Sam Bradford Gets Paid
Sam Bradford might go down in history as the most overpaid player in NFL history.
He’s such a weird case. He’s the final first overall pick to receive the benefits of a mega contract before playing, before the league instituted the rookie wage scale. The contract had at least 50 million dollars of guaranteed money. It’s going down as the biggest rookie deal in history. This past week, he signed a new contract with the Eagles with 26 million guaranteed money. I’m ignoring the non-guaranteed money because I don’t know if he’s earned any of it. Because Sam Bradford remains a complete enigma. He’s going to make over 70 million dollars over 8 years of play…and we still have no idea if he’s good or not. Obviously I’m severely simplifying the contracts here but you get my general point. Sam Bradford has been in the league for 6 seasons and done so little that he remains a huge question mark for all the wrong reasons, but he’d made a ton of money anyway.
A lot of people are laughing at the Eagles for this deal. Eagles fans seem mostly fine with it. From an unbiased(Stop laughing, I’m trying to be objective here) look, I think it’s a bit too high but I understand it on the Eagles part. Bradford’s first season in St. Louis was fine and looked like a good player to build on. Since then he’s been out of the game more often than in. Last year he was about average. He showed flashes of something, but he’d also drop a stinker on routine too. To his credit he seemed better as the season went on. That of course means nothing now because he has an entirely new offense to learn. If I try to be objective, Bradford is middling. He’s a journeyman. I think he’s not an answer and he probably shouldn’t be a starter anywhere after this contract is up unless he turns into something he hasn’t been so far. He’d probably be a backup already if the Rams hadn’t invested so much money in him up front and Chip Kelly wasn’t a nutjob.
But I can’t blame the Eagles for the contract. There is no one on the roster better than Bradford. There is no free agent QB better than Bradford. They are basically in a rough spot. Either let Sam go and hope they can draft someone better, or overpay him a little and keep him around while they try to fix a myriad of other problems (And possibly draft a QB anyway). With a new coach in place and a patient owner, a couple of years overpaid for an average QB who could still be good doesn’t seem that stupid. Although if Bradford turns out to be bad, it will surely bite them in the ass (From a totally biased Giants fan perspective, please please please it would be hilarious).
But the fact remains that Bradford is a mystery and has gotten paid more than any other player I’ve seen for doing so comparatively little.
Gotta give him props though. Have an injury plagued career and still make money.
Bills fan living in Philly, so I will *try* to be unbiased here:
A lot of Philly fans hate Sam Bradford. Many more say “meh?” The optimists say, “Hey, it’s only for two years! Then we’re rid of him!”
My rant on *why* he got that much money will be in another comment.
Sam Bradford is the inevitable result of what fans have made the league into.
I heard so many fans yell: “Super Bowl 50 sucked! Did you see how bad Manning looked? How bad Cam looked?”
To these people, that’s what mattered. Unless it’s an offensive gunfight, it’s a bad game.
So you change the rules. You give an instant first down on 4th and 40 because a defender tugged a jersey and 5 yards and one inch. You overwhelmingly call pass interference against the defense. You decriminalize pick plays. You add fifteen yard penalties for hitting too hard. You add Personal Foul calls for tackling a QB as he’s diving headfirst like a running back. You call personal fouls without rhyme or reason on QB hits.
The upshot leads to this: Offense wins games. Teams with good QBs win. Teams with elite, top 3 QBs win a lot, with almost every other position becoming an afterthought.
Here is a sobering reality: A Philly radio host ran the career numbers on Sam Bradford, and compared them to Ryan Fitzpatrick. In terms of yards per season, yards per attempt, accuracy, and QB rating, they are scarily the same QB.
Yes, this Ryan Fitzpatrick:
http://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/fitzpatrick-goes-home/
http://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/fitzpatrick-gets-the-jets-job/
The difference being that Fitz is a 7th round pick out of Harvard, and Bradford was the first overall.
Teams are so desperate for QB play, so desperate for one position that disproportionally affects your record, that teams are forced to spend massive amounts of money for average. Because that’s what everyone else is spending.
If you don’t have Tom Brady, you build a defense like the Broncos. Like the Panthers. Like the Seahawks. And everyone who can’t looks mediocre.
The solution is simple: You have to relax rules that favor the offense. You have to be willing to take a defensive slog.
We can do that right?
Right???
Fort Elite Moneyz?
I loved watching him at Oklahoma, but then he got hurt at 21. Then again at 23. And 25. And 27. Point is, he has a lot of potential, but he can’t reach it if he keeps getting hurt.
I really don’t understand this. If you want a bridge quarterback while you develop a new guy, keep Sanchez. His cap hit is smaller and he’s under (a much cheaper) contract for the next three years. The only reason to pay Bradford 18 million a year is if you expect him to be your starter the next two years, and I don’t see why anyone would expect Bradford to stay healthy over the next two years, let alone play at 18 million per year value. And if you have Bradford as your bridge quarterback, you’ll probably also need a proper backup while your developmental QB develops because it’s almost a guarantee that Bradford will get injured and your future starter will get tossed into the fire before he’s ready.
Great article on nfl.com about how they hope that the west coast offense will shape him up. They used Alex Smith as a good example of a troubled QB with tons of different OCs and an injury history and how the west coast offense has really helped him. The new Eagles coach has been under Andy Reid for a long time and there’s a good history of getting QBs on their feet.
Bradford an OG
Sam Bradford maxed out his charisma… at the expense of zero strength.
Bradford needs a titanium knee…
And now he can afford it.
The Elite Moneyz series needs a new installment after this offseason.
RG3’s probably wondering what Bradford’s secret is.
Get backups that won’t go 10-6 and create a team slogan. And a third stringer that won’t win big games also (McCoy)
This reflects trend I’ve seen where you pay QBs Elite Moneyz for them to be great, rather than paying Elite QBz Elite Moneyz.
I honestly think it’s a marketing tactic-this is about the Eagles selling themselves as a stable organization going places with a great QB in place. My other example was when Romo got that huge contract a few years ago-it seemed to me to be more about whether the Cowboys could market Romo as their no doubt QB and face of the future, rather than what he had done so far.
Romo’s numbers have always been excellent and the previous two years he had been all that had been keeping the Cowboys 8-8 and not 4-12. He absolutely deserved his payday.
kirk cousins will now be worth 12456777764 monies per second
im pretty sure people keep paying Bradford is not for his skills but to give him money for his medical bills he has to play yearly