The Cleveland Browns will prove whether or not you can pay your QB big money and win

The Cleveland Browns are going to prove a long-standing question right or wrong this year.

Can you win in the NFL if you overpay a quarterback? That’s something that’s always been asked ever since quarterbacks started getting $30+ million per year, or more. If you’re sinking a quarter of the salary cap into one player, do you have enough finances to build a Super Bowl contender?

That’s something that’s always been asked and people used Tom Brady, a man very known for taking less than he was worth, in order to have better talent around him. As opposed to someone like Aaron Rodgers, who took the money and never won another Super Bowl trophy after he started asking for major raises. His 2011 salary cap hit was about $7 million, two million less than it was in 2009.

There’s a reason that by 2014 the Packers, who were now paying Rodgers nearly $17 million per year, started having trouble keeping guys on the team, and by 2017 the team was basically relying on less impressive free agents and guys on rookie contracts.

For comparison, Brady’s cap number only hit $20 million three times in his career. The last two were with New England, where a lot of players ended up leaving due to a lack of money, and once in Tampa Bay, where everyone was already on cheap contracts.

Brady has seven rings, and Rodgers has one.

Now Patrick Mahomes is here to challenge the notion that quarterbacks making too much money can’t win Super Bowls after their first contract or so. His salary cap hit was $35 million this past year, and they won the Super Bowl. That’s partly because he still has a Hall of Famer in Travis Kelce, who is arguably the best tight end in football, but it’s worth noting that Mahomes’ contract forced the Chiefs to move on from Tyreek Hill due to Mahomes’ contract.

So Mahomes may not be able to be properly evaluated until Kelce leaves, then we’re going to see if you can build a Super Bowl-winning team with someone making that much money. The Cleveland Browns, however, are on deck this year.

The Cleveland Browns will answer whether you can win with one player making a lot of money

While the inspiration to this was the Ryan Leaf soundbite about the Browns building a “very talented roster” despite Watson’s contract, what Leaf isn’t saying in this is that the Browns quarterback, this year, isn’t making a lot of money; comparatively.

Watson, in 2023, is only making $19 million, a number that a team can win with if their quarterback was making that much. Next year, however, it’ll jump to $63 million. The Browns will not be able to afford the team they have today next year. Amari Cooper, Nick Chubb, Joel Bitonio, Wyatt Teller, and lord knows who else, will likely be cut or traded.

That’s what the Browns have been doing over the last few years, trying to find cheap, effective players, who can play for peanuts when Watson’s contract gets so enormous that it starts to smother the team’s ability to make moves.

Keep in mind, Mahomes only cost $35 million last season against the cap. Watson will account for nearly double that amount.

If The Browns are able to win in 2024 while paying Watson $63 million, then maybe people like Ryan Leaf have a point, but if he struggles or the team struggles, then let it be the death nail in the argument that quarterbacks need to be paid as much as these men have been paid.

They don’t. Historically, it’s the quarterbacks, like Tom Brady, who give money back who are the most successful on the field and that doesn’t seem likely to change.