Brissett signs 2 year $30 million extension

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by Dam8610

That depends entirely on how the season goes. If it's 2017 redux, Brissett can be cut with almost no dead money and the Colts will have a top 5 pick, which they'll almost assuredly use on a QB and have Hoyer in place as the placeholder starter. If it's a division title, deep playoff run type of season, Brissett becomes the franchise guy at least for now. What I'm hoping doesn't happen is that Brissett has a middling season, the Colts don't have the draft capital for a QB, and so they decide to stick with Brissett, even though he's clearly not the answer.

Do you have the contract details? If not, I don't know how you can say this. I saw a tweet earlier that said Brissett's cap hit this year would be something like $8.5 million. If that's the case, and the guy has a full $20 million guaranteed on the contract, the remaining $11.5M (plus whatever non-guaranteed salary he was already paid) will come home to roost when he's cut.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by DrSpaceman

You're right, we aren't going to agree here.

If he was a rookie or playing his first season I might agree. But he has already had one season as a starter, though in a different shitty system, and was with the team last year under Reich. This is his 4th year in the league, second year starting. If he can't prove he is worth the money this year, I doubt anything he would do next year would change my mind.

Plus Reich and Ballard have proven to be excellent at their jobs. I think they will know by season's end if he is the future of the franchise or not.

I gotta agree with Spaceman here.

[YDFL Commish]

Originally Posted by rcubed

unfortunately I would guess this is the most likely outcome.

I agree. I have never though of Brissett as any more than a QB2. Though his preseason performance along with Ballard, Reich and Sirianni's glowing adulation have me optimistic that he can be much more than that.

[rm1369]

Originally Posted by Chaka

Yes, no doubt Colts were put in a tough position by the Luck retirement, and I can see how “any port in a storm” might be attractive so you try to lock down your newly promoted backup for an extra year. The strategy didn’t trouble me as much as what we paid, and we absolutely did have another option – to let him prove himself this year and to pay him the market rate after next season. Whether it was better or not is certainly debatable, but I prefer that scenario because (and for once I’ll get to use this rationale) we have plenty of cap space to work with, and I haven’t seen or read a whole lot which suggested that Brissett was all that promising a prospect (sure, the Colts’ brass has been pumping up the guy for a year or two, but I assumed a big chunk of that was to churn the trade waters). If the guy turned out to be the second coming of Peyton Manning, then we could easily pay him.

Let’s look at it based on the likely scenarios:

1) Brissett is great. Top 10 QB. Then the team has a bargain for 2020 and time to lock him up without resorting to the franchise tag immediately. Or they can make him prove he’s the real deal and franchise him the next season if necessary. Win for the team.

2) Brissett is a mid to low level starter. Game manager. The team has him locked up for one more year at about the appropriate price. They can cut him, trade him, or keep him for the next year while deciding how to move forward at the position. The team has some flexibility and some stability. Slight win for the team.

3) Brissett sucks. The team loses in that it spent money it didn’t need to, but the long term cap hit is minimal. Slight loss for the team.

The worst the team ends up with is some dead cap money for one year. The other scenarios are a win for them. Now play those same scenarios out without the extension. 1 and 2 get worse for the team IMO. The team is only better off if Brissett is really bad. And the worst case outcome for the team is much worse without an extension. Locking up Brissett to a market value deal after one decent season is the worst case scenario to me. Brissett would be paid on a projection of what he COULD become. It happens all the time with younger QBs. Doing that would have real long term consequences to the team. Way beyond the consequences of the extension he just signed.

I’m very surprised that you are ok with paying him market value after one season. That’s a risky proposition to me - unless he just sucks.

[YDFL Commish]

Originally Posted by Chaka

I just think signing guys to big contracts with the idea that you can just cut them and absorb their cap hit if they don't perform is a good way of burning through all of your available cap space and getting little in return.

Ballard has never been and may never be in danger of burning through cap space, because of the way he structures the contracts.

[VeveJones007]

Originally Posted by Chaka

And I agreed with you on the Funchess signing – at least the part about the length of the contract. It was a bit out of character for Ballard, and while I had no objection to the player or price, I didn’t like that our upside would be limited to one year. Part of that is also that few of us, up to that point, had spent a lot of time watching Funchess so we had to trust in Ballard's talent evaluation.

I don’t see the Brissett situation as analogous, however. First, we've seen Brissett in action, both in 2017 (admittedly in a different system with different, lesser players) and in lots of preseason action since then. I've seen very few glowing reviews of his skills or performance, however.

Second, I don’t think our out-of-pocket costs would be much different under a wait-and-see approach (franchise tender scenario) than under the contract he just signed. He’d still end up with around $30 million for the next two years. And I disagree that a second franchise tender is untenable. It’s actually the third franchise tender which is nearly impossible except in the most extreme circumstances (as a practical matter, only a QB, and only someone like Peyton Manning, for instance). I recall posting the details here last season, but I ran a quick search to refresh my memory and the second year a 20% bump in pay, so it's expensive but workable. The third year is the GREATER of (1) another 44% bump in pay or (2) the average salary of the top 5 players regardless of position. So, applying these rules to the real world, if Brissett got $30 million the first franchise year, he’d get $36 million the second year, and a whopping $52 million the third year – all fully guaranteed.

This Brissett deal decreases that long-term risk. Instead of a 2nd and 3rd tag being in 2021-2022, they would now be in 2022-2023.

You also decrease the risk of Brissett having a good year, warranting a massive extension, and having that hanging over the franchise. Look at what happened with the Ravens and Flacco after their Super Bowl.

[VeveJones007]

Originally Posted by Chaka

I just think signing guys to big contracts with the idea that you can just cut them and absorb their cap hit if they don't perform is a good way of burning through all of your available cap space and getting little in return.

Yes, that would be an issue if they signed Brissett to a massive contract. You’re acting like he signed for what Jared Goff just got.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by rm1369

Let’s look at it based on the likely scenarios:

1) Brissett is great. Top 10 QB. Then the team has a bargain for 2020 and time to lock him up without resorting to the franchise tag immediately. Or they can make him prove he’s the real deal and franchise him the next season if necessary. Win for the team.

2) Brissett is a mid to low level starter. Game manager. The team has him locked up for one more year at about the appropriate price. They can cut him, trade him, or keep him for the next year while deciding how to move forward at the position. The team has some flexibility and some stability. Slight win for the team.

3) Brissett sucks. The team loses in that it spent money it didn’t need to, but the long term cap hit is minimal. Slight loss for the team.

The worst the team ends up with is some dead cap money for one year. The other scenarios are a win for them. Now play those same scenarios out without the extension. 1 and 2 get worse for the team IMO. The team is only better off if Brissett is really bad. And the worst case outcome for the team is much worse without an extension. Locking up Brissett to a market value deal after one decent season is the worst case scenario to me. Brissett would be paid on a projection of what he COULD become. It happens all the time with younger QBs. Doing that would have real long term consequences to the team. Way beyond the consequences of the extension he just signed.

I’m very surprised that you are ok with paying him market value after one season. That’s a risky proposition to me - unless he just sucks.

Here’s my problem with that analysis – it could apply to any fourth year QB. Why not argue just as passionately that we provide the same contract to Paxton Lynch then? Or how about Brett Hundley or Nathan Peterman? (I just looked up a bunch of backup QBs who all about the same age and scheduled to be free agents next year). Maybe we should lock one of them down with a big contract before they hit the market too.

All I’m trying to highlight by such a ridiculous idea is that the key difference is in the likelihood of each of the three outcomes you’ve identified, and back to my original point that Brissett hasn’t shown very much so far, so I don’t understand why we’re paying him like he has.

As far as paying him market value after one season, I largely agree with you on outside free agents. With an inside free agent who’s already been here for two years (and started one of those seasons), I lean more towards agreeing with Spaceman that one year should be enough to know what we’ve got with him.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by VeveJones007

This Brissett deal decreases that long-term risk. Instead of a 2nd and 3rd tag being in 2021-2022, they would now be in 2022-2023.

You also decrease the risk of Brissett having a good year, warranting a massive extension, and having that hanging over the franchise. Look at what happened with the Ravens and Flacco after their Super Bowl.

Yes, but don't forget that by paying him now, before he's proven anything, you also remove the benefit of having a guy in his "contract year" and trying to put his best foot forward for possible free agency.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by VeveJones007

Yes, that would be an issue if they signed Brissett to a massive contract. You’re acting like he signed for what Jared Goff just got.

Well, Brissett got $28 million for one additional year. Looks like Goff got $134 for 4 additional years, or an average of $33.5 million per. Not all that different on a per year basis, actually.