The NFL Cap Raise

The NFL cap was previously at 255 million dollars, which has just been increased by 25 million, to reach a new cap of 280 million dollars. These cap adjustments are ridiculous because it will only benefit the high spenders of yesterday. Teams that were going to have to restructure contracts, will no longer have to because they now have an extra 25 million dollars to allocate, also excludes punishment for prior teams over spending, instead it just presents an atmosphere that money is worth more than winning in the NFL.

 Cap space has never determined who would win the upcoming season, but more so has always been in place so that small market teams can compete with a fairer chance, against big market teams that are able to spend more. Making the cap that high allows big market teams to offer more, or less with incentive that you'll be bringing more people in around them. Then half the time the player they sign for an extreme amount fails to produce the way he did before, because they are no longer fighting for something, they are only playing as a job. The game of Football was never meant to produce millionaires, but as it became more popular, players rightfully got their fair share. Nowadays, some of these players are making far far far more than they should be valued at. Deshaun Watson getting a 255 million dollar contract was egregious and never should have happened, but it did which created an atmosphere of, “if Watson is being paid that I deserve this because im 100%, easily more valuable than him” this is a true statement and has been caused by the NFL leaning towards the owners wants, instead of condemning them for unfair finances. 255 million dollars in cap was a fine limit in today's NFL where players are valued more than their worth most of the time, upping it just allows more players like Deshaun Watson to barter for an outrageous contract. 

Let's look at the players with the highest contracts today: 

The Top 10 highest paid salaries in the NFL are Qb’s, which makes sense, their the leader, they are the one supposedly carrying the most value. However out of this 10 QB’s who are all being paid more than the best Qb in the game right now Mahomes, a SINGLE ONE of them has won the SuperBowl and that happened this year with Jalen Hurts, who's near the bottom of the list. The top 3 highest paid QB’s this season all missed the playoffs and 2 of them had losing records. Almost like their passion for Football has dwindled after getting an outrageous amount of guaranteed money from a contract they only got because of the stupid decisions of other NFL owners paying DESHAUN WATSON 255 MILLION. It is a fact that Mahomes should be number 1 on this list, not Dak Prescott, majority of this list deserves about 10 million dollars less than they are earning, you can even make the argument that they deserve less than that, because majority of these players aren’t even good Qb’s when looking at the entire history of the NFL. 

So let's do that, let's look at the history of QB contracts throughout time? 

Yes you are reading that chart correctly, the highest paid QB contracts from history have all come from the last 5 years. 

Well of course they did, because the game became a lot more popular and players are deserving of more money right? 

Then why is the first contract we see outside the 2020’s from 1997, if it was a continuous influx of more viewership creating the money to pay players than Brett Farve wouldn’t be the first QB outside the 2020’s, it surely would be Brady, Manning, Brees, or any of the other greats from the 2010’s, but even Rodgers got paid less than Farve up until the 2020’s. That’s because back in the day, a small amount of that contract was guaranteed, so that if you didn't perform to the value you were offered, then you will not make that complete value, instead you will make the guarantee. Nowadays, the majority of a person's salary is going to be guaranteed, because owners now have the cap space to guarantee that amount of money, allowing players to become less motivated to play. Why risk your health and well being for money you don’t need? 

With how the world is today, ambition and motivation is directly linked to how much you are earning/ have earned. A person who is competing against/for something everyday will always have more ambition than a person who has already fought and earned that award, and when the award is money instead of tangible wealth, then an athlete who has made the most money has already earned everything he was working for. 

So why would they still play to their full potential? 

The quick answer is that most don’t, it’s why we have so little competition in today's league, a lot of these players have already earned what they were playing for, life securing money. Therefore, there are some outliers who will get paid and then feel like they have to still earn that contract in the eyes of the fans/media, so they still play up to their full potential. Then there still are the players playing for tangible wealth as their main goal, aka winning. These players will most likely have the most success in their career when it comes to awards, while money is on the back burner, and it's pretty prevalent in the NFL, especially throughout the 2010’s. 

So what happened in the 2010 decade that 0 Qb’s are on the highest contracts list of all time? 

See the 2010’s had contracts being giving out to players that were terrible still, but a lot of the best QB's during that time were taking pay cuts, or were clearly playing for the love of the game first, so if the best aren't getting big contracts, no one will. Now, in reality there has only ever been one QB that continuously took pay cuts and less money for the betterment of his team or his tangible goals, and that one QB is Tom Brady. Tom Brady who played most of his career in the 2000’s, 2010’s, and a little of the 2020’s has his first contract show up 74th on the all time highest contracts list. The guy who ranks on top of everything when it comes to playing QB, the Goat of football, never had a contract that was more than Drew Bledsoe's contract back in 2000. He played for 23 years and his career earnings are going to be less than Joe Burrows after 10 years, and we are talking about the greatest of all time here and a guy who's been to the Superbowl once and lost, but this comparison is a little bit disingenuous. Brady did take pay cuts and Burrow is the highest paid QB in history right now, so let's use Manning and Watson. Everybody in the world knows the Deshaun Watson contract was trash and never should have happened but it was the reason why so many mediocre QBs get high contracts now. So Manning made around 238 million dollars throughout his long career, Watson, on the other hand, has been terrible ever since his contract and most likely won't play it fully out, but will still make 230 million guaranteed from it. 5 years of not playing good Football or even playing football in general, has made Deshaun Watson more money than Mannings whole career. That is ridiculous and raising the cap is just going to allow more people to do what Watson did.

To conclude, the contacts that players are getting in the NFL make no sense especially when the only QB from this era who has won is Mahomes and Hurts, one of which isn't even in the top 10 most paid QB’s. The other just won this year and needed a 2k yard running back on his team to do it. The cap space was fine at 255 million and is just being raised to help out big market teams retain their star players instead of having to restructure their team, and hurts small market/losing teams because players no matter the money, aren't as likely to go there if they want to win. Contracts should be capped at a certain point because if you just keep raising the cap every time a team needs it then you might as well not have a cap. A lot of players are playing for the money, and when they get that money they lose the motivation and ambition to take a risk you don’t need anymore, which doesn’t mean they don’t love the game but are driven more by the amount of money that could be made rather than the tangible goals you can achieve. The only way to stop this is by staying sturdy on the cap limit, not raising in by 14% in one year.