The Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens signed their quarterback, Joe Flacco, to a 6 year, $120.6 million contract. Talk about a gamble that paid off. Flacco chose not to sign an extension to his contract at the beginning of last year, worth around $15 million per year, so his contract expired at the end of the 2012 season. This basically gambled his future earnings on his performance last season. Flacco was asked at the beginning of the season if he was an elite quarterback. His answer was that he thought he was the best quarterback. That answer was ludicrous then, but not so much now.
Flacco is now the highest paid player in NFL history. The contract includes a $29 million signing contract, and guarantees him $52 million. It’s hard to think of Flacco as the best player in the NFL, but the way he played in the playoffs last year was enough to earn him the Super Bowl MVP. His team beat Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos on the road, and then beat Tom Brady and the New England Patriots on the road, to get to the Super Bowl. Then he, and the rest of the Ravens, defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 34-31 in Super Bowl XLVII. That’s moving up the quarterback ladder the hard way. Of course, the Ravens have a good defense, but Flacco outplayed both Manning and Brady in those games.
Ironically, Tom Brady just signed a much lower extension to his contract, that will take him up to when he is 40 years old. In an effort to free up salary cap space for his team, Brady signed a 3 year, $27 million extension. That is less than half of what Flacco is making per year. While that is still a lot of money, it ranks him below what mediocre quarterbacks Ryan Fitzpatrick of the Buffalo Bills, and Kevin Kolb of the Arizona Cardinals will be paid. It’s not like Brady had a bad year in 2012. He threw for 4,827 yards, with 34 touchdowns, and only 8 interceptions.
I don’t blame Flacco for getting as much money as he could from the Ravens, especially after they just won the Super Bowl, and he was the MVP. However, down the road it will handcuff his team in salary cap space, unless he renegotiates his contract the way Brady did. Brady obviously is thinking about his team’s future more than someone like New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees. He wouldn’t re-sign with the Saints until they agreed to pay the 34 year old, $100 million over 5 years.
Flacco’s per year contract amount is slightly higher than Brees, but he is only 28 years old. Flacco wasn’t so great in the regular season, but he excelled in the postseason. He threw 11 touchdown passes and no interceptions. That’s the type of production that will get you paid over $20 million per year. It will be interesting to see how well he plays for the rest of his career, now that he has the huge contract.
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