The news of Andy Dalton’s contract extension was met with mixed reviews, with one burning question left on the lips of many football fans – is he worth it? On the surface of it, it may be easy to look at his 0-3 playoff record and say no he isn’t. But the official line “6 years, $96 million” as usual is very misleading; the total value of the deal would place Dalton among the upper-echelon of NFL quarterbacks, but do the Bengals really value Dalton at $96 million?
The simple answer is no, at least not yet they don’t. Let’s take a look at the breakdown of Dalton’s deal.
The first thing that is immediately obvious from the fine details here is the disparity between the value of the first two years, and the remainder of the contract. The second thing we need to take into account and is absolutely crucial, is the fact that only $17m of this deal is guaranteed. That’s a very small percentage of money to guarantee a “franchise quarterback” compared to the competition (as we will see shortly). Dalton will earn $18.359 million through 2014 and 2015, at which point the Bengals will have fulfilled their obligation to pay him the minimum amount he is due from this deal and can cut him to make a saving against the cap.
Now let’s compare Dalton’s contract to his peers. This list contains other quarterbacks with contracts amongst the biggest in the league, some details of the contract as well as the win-loss record from the regular season and the playoffs over the past three seasons. It excludes any player still on a rookie contract and also players like Peyton Manning, who haven’t played each of the last three seasons. Colin Kaepernick has also been excluded for the misleading nature of his "guaranteed" money.
The numbers align to illustrate the point of Dalton’s contract beautifully here – what immediately jumps out after a brief look is that Dalton is receiving by far the least guaranteed money, and earns the least in the first two years. A great deal of this is tied directly to the 0-3 playoff record, and it’s fascinating to compare his contract to the player directly above him – division rival Joe Flacco. There are certainly parallels to be drawn between Dalton and Flacco, inconsistent play being at the forefront. Their identical regular season record since 2011 is interesting, but of course the clear difference is the Ravens 2012 playoff run, in which Flacco stepped up to a level we had never seen consistently before, and led his team all the way to the Lombardi trophy. Monetarily this landed Flacco almost twice as much guaranteed money and an extra $24.6 million in total contract value. Going slightly off topic, Alex Smith has been included here not to compare to Dalton but conversely, to use Dalton as a benchmark (something the Chiefs will no doubt do) as Smith is currently in the final year of his deal and will be looking for values very similar to what we see on this list.
Essentially, you can look at this as a two-year “try before you buy” deal. The Bengals are at a critical junction here, having won 30 regular season games over the past three seasons they are clearly a very talented team. But at the same time it’s fair to say Dalton hasn’t progressed on the field quite as much as the team would have hoped. This creates something of a paradox for an NFL team – they are winning games, but want better quarterback play.
The above graphic shows how similar quarterback contracts look when compared against the QB Rating the player in question had ammased from the point they became full time starter, to the point they signed their most recent contract. It's important to understand that we're talking about the average total value of the contract here, not guaranteed money. Again, we can see that without any playoff success and despite his impressive regular season win-loss record, Dalton's average yearly amount is the second lowest on the list (bar Rivers who got almost half of his total value guaranteed however), which ties up to his relatively poor QB Rating. This is even taking into account inflation - the three players from the '04 draft class (Roethlisberger, Rivers and Manning) all signed deals at a time when contract values were lower.
It would be an extremely risky call to let Dalton walk. Let’s just say theoretically the Bengals go 10-6 in 2014, and once again lose in their first playoff game. The Bengals decide enough is enough and let Dalton hit costless agency. What is their next play? 10 wins would rule them out of drafting a top talent. This leaves them with the uninspiring choices of amassing assets to move up in the draft, or acquiring another costless agent quarterback, of which the 2015 crop certainly includes no upgrades on Dalton (assuming Alex Smith does indeed extend with the Chiefs). For as long as even an average quarterback is winning games, there will always be a starting job for him in the NFL.
With this in mind, it will have been an easy decision for the Bengals to commit to Dalton. But with a discernible gap between where Dalton is now, and where the Bengals want him to be, the commitment can only be short-term, at least for now. This is why the contract includes such little guaranteed money, paid off within the first two years, and the back end of the deal is loaded with large base salaries (not guaranteed) – it’s potential money, money that Dalton will only ever see if he does enough in the next two years to convince the Bengals he is worth further investment. If he succeeds, you can probably expect some sort of restructure to allocate him more guaranteed money. If he fails, the Bengals are left with the choice of allowing him to continue on something resembling more of a “pay as you play deal”, or cutting ties and starting afresh in 2016.