The first thing I need to do in this post is define what I mean by a valuable quarterback. By value I mean return on investment, meaning the team received more on-field performance than they paid for. These may not necessarily be the names you’re thinking of, but the teams that have them got more than their money’s worth.

Also, I need to go over the criteria I used to rank the QBs. First, I took each team’s top QB in 2017, used their all-time cap for 2017 from Spotrac, used their passing yards, wins and TD:INT ratio from nfl.com, and their total QBR from ESPN. I adjusted wins, TD:INT and QBR to be on a similar scale to passing yards. That is, I found the average variation of all the QBs between them and multiplied it to scale. From this, I divided the total cap achieved by average passing yards, adjusted wins, adjusted TD:INT ratio, and adjusted QBR. This gave me the ‘value’ of a quarterback. Just FYI, using this scale, the lower the ‘value’ the better as it is the amount of money the team spent for each adjusted stat.

Let’s get started, okay?

5. Trevor Siemian; Value: 313.95

This was a bit of a surprise. Trevor Siemian did not have a good year, but he was helped by a very low cap hit (as is the case with most of the top 5). Looking at the stats, Trevor Siemian had the lowest QBR and a TD:INT ratio of 0.85:1; nor jump. However, he had 2,285 passing yards, which helped tremendously in his case. Believe it or not, the Broncos actually got more than they paid for.

4. Jimmy Garoppolo; Value: 231.67

I think a lot of people expected Jimmy Garoppolo to be here. As the 49ers’ bright spot in 2017, he led them to 5 wins to close out the year and put up some pretty good stats. Although he had few passing yards due to lack of games, his QBR was 80.5. He combined that with a reserve cap and was a great pick for San Francisco. The future looks pretty bright for them.

3.Josh McCown; Value: 217.25

Another somewhat surprised here. The aging veteran put up decent stats last year for the Jets with nearly 3,000 passing yards and a 2:1 TD:INT ratio. Leading the Jets, who had arguably the least talented roster in 2017, makes for a player who easily topped his salary scale.

2. Jacoby Brissett; Value: 212.40

The Patriots’ second backup on that list is also a surprise. He started most of the year for the lowly Colts, putting up almost respectable numbers for them. What really propelled him is the fact that he had the absolute lowest salary cap of any quarterback on this list; in fact, he was the only one under $600,000. Unfortunately for Brissett, he likely won’t get a chance to play much next year with the return of Andrew Luck.

1.Dak Prescott; Value: 170.05

Dak easily crushed the competition on this one. Ranking in the top half of the league in most categories except salary made him an easy No. 1 choice. Combine that with the fact that he’s still on his rookie deal and has a salary cap of just over $635K, and he was by far the best value quarterback. I think the most interesting part of this is looking into the crystal ball and trying to determine how much money he’s going to demand in the future.

takeaway

I think the biggest thing I got out of this is that a team can survive with a valuable quarterback. However, it’s hard for a team to succeed most of the time simply with value at quarterback. Dallas was the only team represented to have a winning record (highest value playoff QB was Case Keenum at 6; Value: 313.95). Many quarterbacks we would consider ‘elite’ were in the bottom half of this list. The only thing I wish I could renew would be the extra income. Tom Brady adds a ton of revenue to the Patriots, for example, by taking more of his salary. That’s hard to quantify, but something to consider for the future. I’d love to see what everyone thought of this in the comments, so comment on some quarterbacks you thought should be here, other things you want to see, anything!