An interesting case of Mayfield vs JimmyG vs Geno vs Lock.
The only one that has a track record is Jimmy, but his QB guru HC also drafted Jimmy's replacement, meaning Jimmy's ceiling isn't high enough.
The next up is Mayfield, the one that flashed a little bit of what people want on field, but he also flashed a lot of what people don't want off the field. Again Brown traded for a franchise QB to replace him, meaning they don't want to deal with his off field stuffs.
Geno, on his last opportunity but he has never been good in the pro. He was OK subbing for Russ, ok but far from good. Not sure what we saw was the floor? or the ceiling?
Lock, all the tools, but never make it work, this could also be his last chance to be taken serious.
Sounded like Jimmy would be the best of this lot? If we must trade for a QB, I will take the high floor, low ceiling Jimmy.
Garoppolo has two other advantages over Mayfield.
First, when he's played, he's been better than Mayfield. That "when he's played" qualifier is a rough one, though, because he's missed a lot of time. But now both are coming back from shoulder surgery.
Additionally, if the Seahawks were actually going to trade for one of those two, rather than wait and see if one or both get cut (or just ignore them both, which is what I'd prefer), Garoppolo's contract is
much more team-friendly than Mayfield's. Mayfield's contract is almost $19M, fully guaranteed. Garoppolo, on the other hand, has a $600,000 workout bonus that at this point, I don't think the acquiring team would have to pay - it'd probably be on the Gold Diggers (who also have $1.4M of Garoppolo's signing bonus on this year's cap no matter what happens) if anyone. So for the acquiring team, it would be $24.2M in salary, plus $0.8M in roster bonuses for a total of $25M, but with
none of that guaranteed. So basically, if a team ends up with Garoppolo on that same contract (
i.e., if he's not cut), that team will pay him a little over $1.47M per game, and will be able to cut him at any time if he's no good.
But given where the Seahawks are now, it just doesn't make much sense to spend even $9.5M of cap space on Mayfield (if the Browns were to pay half his salary), much less some amount up to $25M on Garoppolo. At this point, the Seahawks don't have enough cap space for either of those guys, and neither looks like enough of a difference maker to be worth cutting other players from the 53-man roster in order to fit him under the cap. Additionally, it's not clear that either of these guys would want to play for a team without a contract extension. It seems clear to me that what the Seahawks ought to do is keep some surplus cap and roll it into next season rather than wasting it on one of two guys who clearly won't be the Seahawks' QB of the future.
Teams obviously believe there's an advantage to having a top QB at top-QB money, because they keep pushing the meaning of "top-QB money" upward. Teams also obviously believe that Mayfield and Garoppolo are not top QBs, or even close enough to it to pay 40-50% of top-QB money for a season of one of those two, because both are still on the rosters of teams that are going with other QBs, and no other team has moved to get either of them.
But paying a top QB top-QB money isn't the only way to build a contender. There is an alternative approach that can also succeed, which is having a cheaper QB who's not near the top tier, but whose low cap hit gives the franchise the flexibility to build a much-stronger team around him, and who is just good enough to contend for titles with the stronger team around him. It worked for the Seahawks a decade ago, before Wilson developed into a better (and more-expensive) QB. It also worked for the Patriots through Brady's 20s. People forget that Brady's first Peyton Manning-level season was Brady's age-30 season. Before that, he was a "game manager" who was adequate but nowhere near great, and the debate was about Manning's all-time-great QB performance vs. the titles Brady won as a "game manager."