It’s been a stressful start to the NFL season for teams that made big, speculative bets on quarterbacks.
Bryce Young is benched. Tua Tagovailoa is on injured reserve after another concussion. Deshaun Watson is facing another sexual-assault lawsuit.
On the surface, those three cases might not seem related. But in all three situations, teams led by billionaire owners made unusually speculative bets, piling risk upon risk, only to face negative results quickly, though not shockingly. The decisions precipitating these predicaments involved assuming compound risks — each one potentially tenable in isolation, but harder to overcome in combination.
Young was the first pocket quarterback of his size/stature to be drafted first overall since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. Tagovailoa was the first concussion-protocol-era quarterback signed to a top-five contract while carrying a personal concussion history so serious, he considered retirement. Watson was the first quarterback to receive a fully guaranteed contract spanning more than three years.
Might this moment become a flashpoint inviting reflection? Or, does the league now live in an age when some owners are so wealthy, nothing seems to faze them?
‘I’m as scared as everybody else was’
The Panthers’ choice of Young, the 5-foot-10 Alabama product they selected atop the 2023 draft, was risky on three fronts:
• There was the standard risk associated with selecting college players (which was unavoidable).
• Carolina raised the stakes by trading a proven player (receiver D.J. Moore), plus first- and second-round picks, to Chicago for the right to move from the ninth spot in the 2023 draft to the first overall pick. This was an understandable risk if the team had selected a high-odds prospect with the pick.
• The Panthers compounded the existing risks by selecting an outlier prospect in the diminutive Young, who was seeking to become the first modern-era quarterback of his size/stature to succeed in the absence of elite speed/athleticism.
No single risk seemed too great to take. It’s the combining of risk factors that must be taken into account when evaluating these decisions.
“There is something special about his ability to see it and get (the ball) out,” an evaluator from another team had said of Young at the 2023 NFL scouting combine, “but I’m as scared as everybody else was. When I went and saw him, this guy is literally my size.”
It’s common to hear analysts write off the draft as a “crapshoot” where no one knows whether any prospect will pan out. But when a franchise goes all-in on a prospect known to carry lower odds for success and/or less upside, writing off the results as random becomes disingenuous.
“It’s not like Bryce Young even was an outlier,” another evaluator said. “No one has come in at that size and ever done it.”
Young, benched this week after 18 career starts, including two this season, has attempted to mitigate his stature by hopping in the air when making what would be routine passes for the typical NFL quarterback. He ranks last in EPA (expected points added) per pass play among 43 quarterbacks with at least 10 starts over the past three seasons, per TruMedia.
League executives did not universally criticize the Panthers’ decision to draft Young at the time. Most seemed to understand it. Plenty were intrigued by Young’s prospects.
It’s possible the Panthers doomed Young by failing to support him with the right coaching and personnel. A weak roster surely has contributed to Young’s struggles. That was a risk the organization took in trading away so much for a quarterback who, by most accounts, lacked the physical traits to overcome such challenges.
‘Where was Tua going?’
The risks Miami took in signing Tagovailoa to a four-year, $212 million extension in late July include some that, taken individually, might not be deal-breakers. Again, it’s the combining of multiple risk factors that must be taken into account. Those risks included:
• Paying top-of-market money to a quarterback perceived by the league at large to be a mid-tier player, as reflected by Tagovailoa’s No. 15 ranking and Tier 3 status in 2024 Quarterback Tiers, which drew upon votes from 50 coaches and executives. The Dolphins are not alone in doing this, and could have valued Tagovailoa more than others would have.
• Entering into the contract when Tagovailoa had only one full season of higher-end production, and while the quarterback still had one year remaining on his existing deal. The Dolphins could have used the franchise tag to buy one or two additional years beyond the current season. Making decisions before decisions must be made heightens risk when more information would help.
• Entering into the contract with a physically smaller player carrying a significant injury history, including surgeries on Tagovailoa’s hip, throwing hand and ankle, plus fractured ribs.
• Beyond the standard injury history, and most crucially, Tagovailoa had already considered retirement after suffering two concussions, plus another head injury inviting so much scrutiny, the league changed its head trauma protocols. This was the ultimate compounding risk factor.
“Not only did you pay him a very high amount, but you gave him a structure so that if he has a concussion, you are in trouble,” a veteran agent said. “Why did you have to do both? Where was Tua going?”
There were risks for Miami in not extending Tagovailoa’s contract. The quarterback withheld services during training camp and could have held out into the season, jeopardizing what the Dolphins might have seen as a championship window. Teammates sympathetic to the risks Tagovailoa had already taken in returning from concussions could have rallied around the quarterback, who is, by all accounts, a beloved teammate.
Forcing Tagovailoa to play out his deal while other less-productive quarterbacks (Trevor Lawrence, Jordan Love) cashed in could have made the Dolphins appear less sincere in their public praise for Tagovailoa, which has been extensive.
The Dolphins mitigated some of their cash and cap commitments with an insurance policy that could recoup some of their investment if doctors preclude Tagovailoa from playing. The team could try to recoup other guarantees if Tagovailoa chooses to retire, but doing so could be uncomfortable (the Indianapolis Colts allowed Andrew Luck to keep $25 million in bonus money the team could have pursued when Luck retired unexpectedly in 2019, citing his physical and mental wellbeing).
The Dolphins are well-positioned to mitigate whatever short-term salary-cap issues might arise, because their owner, Stephen Ross, whose net worth was estimated by Forbes to be $10.1 billion, has shown a willingness to spend cash, which lets teams push cap consequences into future years.
“Teams used to say to agents, ‘Just because I own a franchise worth, at the time, $2 billion, doesn’t mean I should pay more than I’m supposed to pay the players — we have a salary cap,’” a team contract negotiator said. “Now, the franchises are even higher in value and because the cap is manageable under almost any circumstances, it comes down to how much the owner is willing to pay for a certain player, period.”
Perhaps Tagovailoa returns to health and enjoys a long, productive career. But there’s no getting around the fact that, six weeks after the contract was signed, current and former players have pleaded with Tagovailoa to retire, citing the quarterback’s long-term health. This scenario was not difficult to envision six weeks ago.
‘We finally found a number where the salary cap matters’
It’s difficult to imagine a Fortune 500 company buying out a CEO from another company and then signing him to record compensation while dozens of women were accusing him of sexual harassment, sexual assault or both.
NFL teams operate more unilaterally. What the billionaire owner says often goes.
Watson was facing 22 lawsuits accusing him of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault when the Browns acquired him from the Houston Texans in 2022. Watson had sat out the previous season. He was facing a suspension. The Browns made him the face of their franchise and gave him unprecedented financial security.
Another woman filed suit against Watson this month, accusing him of sexual assault and battery in 2020. Watson has denied the allegations. He also denied allegations made against him in past lawsuits (he entered into financial settlements to avoid court cases in the previous instances).
On the field, Watson ranks 41st in EPA per pass play among 43 quarterbacks with at least 10 starts since 2022.
If the Browns sought to exit the deal, they would incur salary-cap charges so punitive — nearly $173 million, at present — that they would have a hard time functioning in the short term.
“I’ve always said the cap doesn’t matter,” the team contract negotiator said, “but at $170 million, the cap does matter. We finally found a number where it matters.”
The Browns have not flinched. They awarded Watson a game ball for his performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 2. Before the latest lawsuit was filed, they converted some of Watson’s salary into signing bonus to create shorter-term flexibility under the cap, making it even tougher to extricate themselves from the contract.
“All their actions say they are comfortable with this,” another team exec said. “Now, look, the guy has only played 14 games for them. Maybe he gets better.”
Cleveland could recoup some of its investment in Watson if the allegations against the quarterback are determined to be valid. But the best-case scenario for them would be for Watson to be exonerated, and for their quarterback to begin producing the way he did in 2020, when he was a rising star for the Texans.
Plenty of teams have traded away huge quantities of draft capital for quarterbacks. Plenty have signed players facing allegations of serious wrongdoing. Plenty have signed players to what were, at the time, the largest contracts in league history.
The Browns rolled all those risks into a single transaction when acquiring Watson from the Texans. Not only that, they guaranteed the $230 million contract, unprecedented in the NFL.
“If you want to overpay someone for one year, you can,” the agent said. “Who cares? It’s one year. Two years, you can live with. But when you go five, that’s absurd.”
It’s shaping up as the ultimate franchise-altering unforced error.
‘A central theme’
Two years ago, the Denver Broncos, flush with cash after their purchase by Walmart heirs, handed a $245 million contract to their new quarterback, Russell Wilson, after parting with a haul of draft picks to acquire him.
Wilson had two years remaining on his existing deal, and had shown signs of decline. There was no strategic advantage for the Broncos to enter into the extension at that time. The contract continues to limit the team’s ability to operate within the salary cap, even after Wilson’s release.
“A central theme here is ownership that makes reactionary decisions,” a longtime NFL team exec said. “’We need to have a quarterback. Go get Bryce Young. Pay Tua — the price is only going to go up. Trade for Deshaun Watson because I have to have the best player, and don’t care about the accusations.’”
Extreme wealth could explain these teams’ willingness to take risks that once might have seemed unimaginable. Forbes has estimated ownership for the Broncos, Panthers, Dolphins and Browns to rank among the top 11 in the 32-team league, with net worths ranging between $77 billion (Broncos) to $8.5 billion (Browns).
Putting a couple hundred million at partial risk doesn’t seem so risky in that context.
“There is a small subset of teams that do not care, but there are a lot of teams watching this unfold thinking, ‘Are we about to fall into a windfall of free players?’” an exec said of these deals and other expensive ones for mid-tier or unproven quarterbacks. “There is so much money being spent and potentially not enough cap dollars to go around, so that eventually it could run out.”
Rising revenues have so far prevented that from happening.
The owners ranked near the bottom of the net-worth rankings according to Forbes — such as Cincinnati Bengals’, Pittsburgh Steelers’ and Chicago Bears’, for instance — were not the ones driving the $200 million gambles analyzed here. But with franchise valuations pushing $7 billion on average, the price of entry for new owners means there will be even more with the wherewithal to make huge bets carrying lower odds.
“I think we are only going to see more of them,” another exec said.
(Photo: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)
