[COLOR=#RED]The Niners' Kaepernick dilemma[/COLOR]
February, 11, 2014
By Mike Sando | ESPN.com
Colin Kaepernick is 21-8 in his career as a starter for the San Francisco 49ers.
Colin Kaepernick has a 21-8 record with four playoff victories and one Super Bowl appearance since becoming the San Francisco 49ers' starting quarterback during the 2012 season. Not everyone loves everything about his game, but it's tough finding quarterbacks with higher early trajectories.
To see just how tough it is, consider how Kaepernick's 29-start credentials stack up against those for all other QBs who made their first 29 starts over the past nine seasons. Kaepernick stands first in Total QBR, second in winning percentage and fourth in passer rating on a 25-man list featuring Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo, Robert Griffin III, Jay Cutler, Cam Newton, Matt Ryan and Andrew Luck.
With three seasons behind him, Kaepernick recently became eligible for a new contract with one year remaining on his four-year rookie deal. Everything we've learned about the importance of quarterbacks tells us the 49ers should seize the opportunity to extend Kaepernick's contract before the price climbs even higher. Otherwise, they risk the sort of trouble Baltimore ran into when Joe Flacco leveraged a contract-year Super Bowl run into a $120 million deal that will hamstring the organization for years and force the Ravens back to the bargaining table seeking relief. The 49ers could find themselves in a similar situation if Kaepernick leads them to a championship in his contract year next season -- no stretch for a player with memorable postseason performances on his résumé already.
So, yes, the bottom line is that, at the right price, the Niners would be wise to lock up Kaepernick this offseason. But after speaking Monday with three player agents, one NFL contract negotiator and a former general manager, I came away questioning conventional wisdom. Do the 49ers really need to pony up for their quarterback this offseason?
"I wonder if the landscape for quarterbacks in the NFL has forever changed with what Russell Wilson just did and what happened with Flacco," the agent for one of the NFL's more accomplished quarterbacks said. "Are you better off having young, inexpensive quarterbacks and trying to win with these guys?"
Not everyone would be better off, but there's a line of thinking in the NFL that 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh and Seahawks counterpart Pete Carroll have raised the coaching bar, and that Harbaugh in particular has proved his team can win with more than one type of quarterback. Look, if you can throw 55 touchdown passes the way Peyton Manning did this past season, go for it. But the teams paying $20 million a year for quarterbacks are cutting corners elsewhere. Six of the 10 highest-seeded teams in the recently concluded playoffs featured QBs playing on relatively affordable rookie deals. A seventh, Kansas City, advanced with starter Alex Smith earning less than $10 million a year.
Why would the 49ers want to join the ranks of teams paying a premium for quarterbacks if they can win with cheaper ones? Sure, Kaepernick has a 21-8 record in his past 29 starts, but his predecessor, Smith, has gone 20-8-1 in his past 29, including 10-2-1 with the 49ers. Smith has 49 total touchdowns with 12 interceptions in those 29 starts, compared with 48 and 16 for Kaepernick. Smith has a slightly higher passer rating, and Kaepernick comes out quite a bit higher in Total QBR thanks to his dynamic rushing ability. It'll be interesting to see what type of deal Smith gets this offseason; it won't be for $20 million a year.
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Richard Sherman denied Kaepernick and the 49ers a shot at a second straight Super Bowl appearance.
If you're the 49ers, why not use one of your 11 choices in the 2014 draft on a quarterback? With additional picks in the second and third rounds, plus a likely compensatory selection for parting with safety Dashon Goldson, San Francisco certainly could stash away another young QB prospect. If Kaepernick lights up the league under his current deal, that's a good problem to have. Slap the franchise tag on him and see how he does in 2015, all while working toward a long-term deal. If Kaepernick plateaus, regresses or simply wants too much money, the team would have another low-cost option behind him and a coaching staff that has proved it can adapt as needed. Meanwhile, the 49ers would retain the financial flexibility to supplement their roster with an Anquan Boldin type as needed.
The contract negotiator and the former GM said they weren't sold on Kaepernick as irreplaceable in San Francisco. They also said they didn't think the 49ers were necessarily all-in on him, based on what they've heard and what they would be thinking if they were in the 49ers' position. This line of thinking says Kaepernick is a phenomenal athlete but not yet polished enough as a quarterback. The negotiator said that Kaepernick is too quick to rely on his athleticism and that, when his first options aren't there, Kaepernick too frequently tries to make a play at all costs. For the 49ers, those costs included three fourth-quarter turnovers in the NFC Championship Game while Wilson avoided late mistakes and averaged an additional 2.2 yards per pass attempt targeting less accomplished receivers.
Fatal flaws? Not necessarily. We could be picking nits in a dynamic young player's game. "Kaepernick was a little inconsistent in the first half of the season," one of the agents said. "I've always believed you're not a starting QB until you have a full offseason and everyone can game plan against you. He was that, and he struggled for a bit. Some of his guys were hurt. But he worked through it. He is sitting in a great spot."
Indeed, Kaepernick came within a spectacular Richard Sherman deflection of leading the 49ers to a second consecutive Super Bowl appearance. And, after watching Seattle destroy Denver to win its first championship, it wasn't hard to envision another rugged NFC West team such as the 49ers beating the Broncos.
The price of poker
Let's say the 49ers want to get a deal done with Kaepernick this offseason. The question is at what price? The sources consulted for this column provided a general framework. They said Kaepernick should think as though he's staring at $20 million over the next two seasons. That figure counts his roughly $1 million salary in 2014 and the projected $19 million cost for the franchise tag a year later. The 49ers would be enticing Kaepernick into taking about $15 million a year by front-loading the deal enough to dwarf the $20 million he might otherwise expect to receive through 2015.
That type of deal would give Kaepernick, 26, the financial security all young players covet, plus a chance to reach free agency again by age 30, when he's still in his prime years. The 49ers would come away with a franchise quarterback under contract for less than the market rate, which ranges from $18 million (Cutler) to $22 million (Rodgers).
"If you get to the $15 million range, you know you are taking care of him and you can make a big deal in the press saying Kaepernick could have held out for more, but, like Tom Brady, he wants to help his team," one of the agents said. "Instead of $20 million over the next two years, he gets $35 million guaranteed. Call it four years and $50 million, with $38 million in the next 12 months if they can eat up that kind of cap space early."
The former GM said he'd do a three-year deal for $40 million, with $30 million guaranteed. But he said he suspected a young and talented player such as Kaepernick would rather bet big on himself in 2014 than settle for a compromise deal. "He completes that pass against Seattle, they steamroll Denver and he is the MVP of the Super Bowl and they're talking Flacco money right now," he said. "If I'm him, that is what I'm thinking."
Of course, Flacco knew the Ravens could not realistically afford to use the franchise tag on him. The 49ers could use the tag on Kaepernick, although not without discomfort. "If I were his agent, I'd say he is only going to get more expensive as we go on," one of the agents said. "The fly in the ointment is that he had three turnovers in the fourth quarter of the last game he played. I'd speculate that nothing will get done this offseason."
The contract negotiator said he thought Kaepernick would have no reason to walk away from a two-year extension worth $45 million over the next three years, counting 2014. He thought the 49ers would be amenable to such a deal unless they thought they could win without paying big money for a quarterback. The negotiator noted that San Francisco has already reached extensions with most of its top players. Aldon Smith, Donte Whitner, Michael Crabtree and Mike Iupati could be in line for deals, but the 49ers can afford to be selective in some of those cases.
One of the agents said he thought 49ers president Paraag Marathe would slow-play negotiations in the short term. "The more I'm thinking about it, I think Paraag will try to get him at $15 million, dangle it all offseason, and Colin Kaepernick will get into the offseason drills and think, 'Should I play for $1 million now and kill it in 2014, or take the $14 million to $15 million a year as long as it's front-loaded?' That is the give and take."
What makes sense
Some NFL teams pay more for the position than for the specific QB. I thought that was the case with Cutler and the Bears, to some extent. Some teams pay for past production (see the New York Jets and Brett Favre a few years back), and others pay for potential. The Arizona Cardinals and Kevin Kolb come to mind, along with every team that used an early draft choice on a quarterback under the old labor agreement.
Paying big for any one of those traits in the absence of the others carries heightened risk. The 49ers are in position to pay for all three. Kaepernick plays the NFL's most important position and has produced at a high level, including in the playoffs. He has the potential to improve with seasoning.
The opportunity is right for the 49ers to secure their quarterback at a rate that only figures to increase. They certainly should draft a QB, regardless, because it always makes sense to invest in the position. But if they can sign Kaepernick to the type of deal outlined above -- say, three years and $45 million -- everyone can come out a winner while minimizing risks.
sucks they couldn't keep it in the neighborhood though.
