NFL’s $500 Million Problem: Why Teams Keep Paying Quarterbacks Who Can’t Win

Tua Tagovailoa just got benched for a seventh-round rookie. A quarterback making $53.1 million per year lost his job to Quinn Ewers, a guy who’s thrown eight passes in his NFL career. The Dolphins are 6-8, eliminated from the playoffs, and staring at $138 million in dead cap if they cut Tua next year. This is what happens when you pay quarterbacks based on what they might do instead of what they’ve actually done.

The Top 10 Highest-Paid QBs Have Something Embarrassing in Common

Here’s the NFL’s highest-paid quarterbacks by average annual value:

Ten quarterbacks. Over $500 million in combined annual salary. Zero Super Bowl championships.

You want to know where Patrick Mahomes ranks? Fifteenth. At $45 million per year. The three-time Super Bowl champion makes less than Dak Prescott, who’s 2-5 in the playoffs.

Kirk Cousins Should’ve Been the Warning

The Falcons gave Kirk Cousins $180 million last March. Four years, $100 million guaranteed, including a $50 million signing bonus. Then they drafted Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick six weeks later. That alone should’ve told you everything about how much faith Atlanta actually had in Cousins being their guy. However, before that, Minnesota was even dumber than the Falcons, paying Cousins $230 million over the course of six years. That produced one playoff win for the Vikings.

Back to Atlanta. By Week 16 last year, Cousins was on the bench. He’d thrown nine interceptions over a five-game stretch, and the Falcons had blown a 6-3 start. Julie Cousins later described the night her husband got the call from Raheem Morris as one of the hardest moments their family has faced. The guy signed the richest free agent contract of 2024 and was benched before Christmas.

Atlanta’s now stuck paying him $27.5 million this season to be a backup. If they cut him, they eat $65 million in dead cap. The Dolphins saw all of this happen and apparently learned nothing.

Tua Led the League in Passing Two Years Ago

That’s the thing that makes this so painful. Tua wasn’t some unproven prospect when Miami threw $212 million at him. He led the NFL in passing yards in 2023. He made the Pro Bowl. The Dolphins went 11-6 and made the playoffs. The contract wasn’t crazy at the time. It was market rate for a young quarterback who’d just had a breakout season.

But here’s what everyone ignored: Tua had one playoff appearance. Lost to Kansas City 26-7. He’d dealt with multiple concussions. And the Dolphins were paying for regular season production without any postseason proof.

Now Tua leads the league in interceptions with 15. He’s taken 30 sacks, a career high. He’s dropped to 25th in our Daily QB Rankings and falling. Mike McDaniel watched his quarterback throw three picks against Pittsburgh on Monday night and said “the quarterback play was not good enough.” Two days later, Ewers is the starter.

At Least Burrow Made a Super Bowl

I’ll give Joe Burrow this much: he actually got to the big game. Lost to the Rams, but he got there. That’s more than anyone else on this list can say. Goff and Purdy lost Super Bowls too, which counts for something. But Dak? Trevor Lawrence? Jordan Love? Justin Herbert?

Herbert has zero playoff wins in five seasons. Zero. The Chargers are paying him $52.5 million a year, and he’s never won a single postseason game. Lawrence has one playoff win in four years. Love has one. These aren’t franchise quarterbacks. These are guys who play well enough in September to trick front offices into handing them generational wealth. Run any scenario through a Super Bowl simulator and tell me how often the Jaguars or Chargers come out on top.

Dak’s Cowboys haven’t made an NFC Championship Game since 1995. His two playoff wins came against a Tom Brady-led Tampa team that went 8-9 and a Seattle squad that squeaked into the postseason at 10-6. That’s the resume that got him $60 million per year.

The Dolphins Have No Good Options Now

Cut Tua and Miami eats $99 million in dead cap. Wait until June and it’s still $67 million in 2026 plus another $32 million in 2027. Trade him? Good luck finding a partner willing to take on that contract after watching him throw 15 interceptions.

So the Dolphins will probably start Quinn Ewers these last three games, see if the seventh-rounder from Texas can do anything interesting, and then spend the offseason figuring out how to move on from a quarterback they committed $212 million to eighteen months ago.

The really stupid part? Some team will talk themselves into Tua being “fixable” and trade for him anyway. And in two years, we’ll be writing this exact same article about whoever that franchise is.

NFL Front Offices Keep Making the Same Mistake

The market for quarterbacks is broken. Teams see a guy put up big numbers in a contract year and panic. They convince themselves that letting him walk means starting over, so they pay whatever it takes to avoid the rebuild. And then they’re trapped.

Cousins got paid and benched within a year. Tua got paid and benched within eighteen months. Dak got paid and hasn’t won a playoff game since. How many more examples do general managers need?

Mahomes signed his extension before he’d won his second Super Bowl. He bet on himself and the Chiefs bet on him together. Everyone else is paying for potential that never materializes.

The Dolphins are the latest cautionary tale, but they won’t be the last. Some team will pay Jordan Love $60 million next year after one playoff win. Some team will give Trevor Lawrence another extension despite zero evidence he can win in January. And we’ll be back here again, looking at the highest-paid quarterbacks in football, wondering why none of them have a ring.

Quinn Ewers starts Sunday against Cincinnati. He’s made one NFL appearance and thrown for 53 yards. But at least his salary makes sense.

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