those guys are special players. I think Russ is better than all of them. But this logic doesn't make a whole lot of sense IMO. Aaron Rodgers is one of the best QB's to ever play this game and has won as many Super Bowls as Joe Flacco. I get that your chances to win a title go up with better QB play, but lots of really good QB's did not win very many Super Bowls (Tom Brady and Montana account for nearly 20% of the Super Bowls won).

I will agree though that a lot of people would shy away from rolling the dice on a younger/cheaper alternative with a Top 10 QB already on the roster, and a lot of people would call it stupid. Coaches and GM's tend to stick to safer alternatives when their careers are at stake. I would love to see it though .. if it blows up you obviously look like the biggest dummy in the world, but if it doesn't? Well, you may have very well set up your franchise for sustained runs at championships.

Again - I give such a scenario, especially involving Russ, about a 0.1% chance of ever happening.. but it's always intrigued me in this day and age of wild QB salaries.

 

[Seymour]

Holy crap, 105 thousand? Pow

Ya, I think he failed to remember "it's my quarterback man"...... :twisted:

 

[vin.couve12]

There are a lot of bottom line statements in this thread, but the real bottom line is that this subject is about the Seattle Seahawks, not Russell Wilson.

Are you sure about that?

Yeah. It doesn't have much to do with what RW has done with the exception that we know some tendancies. As far as I'm concerned, this is about a 30 million dollar contract viability two years from now when his athletic ability starts to fade.

Two years from now he needs to be a pure pocket passer or that contract is obiously in question. It's that simple. I've advocated against trading him and letting him play out his contract in this very thread.

Some freak fanboys just get things twisted.

 

[Hasselbeck]

Even with his 1st-3rd-quarter faults well-documented, Russ is still better than the QB hell we'd be leaping into if we traded him. Get him a RB.

Hypothetically say we moved him before the '17 draft to Cleveland and wound up with Deshaun Watson as his replacement. Would you still feel like they were in "QB hell" with an ultra talented QB on a contract significantly cheaper?

 

[Tinymac2]

Given the recent, significant economic change that has occurred at the QB position, I think Thiel's article is very newsworthy.

I would not trade Russ but a time may come when tough decisions have to be made. I don't think A. Davis is the QB of the future. The bigger question is, does Pete or JS see a QB of the future sitting there at #18. I wouldn't think so but you never know.

I'm not saying anything good or bad about Russ. All I'm talking about is the economics of the QB position in light of recent deals.

 

[mrt144]

I would love to see a GM with stones elect to trade a top tier QB for a high draft pick with hopes they can develop a new QB on a much smaller salary. I just don't think such a GM exists. You whiff on a move like that and you lose your job.

If the Browns called and offered the #4 and some other fun bells and whistles for Russ with Sam Darnold on the board though, that would be crazy tempting. I HIGHLY doubt it would ever happen. But it would be tempting.

What are the success rates with even first round QBs? I'm thinking well under 50%. That's not stones. That's stupid. About the only time something like that makes sense is Montana with Young in the wings. Even then you don't know if Young has what it takes, but you do know Montana is at the end of the road. Can't remember if Favre was traded out of GB or how that went down, but that would be another case of it potentially working.

Montana/Young/Favre are irrelevant to this. For starters, QB's weren't making the money they do now. By the time Russ' deal is up, you're looking at a minimum of $30M a year for one guy. Times have drastically changed.

As far as QB success .. Nick Foles just won a Super Bowl. Blake Bortles narrowly missed getting to one. Tyrod Taylor got to the playoffs. The Vikings used a trio of game managers to get to the NFC Championship. The common thread here (well maybe not in the Bills case but the others) is that they had cheaper QB's that allowed them to load up at other positions.

None of those guys are special players. I think Russ is better than all of them. But this logic doesn't make a whole lot of sense IMO. Aaron Rodgers is one of the best QB's to ever play this game and has won as many Super Bowls as Joe Flacco. I get that your chances to win a title go up with better QB play, but lots of really good QB's did not win very many Super Bowls (Tom Brady and Montana account for nearly 20% of the Super Bowls won).

I will agree though that a lot of people would shy away from rolling the dice on a younger/cheaper alternative with a Top 10 QB already on the roster, and a lot of people would call it stupid. Coaches and GM's tend to stick to safer alternatives when their careers are at stake. I would love to see it though .. if it blows up you obviously look like the biggest dummy in the world, but if it doesn't? Well, you may have very well set up your franchise for sustained runs at championships.

Again - I give such a scenario, especially involving Russ, about a 0.1% chance of ever happening.. but it's always intrigued me in this day and age of wild QB salaries.

I think this needs a little more digging - how many playoffs had Foles, Bortles or Tyrod been to before this year? What have the combined playoff appearances been between Brady and Rodgers alone over any time period you define? What if we expand that to Wilson and Big Ben as well?

I think your analysis, while containing a nugget of insight makes a fundamental mistake of looking at very recent results and making an inference that QBs are fungible when the stalwarts of playoff appearances from 2012-2016 rests in the hands of 4 QBs - Brady, Rodgers, Big Ben, Wilson. Venture a guess as to which QBs missed playoff appearances in that time frame? Want to add a little juice to the question and guess how many times that QB missed?

I propose two alternative explanations:

1. Winning SBs as a metric of QB value imparted to the team is crude. If we singularly define SBs as the only success (which is great for motivating people but not very...realistic?) then Flacco=Rodgers. That conclusion seems a bit daft when we expand the scope to look at just about anything outside of just SB wins. It would also suggest that Eli Manning > Rodgers which for my sanity rules out SBs as the ultimate measure of QB contributions.

2. Consistent playoff berths are more valuable than SB wins over time. While Mike McCarthy may take this to the extreme and only coach a team that can get to the playoffs in the NFC North with Rodgers and then they sputter out at some point in the playoffs, the Packers are a keen example of relying on a singularly talented player as a crutch to more robust team building overall.

Why would I flog my example of consistent playoff births being more valuable than SB wins over time? Because it makes the point - do you think its more likely that Bortles or Taylor or Foles make it back to the playoffs with their respective team than Rodger's led Packers? To wit, over the tenure of their respective careers who do you think will yield more playoff berths - a Packers team with Rodgers as the obvious focal point of the team or those 3 QBs combined not being the focal point? Right now it's not looking great for the combined 3 even if they equal Rodgers in SB wins thanks to Foles carrying the deadweight of Bortles and Taylor.

The culmination of these two points is this thought - there are several ways to do things in the NFL and there is not a dogmatic 'right' way to do it - circumstance often dictates course. Are the Packers doing it wrong? Well we aren't fans of the team so we can definitely slight them for doing it their own way and failing to achieve the ultimate success but...the aggregate success of the Packers approach eclipses most other teams over the same time period.

I will qualify that with the reality that stumbling into a Rodgers is not a tenable strategy. Ask the Colts how the Drew Luck and Nothing Else show has worked out for them. But the strategy of enhancing the supporting cast of around Rodgers once he was identified as a legit value adding player hasn't been an unmitigated disaster that many would imagine. Yet relying on a singularly great QB to carry you is brittle as hell if that QB is injured at any point.

So this becomes a risk management enterprise and appropriately valuing and understanding the individual contributions to the whole thing. To that end, I think the smoking guns of Percy Harvin and Jimmy Graham were far more limiting factors to the entire enterprise than RW's salary. At least RW actually contributes at a baseline above average to his peers while similarly inhabiting a salary space that is average for those who survive their first contract.

Edit: to clarify my last paragraph, the numerous dead weight mistakes the FO made had a worse impact on the overall team than RWs salary.

 

[vin.couve12]

Not bad, but I'd say SB wins and playoff berths are or can be on different planets though. Even SB appearances, in fact.

A Bills fan of 30 years old or more might say,



It had to have been agonizing.

Edit: I would agree with your lasted edited statement there.

 

[mrt144]

Not bad, but I'd say SB wins and playoff berths are or can be on different planets though. Even SB appearances, in fact.

A Bills fan of 30 years old or more might say,



It had to have been agonizing.

It very well could be which would make the method of measure more interesting and important for determining the good long term guts of team building.

 

[HawkGA]

This is what is wrong with the media and the internet. A writer attempts to troll a topic and you guys reward him with 3 pages of posts discussing it so far.

LOL...so says the guy with 105,000 posts.

But they're all high quality posts!

 

[HawkGA]

I would love to see a GM with stones elect to trade a top tier QB for a high draft pick with hopes they can develop a new QB on a much smaller salary. I just don't think such a GM exists. You whiff on a move like that and you lose your job.

If the Browns called and offered the #4 and some other fun bells and whistles for Russ with Sam Darnold on the board though, that would be crazy tempting. I HIGHLY doubt it would ever happen. But it would be tempting.

What are the success rates with even first round QBs? I'm thinking well under 50%. That's not stones. That's stupid. About the only time something like that makes sense is Montana with Young in the wings. Even then you don't know if Young has what it takes, but you do know Montana is at the end of the road. Can't remember if Favre was traded out of GB or how that went down, but that would be another case of it potentially working.

Montana/Young/Favre are irrelevant to this. For starters, QB's weren't making the money they do now. By the time Russ' deal is up, you're looking at a minimum of $30M a year for one guy. Times have drastically changed.

As far as QB success .. Nick Foles just won a Super Bowl. Blake Bortles narrowly missed getting to one. Tyrod Taylor got to the playoffs. The Vikings used a trio of game managers to get to the NFC Championship. The common thread here (well maybe not in the Bills case but the others) is that they had cheaper QB's that allowed them to load up at other positions.

None of those guys are special players. I think Russ is better than all of them. But this logic doesn't make a whole lot of sense IMO. Aaron Rodgers is one of the best QB's to ever play this game and has won as many Super Bowls as Joe Flacco. I get that your chances to win a title go up with better QB play, but lots of really good QB's did not win very many Super Bowls (Tom Brady and Montana account for nearly 20% of the Super Bowls won).

I will agree though that a lot of people would shy away from rolling the dice on a younger/cheaper alternative with a Top 10 QB already on the roster, and a lot of people would call it stupid. Coaches and GM's tend to stick to safer alternatives when their careers are at stake. I would love to see it though .. if it blows up you obviously look like the biggest dummy in the world, but if it doesn't? Well, you may have very well set up your franchise for sustained runs at championships.

Again - I give such a scenario, especially involving Russ, about a 0.1% chance of ever happening.. but it's always intrigued me in this day and age of wild QB salaries.

Well now this is a good point. I said in another thread in the NFL Forum about Jimmy G's contract with the 9ers that I think Super Bowls are going to start to be won by rookie or first year QBs a lot more frequently for the exact reason you just described.

 

[vin.couve12]

The idea of 30M for one player is seemingly insane. That's anywhere from 3 to 5 pro bowlers at varying other positions.

It is precisely why this is a question. I once sold my soul as a Network Sales Engineer for two years when I was younger and the ROI at QB is extremely dangerous going forward. It can break you just as easily as make you.

 

[hgwellz12]

1. Trading Russ would be a next level stupid move.
2. They don't even GET to the Super Bowl w/out him.
3. Trade Russ and get ready for 6 or 7 win teams, if that.
Kirk Cousins over Russ? What has Cousins ever won?
Put down the pipe and slowly step away from the keyboard. :roll:

I was with you up until you said "slowly step away..."
I say "step away from the keyboard, throw a bunch of hard, pointy shit on the floor, turn of the lights, put on a blind fold, then run BACK to your keyboard. Hopefully nature and statistical data 'wins the race'.

 

[randomation]

Without Russ they are the Brows straight up. Heck the Browns have a better Oline so they can at least run the ball. The amount of people who try to blame Russ for the shortcomings of playcalling and the oline is insane. The NFC championship Rodgers had multiple picks and Russ had multiple balls hit Kearse in the hands he would flub the catch and the Packers would pick it. Next up the Carolina game. Lynch straight up ran the wrong route and Russ threw the ball where he should have been because it was a timing route instead of an actual read. Gosh where has that burned us before ukeface:

I almost wish they would trade Russ for 1 33 two firsts and two seconds. Put him on the Browns and they are a championship contender instantly then maybe people here would realize what the Hawks had.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

Even with his 1st-3rd-quarter faults well-documented, Russ is still better than the QB hell we'd be leaping into if we traded him. Get him a RB.

Hypothetically say we moved him before the '17 draft to Cleveland and wound up with Deshaun Watson as his replacement. Would you still feel like they were in "QB hell" with an ultra talented QB on a contract significantly cheaper?

No.

But I made my post under the assumption that DeShaun Watson wasn't on our roster. That hasn't changed, has it? I admit I haven't been checking in as much lately...

 

[Sgt. Largent]

The idea of 30M for one player is seemingly insane. That's anywhere from 3 to 5 pro bowlers at varying other positions.

It especially is for a QB that you're not really making the focal point of your offense.

Which is why this is a debate on Russell. Not many people are debating that Russell's a great football player, and a great QB. But if Pete is doubling down on the pound the rock ball control run game, why would we pay our QB 25-30M a year sucking up that much cap space.

Yes you pay guys like Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Ryan, etc that kind of money because they are the focal points of their offenses.

This is why our offense has been in this limbo ever since Russell got paid, it's been a tug of war between trying to make the offense work while paying the defense vs. wanting to run the ball when your QB is sucking up 50% of the cap space for the offense.

 

[mrt144]

The idea of 30M for one player is seemingly insane. That's anywhere from 3 to 5 pro bowlers at varying other positions.

It especially is for a QB that you're not really making the focal point of your offense.

Which is why this is a debate on Russell. Not many people are debating that Russell's a great football player, and a great QB. But if Pete is doubling down on the pound the rock ball control run game, why would we pay our QB 25-30M a year sucking up that much cap space.

Yes you pay guys like Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Ryan, etc that kind of money because they are the focal points of their offenses.

This is why our offense has been in this limbo ever since Russell got paid, it's been a tug of war between trying to make the offense work while paying the defense vs. wanting to run the ball when your QB is sucking up 50% of the cap space for the offense.

And I'll say it again - RW's salary would be fine if they hadn't blown it with two trades and a spate of free agency signings and dubious draft picks. All RW's increased salary did was take away the wiggle room on blowing it multiple times. His salary alone doesn't explain why these additions failed to take well.

 

[Hasselbeck]

Even with his 1st-3rd-quarter faults well-documented, Russ is still better than the QB hell we'd be leaping into if we traded him. Get him a RB.

Hypothetically say we moved him before the '17 draft to Cleveland and wound up with Deshaun Watson as his replacement. Would you still feel like they were in "QB hell" with an ultra talented QB on a contract significantly cheaper?

No.

But I made my post under the assumption that DeShaun Watson wasn't on our roster. That hasn't changed, has it? I admit I haven't been checking in as much lately...

Your assumption is in the event Russell were moved, the QB we would have would be terrible and sentence this team to a decade of losing. Fact is, we cannot really assume either hitting a home run and finding a cheaper QB to take over or the idea that Wilson would be replaced with some stiff that would be terrible.

I feel like this team would be as likely to land a Watson type rookie as they would a guy that would flop.

 

[Hasselbeck]

I almost wish they would trade Russ for 1 33 two firsts and two seconds. Put him on the Browns and they are a championship contender instantly then maybe people here would realize what the Hawks had.

I do too. That would be an amazing haul for him, and he'd be out of the conference and would rarely be a threat to us.

In reality though, the Browns will draft a QB .. probably ruin him forever (RIP Sam Darnold's career) .. and we will pay Wilson 30M a year and go 9-7/10-6 more often than not.

 

[massari]

Love RW, but $30M a season? Would rather get a king's ransom from a team like the Browns for him if that's going to be his cap hit.

 

[Seymour]

The idea of 30M for one player is seemingly insane. That's anywhere from 3 to 5 pro bowlers at varying other positions.

It especially is for a QB that you're not really making the focal point of your offense.

Which is why this is a debate on Russell. Not many people are debating that Russell's a great football player, and a great QB. But if Pete is doubling down on the pound the rock ball control run game, why would we pay our QB 25-30M a year sucking up that much cap space.

Yes you pay guys like Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Ryan, etc that kind of money because they are the focal points of their offenses.

This is why our offense has been in this limbo ever since Russell got paid, it's been a tug of war between trying to make the offense work while paying the defense vs. wanting to run the ball when your QB is sucking up 50% of the cap space for the offense.

First off, Wilson makes 34% of the total offense cap WITHOUT Graham on there and he also has the 7th highest cap hit in the league right now. So throw out that exaggeration. 2nd. I keep hearing this term "focal point". Which means exactly what? How would we know when he is? Was he in 2nd half of 2015? Another term being tossed around that nobody can really define or substantiate even if he were. Don't ever expect Pete to become Sean Peyton, and remember that Wilson helps the run game too, in fact he was the run game last year. 80% + of the TDs, your top rusher, and 17 yards short of 4000 passing yards for the year and he's not our "focal point"?

I suspect a compromise can be had. Bring in a strong screen game (that has worked well here with very little effort or priority given to it), and that alone could swing the passing stats and help the run game and pass rush as well. Schotty is said to do well with that, and that is my hope to help get us on track.