Kyler Murray’s new deal impacts Cleveland Browns, AFC North

Thank you, Kyler Murray, because the Cleveland Browns salary cap suddenly looks more sane than before, and Baltimore and Cincinnati may have trouble brewing. 

Kyler Murray’s new extension for $230.5 million over five years ($160 million guaranteed), more or less matches the deal the Cleveland Browns agreed to with quarterback Deshaun Watson.

Murray’s contract directly impacts the Browns because it affects current negotiations with their arch-rival, the Baltimore Ravens and their former league MVP quarterback, Lamar Jackson. Plus the Cincinnati Bengals and Joe Burrow, who will go through this process next offseason.

Suddenly, Cleveland doesn’t look as terribly out of whack for the deal they gave Watson, $230 million, fully guaranteed. More importantly, the pressure is on Baltimore (now) and Cincinnati (later) to follow suit, which means that they too will feel a salary cap pinch.

Why does this matter?

Though opinions vary, this analyst believes some sectors of the NFL have an overly severe case of quarterback fever, which has led to overpaying the quarterback position like never before. According to lists compiled by Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap and Michael Ginnitti of Spotrac, since the cap was initiated in 1994, no team has ever won the Super Bowl while paying a cap charge higher than 13.1 percent to their starting quarterback.

Steve Young holds the all-time record with 13.1 percent set in 1994. Tom Brady of the Tampa Bay Bucs in 2020 was second with 12.6 percent (though he was not nearly the highest paid QB in the league that year).

Other big expenditures on winning quarterbacks included Peyton Manning in 2015 (12.2 percent), Eli Manning in 2011 (11.7 percent), and Brett Favre in 1996 (10.2 percent). Since 2000, the average cap hit for the Super Bowl-winning quarterback’s salary has been under eight percent.

Yet several quarterbacks around the NFL now have cap charges greater than Young’s 13.1 percent. They are (pending last-minute restructuring deals): the Titans’ Ryan Tannehill (18.5), the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes (17.2), the Vikings’ Kirk Cousins (15.1), the Lions’ Jared Goff (15) the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers (13.7), and Washington’s Carson Wentz (13.6).

Mahomes and Rodgers might have the same stature as Young, but are the rest of them remotely as good as the Hall of Famer?

The great news is that Watson’s salary cap charge is only $10.0 million in 2022 (4.6 percent of the league cap allowance), and possibly even less depending on the terms of his suspension. Hence the Browns are in great shape to make a run this season, at least from the standpoint of what they are paying the quarterback. So let’s enjoy 2022.

How Kyler Murray deal affects Cleveland Browns, AFC North

Browns 2023 QB budget would be a record if they win the Super Bowl

2023 is a different story. Watson’s deal makes him the highest-paid quarterback in 2023 at a $55 million cap hit against an expected cap allowance of $230 million, or 23.9 percent.

Thus, as a percentage of cap allowance, Watson will cost roughly twice as much as any Super Bowl-winning quarterback in the salary cap era. That doesn’t mean that the Browns cannot win in 2023, but it does present a unique challenge for them, as well as other teams that are incurring high cap charges for a single player. Hello, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Mac Jones, and all you Kurt Warner wannabees.

Cleveland can partially cover Watson’s deal with carryover dollars from 2022, and it’s also very possible that the Browns will elect to restructure Watson’s deal, so let’s not completely slam the door on 2023. A lot can happen between now and then.

Alert fans will no doubt question why Super Bowl-winning Patrick Mahomes doesn’t rank higher on the list of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks. Didn’t he get paid huge amounts of money?

Actually, not in 2019, he didn’t.

His extension was signed in 2020. Moreover, under the NFL rules for cap management, Mahomes was allowed to cash his signing bonus check on the spot, but the Chiefs are charged major bucks only when the extension kicks in, which would be not until 2022 in his case. Thus the Chiefs cap is being charged $35.8 million this season and $46.8 million in 2023.

Prior to this point, the Chiefs’ annual cap charge for Mahomes has been less than the Browns’ cap charge for Baker Mayfield. It will be very interesting to see if he can win another Super Bowl while getting paid huge dollars from now on. Mahomes’ 2024 cap charge of $46.8 seemed insane at the time his extension was signed.

Frankly, in this fan’s opinion, those dollars are in fact insane, but not out of line with what other quarterback-crazed teams are doing. With Watson, Murray, Dak Prescott, and Matthew Stafford signed up for equivalent crazy dollars, the Chiefs have the appearance of sanity. Okay? So I am not approving of Mahomes’ deal, but I am agreeing that the Chiefs are in good company.

Again, if you believe the statistical trend that the Super Bowl winner has never had a cap charge greater than 12.6 percent for the first-string quarterback, odds are that none of these quarterbacks will take home rings in 2024 unless they restructure their deals. However, teams cannot accept the reality of the salary cap at this point and will bet on their overpaid quarterbacks to be worth the money somehow.

It’s a copycat league. If Jimmy Haslam III did it, it must be a good idea, right?

The Baltimore Ravens might likewise appear to be sane if they give comparable money to their star, Lamar Jackson.