You Get What You Pay For: QB Edition

With the Rams being 0-7 and having a huge checkmark next to "rebuilding- ignore our standings, please," I was curious to see just how much the Rams were paying for their futility on the field compared to teams that had success. These are using last year’s numbers (I wanted a full season), so you can see what exactly changed with the new regime.

I’ll be going through the positions one by one (D-Line and O-Line will count as one position). I’ll be starting with everyone’s favorite scapegoat: QB.

Firstly, I want to describe how I will be getting these numbers (so there is no confusion). What I’m going to do is look at the salary the Rams are paying the player/position, and compare it to the rest of the league. The ratio I’m going to be using is the difference between how much they were being paid relative to how well they did. So for example, if they had a salary second highest in the league, and they were ranked the 5^th best in the league (for their statistics) the ratio would be 2:5. If the first number is lower than the second, we are paying too much for the production they give us and vice versa. So let’s get into it:

QB- Marc Bulger

Ratio- 7:30

You can’t put all the blame on Bulger. There are a lot of different factors that went into why the Rams were bad last year, but with him playing poorly this year as well, you just can’t overlook his play; it definitely counts as one of those variables that made the Rams horrid. His stats in this case, don’t lie, as using this ratio he was the 4^th most overpaid QB in the league. Don’t feel bad, he was only passed by Eli Manning and Brett Favre (tied for first), Peyton Manning (second) and Jake Delhomme (third).

What’s worse is that former Rams (or could be Rams) performed better against the ratio then Bulger did. Gus Frerotte was ranked seven places higher using this ratio then Bulger (he also was still below 1:1 however, meaning he was overpaid, albeit slightly). Kurt Warner was the born again man, as everyone already knows, and had the second best ratio of anyone in the league. To make matter’s even worse, Ryan Fitzpatrick, our former 3^rd string QB, was nine spots higher then Bulger (still overpaid, however it was close, .935 to 1). Ouch.

For some of the more generalized league standings, QB’s who had good stats were paid accordingly. Out of the top 15 QB’s, only two were overpaid for how well they played (Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly to some, it was the Manning boys), and for the bottom 17, only five were paid according to how well they played. The top 15 had a combined salary of 90.62 million dollars and the bottom 17 had a combined salary of 83.73 million dollars. No injured/backup QB’s were counted.

If you want to take a look at the spreadsheet for yourself, here is a download link. Enjoy.