The Cincinnati Bengals paid up big on Joe Burrow’s extension and have already started to see other quarterback deals reach the same number.
A recent big-money extension for Trevor Lawrence is the first to hit Burrow’s big numbers and experts think the next contracts could leapfrog both rather easily — as soon as this summer.
It turns out that some team owners have actually talked about a “quarterback cap” that ties the position to a certain percentage of the salary cap, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero on “The Rich Eisen Show” recently:
“There has certainly been discussion within the league among certain owners about even the idea of a quarterback cap, that at some point you don’t want quarterback numbers to go over a certain percentage of your salary cap. To my knowledge, that hasn’t really gained traction, in part because so many teams have paid their quarterbacks.”
Quarterbacks dominate the money in the NFL, of course, with the top 10 in total money belonging to the position and average annual value charts also a who’s-who case of signal-callers.
Given the importance of the position, though, it’s not shocking that the market keeps escalating like others. Doing a landmark overhaul of cap management for this seems unlikely, though.
Then again, there were experts who floated the idea that the Bengals could’ve given Burrow a specific percentage of the cap on his extension so that the number keeps rising alongside the jumping cap. That didn’t happen, but perhaps it’s something that catches on at a later date if one team is willing to break the mold.
