Gordo's Tipsheet: Dalton contract raises bar for Bradford

Tipsheet: Dalton contract raises bar for Bradford
• By Jeff Gordon

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/jeff-gordon/tipsheet-dalton-contract-raises-bar-for-bradford/article_8e91526e-c000-5ca5-bc70-2f092ae056f2.html

Sam Bradford appears to be in no rush to sign a contract extension with the Rams.

And why should he be? Other quarterbacks are signing crazy deals left and right. All of them have accomplished more than Bradford has, true, but the market will favor him if the Rams finally step forward.

The latest mind-boggling deal will pay Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton up to $115 million through 2020. The base value of the contract is a more realistic $96 million over six years and the Bengals have some escape hatches along the way.

Still, that is a heck of a deal for Dalton. He will collect $22 million during the first six months of the deal.

“We’re betting big on him because we believe in him,” Bengals owner Mike Brown said at a Monday news conference. “We’re looking forward to the future with Andy.”

Dalton has stayed healthy and delivered three productive regular seasons in Cincinnati. He piled up lots of TD passes and kept the Bengals in the playoff hunt.

But no credible expert ranks him among the NFL’s elite quarterbacks. Dalton has come up small in his biggest games.

So every quarterback coming due for a new deal in the next few years — including the star-crossed Bradford — is eying this deal with great interest.

NFL owners are willing to overpay quarterbacks rather than face the Great Unknown of starting over with an unproven new guy.

ASSESSING DALTON’S DEAL

Here is what some folks were writing about this contract:

Bill Barnwell, ESPN.com: “For what it’s worth, you can make a statistical case that Dalton is a worthwhile passer. Many of his rate statistics — yards per attempt, touchdown percentage, passer rating, and QBR — have improved during each of his three professional seasons, even as he’s thrown more frequently. He hasn’t missed a start and hasn’t even shown up on the injury report since Week 1 of the 2012 season . . . Dalton is a winner; during his first three seasons, Dalton has won 30 games and made the playoffs three times. The only other quarterbacks in league history to do that are Dan Marino (yay!) and Joe Flacco ( … OK?). And all of that doesn’t seem to matter, because Dalton has been awful in the playoffs. It’s a problem that destroyed Cincinnati in last year’s loss to the Chargers and, left unsolved, will almost certainly prevent him from leading the Bengals — or any other NFL team — to a Super Bowl. Andy Dalton is not without merit, but he has one major problem that needs to be corrected: He can’t reliably handle pass pressure. Dalton comes from the Kevin Kolb and Blaine Gabbert school, which is a school that should probably be shut down, demolished, and declared a Superfund site. Quarterbacks in this class often struggle to diagnose pressure before the snap and do a subpar job of capturing who exactly is coming at them when defenses disguise their blitzers. Even worse, when they do feel even the tiniest bit of pressure heading in their direction, passers like Kolb and Gabbert bail out of the pocket and frantically sprint toward the sideline like ants trying to escape feet. The coup de grâce is a dangerous pass, one often thrown to the first hint of a friendly uniform without resetting and reexamining the field to see where defenders have settled.”

Pete Prisco, CBSSports.com: “You saw the contract numbers for Andy Dalton’s extension Monday and you laughed. It was probably a loud one, too. What the hell are the Cincinnati Bengals doing giving Dalton a six-year extension for $115 million, right? What they are doing is being smart, especially if the contract is structured the right way. Dalton has flaws and has come up small in the playoffs, but he has taken the Bengals to the playoffs each of his first three seasons, which is special. He’s also thrown 80 touchdown passes in those three seasons, 33 last season, which is why extending him for six seasons makes sense. Yet ripping Dalton is a blood sport. He’s like Carson Palmer. He’s like Tony Romo. They’ve all had regular-season success, but have not got it done in the playoffs. So they stink. They’re chokers. Yet players like Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick are considered rising stars because, playing on good teams, they’ve won in the postseason. Wilson and Kaepernick have talent, but I’ve had a handful of NFL people tell me the Seahawks would have won the Super Bowl last season with Dalton playing quarterback.”

Doug Farrar, SI.com: “Those opposed to this kind of extension might note that the cap charge could prevent the team from handing out new deals to other valuable players, including receiver A.J. Green, who was selected in the first round of the 2011 draft, and who tends to make Dalton look a bit better than he actually is with his acrobatic catches of Dalton’s occasionally errant deep balls. And there’s the matter of Dalton’s performances in the playoffs — in three playoff games (all losses), Dalton has completed 70-of-123 passes for 718 yards, one touchdown and six interceptions.”

Jarrett Bell, USA Today.com: “Dalton commands a huge price tag because he plays quarterback, with its inflationary pay scale. Remember, Tony Romo – who hasn’t exactly made his mark in the playoffs, either — is guaranteed $55 million from the Cowboys. Maybe that’s why they passed on Johnny Manziel. But just because Dalton is a quarterback doesn’t mean it is money well spent. The jury is out on that. Two years ago, Joe Flacco’s contract talks with the Baltimore Ravens broke down and he wound up betting on himself in the final year of his contract. Then he got red-hot in the postseason and won the Super Bowl. Flacco cashed in for several million dollars more per year than had been previously discussed. Dalton didn’t have to bet on himself like Flacco. But the Bengals, hardly getting a bargain, are betting on him in a huge way.”

Frank Schwab, Yahoo! Sports: “Jay Cutler’s contract with the Bears, for $126.7 million over seven years after making all of one Pro Bowl in his career, really was the sign that the quarterback market was ruined. Dalton’s deal has reinforced that the market is out of control. Teams get crippled by fear of the unknown at quarterback. There’s no way Dalton, whom I defend regularly because people have ignored the good things he has done (and he has done some good things), could be worth more than $19 million per year. But teams like the Bengals would rather pay Dalton two or three times what he’s worth than deal with the criticism that would come if they let him go and couldn’t replace him immediately. It sounds like a dumb business model, but NFL teams routinely do it. The quarterback market for the non-stars at the position is the most inefficient in sports. And it affects other teams. Wilson, (Andrew) Luck, (Cam) Newton and other young quarterbacks like Washington’s Robert Griffin III probably have to start the bidding at $25 million per year if Dalton got what he did, right? Dalton has put up 11,360 yards and 80 touchdowns while taking the Bengals to the playoffs in all three of his seasons. He has seen his interceptions rise each season since his rookie year. He threw 20 of them last year and is routinely criticized for his arm strength limitations and his failures in the playoffs. Not even his strongest backers would confuse Dalton for a top-tier quarterback. And he just signed an extension that could be worth $115 million, which is $5 million more than Aaron Rodgers got (Rodgers got that over five years; Dalton got six).”

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while the NFC West braces for the rowdy Rams defense:

Just how quickly can the Bengals get out from under that Dalton contract?

Say, has Michael Sam became a bit of a glory hound?

Can Yasiel Puig learn a lot by playing in the same city as Albert Pujols?

Say, how bad do you want that ice cream bar and those peanut butter cups?