Why youth at QB is best for the Broncos

1. It’s the most cost effective solution.

In an era where anybody capable  of being a starting NFL QB are getting inflated contracts, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to pay a QB a good sized contract if you don’t know how well they will fare long-term.  For as much grief as the Broncos got for handling (or mishandling, depending on how you look at it) the Brock Osweiler contract situation, it was ultimately the right move to not pay the amount of money Osweiler received to retain his services.

Retaining Osweiler at his current cost (18 million a year) would have put the Broncos in a severe strain

when it came to signing other Free Agents and retaining some of their former players. Speaking of the latter, another big contract obstacle that the Broncos have to hurdle over in the near future is for Super Bowl 50 MVP Von Miller.

Although he doesn’t play the most important position in the sport, he is without a doubt the most talented player on the Broncos roster and his impact in the games can never be underestimated.

In what can be considered a rare situation in today’s NFL, Miller appears to be destined for a contract that will make him the highest paid defensive player in NFL history and by virtue of that statement alone, that means that his contract will be the costliest one in Broncos history.

With this contract situation likely to be resolved at some point this off-season, that means that Von Miller will essentially become the “QB” of the team, in contract terms. He, NOT A QB, will be the one to make 20+ million a year with a large amount of that contract guaranteed up front.  So how does this play a role in the Broncos pursuit of a QB? Well, it’s pretty obvious.

With Miller’s next contract looking to become extremely lucrative, much of the team’s cap space will be allocated to Miller and a handful of the other impact players on the roster that take up most of the cap room.  That only leaves so much room in trying to acquire a top notch QB to replace Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler.  In an essence, the presence of Miller and all of the other impact players on the team forces the Broncos to go young and be cost effective at the QB position.

Now for those of you saying, “That will never work! You need a big money QB to win a Super Bowl!”  Really? You want to tell that to Kurt Warner, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, Joe Flacco and Russell Wilson because ALL of them won Super Bowls playing under rookie contracts. If you want to go a step further, guys like Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson and Colin Kaepernick all took their teams to Super Bowls, with two of those three winning under rookie or cheap veteran contracts.

With how the current CBA in the NFL is structured, you could have a young QB under a team friendly salary for 4, maybe even 5(if they’re a 1st round pick) years. Think of how much you can do with building the team around that QB knowing that you don’t have to pay him very much for many years.

In what many consider to be the ultimate team sport, it IS possible to win Super Bowls with a QB on a cheaper contract. They key to doing that is having a STRONG team around them (which leads me to my next slide).