How do you (or do you) managed to hang onto a top QB

[joey2000]

As I face this soon I'm wondering.....even if you manage to draft a stud, he's cheap for a few years, but often it takes a year or 3 until he gets up to stud-dom anyway, and then his contract is up and he's silly expensive...anywhere from $15Mish to $20-25M a year. It seems extremely unlikely at best to field a team that's mostly solid elsewhere (so you're competitive even, never mind great) keeping such a guy. I plan to dump this guy and hope for a 40-50something QB who's "good enough." I just don't see another way, unless through a combo of deft planning and frankly luck you find some FAs cheaper than they should be to sneak by.

If you've done this, I'm curious how?

[keeks]

re-sign him in that 3rd year where hes just below stardom and he only wants like 10-15m

[wustin]

Don't re-sign your defensive ends and cornerbacks who want to be paid as much as a QB.

[joey2000]

re-sign him in that 3rd year where hes just below stardom and he only wants like 10-15m
10-15 lol I wish. Try 20ish and that's just the first year.

Don't re-sign your defensive ends and cornerbacks who want to be paid as much as a QB.
Yeah CBs and OLBs are esp pricey....but then I end up losing games due to a weaker D. I also have a top-notch WR who I probably can't re-sign :(

I just don't see how teams do it; I do see the computer-run teams with a top QB winning titles, I guess I'll have to look at their rosters to get a feel for a potential winning formula.

[burnum]

I think this resembles the real NFL quite well. Look at the Ravens, Saints or Colts as examples. They all have a QB that gets paid 20-25M per year and the rest of the team suffers from it. That's just the way the NFL currently works. If you have the luxury of a franchise QB you will suffer in other areas.

[Mobarak]

I'm pretty new here myself but some things i noticed.

Try to make sure you are regularly drafting a QB every 3 drafts or so in the mid rounds. Doing this well can keep you with a constant average or better QB to start.

Make sure you are squeezing every 5th year option from your young stars.. losing that cheap 5th year option on your future QB is devastating as well as other players.

Always look to renegotiate your players no matter how old.

[OldGiants]

Had my undrafted free agent starting QB (49/49), who was putting up mid-pack passing numbers, hold out when I had just finished re-signing the defensive spine of my team. So I let him sit, tried to trade him. Only the Rams were interested, however they offered no more than a 3rd rounder. So I waited until week 7. He still held out. I offered him around. Now the Rams offered a second rounder, so I took it. Lo and behold, the next game is against the Rams. He starts, throws 2 picks and gets sacked 4 times. We win 38-10.

He is playing out his last two years at $4.5 million and missing out playing in the Super Bowl with my team.

I'll look at him again when I roll over the season to see how much he signs for.

[joey2000]

Actually I take this back somewhat; a little more digging and I see more success with teams that have a good-to-great RB and only middling QBs; the success of top-ranked teams with a top QB is very erratic, and I think for reasons stated: the QBs kill your cap too much. A top-ranked RB costs far, far less. Granted I think some of this is because the default offensive schemes in FOF (7 at least) are outdated, emphasizing the run far too much, even when the personnel aren't really geared to it. I've tried tweaking the gameplan, but so far it hasn't seemed to matter much (and tbh I'm not really interested in mucking w/that anyway; for me this is all about GMing, plus I have really top-ranked coaches).

Re QB strat, I have been typically using anywhere from a 2d to 4th or even 5th round pick on QBs, esp those with high accuracy and sense rush bars, as they seem to have the most success generally...I think (I think) this will work out long term. Yeah I know famous last words....

[Binary_Digit]

I've found that a player will accept less overall if you guarantee more in the signing bonus. For my stud contracts I always reduce the annual salary from their default offer to an even $2MM and give them a big enough bonus to make it attractive again. This brings the cap hits per year to a fraction of what their offer had, and it's not backloaded so it doesn't sneak up on your cap space in the later years.

[www2]

Well I dont think there is a way aronud it....you have to pay them what they want....offcourse I allways increase sign bonus and decrease yearly sallary and usually you can lower the total for about 10-15 %, not much but when we are talking about 206 million (my QB's last signing) it's not to be disregarded.

Here are my sallaries

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