The Elephant in the Room
January 28, 2019
by Steve Thomas
It’s not exactly breaking news to say that Alex Smith’s unfortunate and tragic injury has really put the Redskins in a bind for the 2019 season. I hope that he makes a full recovery, if nothing else for his quality of life and so he can have the means to fully enjoy himself irrespective of football. His injury, suffered on November 18, 2018, in the third quarter of the Texans game in week 11, was without a doubt one of the most gruesome sports injuries you’ll ever see. While his performance last season wasn’t going to win any awards, the fact of the matter is that the season fell apart after he went down. Considering that Smith was photographed at a Wizards game with a huge, ugly-looking Darth Vader-like contraption on his leg[1] just last week, two months later, it doesn’t seem very likely that Smith will make it back in time for the start of the 2019 campaign, or at all. The very latest rumors are that the Redskins are quietly preparing for that possibility.
Smith’s 2018 season
It’s inarguable that the Redskins were better with Smith than without him. When he went down, he had 205 completions in 328 attempts, a 62.5% completion percentage, 2,180 yards, 10 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, an 85.7 quarterback rating, with 6 wins and 4 losses. In the first 9 games of the season (not including the Texans game), the Redskins averaged 19.6 points scored per game. In the six games without him, the Redskins were just 1 – 5 and averaged 14 points per game. The Redskins quarterbacks who replaced Smith (Colt McCoy, Mark Sanchez and Josh Johnson, not including Tress Way’s one pass on the fake punt in week 17) had 105 completions on 180 attempts, 57.7% completion percentage, 6 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions. McCoy’s 78.6 quarterback rating was the highest among those three. Certainly, there were a myriad of reasons for the win – loss record other than just the quarterback, but the point is that if you don’t think Smith was a massive upgrade over the rest of the folks who manned the helm, you weren’t paying attention.
The contract
Smith’s contract is a serious issue for the team going forward if he can’t play next season. Our salary cap page can be found here. If things stay as is, then Smith counts for $20.4M against the salary cap in 2019, with a dead cap hit of $36.6M in the event he’s cut under the pre-June 1 designation. If he’s cut under a post-June 1 designation, he counts as $20.4M in 2019 and the balance in 2020. Assuming he’s still on the roster in 2020, he’ll have a cap hit of $21.4M and have a more manageable but still huge dead cap figure of $20.25M.
Retirement counts essentially like a cut, so if Smith cannot play due to his injury and is forced to retire, the full amount of the dead cap money will come due. The only way the Redskins get out of Smith’s contract is if he voluntarily retires, as his contract has a provision that voids his guarantee if he voluntarily retires. In other words, he’d be giving up tens of millions of dollars by voluntarily hanging up his cleats this offseason if he can still play. That’d be a crazy thing to do, so don’t expect it to happen.
Technically speaking, Smith can be traded, but his injury obviously makes that a nonstarter. Even if a team was dumb enough to trade for a player with Smith’s injuries, the Redskins would lose $1.2M by trading him prior to June 1. Only a trade after June 1 would result in a savings to the Redskins ($15M), but, again, Smith is 100% untradeable as is.
The Redskins could try to restructure Smith’s contract to limit the 2019 cap hit, but that would require Smith to cooperate by, most likely, converting guaranteed money into a future year roster bonus in order to limit the short-term cap hit. Smith has a very complicated contract, so other methods are possible, but the bottom line is that any restructure would require Smith’s cooperation, and he doesn’t have much motivation to do so until his health picture is clear.
The most likely scenario is that Smith remains on the roster next year but cannot play for at least a part of the season.
Colt McCoy is the only other quarterback on the roster in 2019. His contract comes with a $3.375M cap hit, which puts the Redskins at $23.775M already committed to the quarterback group in 2019 without adding anyone. We don’t know the exact salary cap limit for next year yet, but assuming that the cap is in the neighborhood of $190M, that gives the Redskins approximately $20M in cap space when the team’s 2018 rollover space is included. The $23.775M represents about $12% of the total available cap space. As a rough guide, no team generally goes over about 15% cap space for their quarterback group. Assuming the Redskins are willing to go up to 15% – which they may not be – that leaves in the range of about $5M in salary cap to add to the quarterback group before they reach that limit if Smith’s contract isn’t restructured. Even if the Redskins could save significant money via restructuring – and again, in my view, Smith doesn’t have good reason to do so right now – we aren’t talking $15M of savings in 2019. It won’t be enough to sign a top of the market free agent without going way over the rough 15% limit.
The options
With Colt McCoy being the only healthy quarterback, bringing in another quarterback isn’t an option. It’s a necessity. There are options through which to accomplish this even with the Redskins salary cap-dictated limitations.
The Redskins could draft a quarterback this year. In fact, they’d be fools not to do so. All rookie draft picks have a pre-determined slotted contract value, so we already know that the Redskins’ first round pick in this coming draft, which is #15, comes with a salary cap hit of $2.6M next year. This means that Washington could draft a quarterback in round 1 and any lower round without fear of putting the salary cap balance out of whack. We have a detailed draft preview column on quarterbacks coming in the next few weeks, so I won’t turn this into a draft pick analysis column; suffice to say that the Redskins supposedly talked to essentially all of the quarterbacks at the Senior Bowl this past week. Sports Journey’s Lake Lewis stated on The Hog Sty last week (listen here) that the Redskins will probably be conservative in their quarterback selection in the draft. We’ll have much to say about the draft in the weeks to come.
Signing a free agent is possible, but this year’s class of quarterbacks is lightly regarded. The only proven starting quality players on the open market are Tyrod Taylor, who was with Cleveland last season, and Teddy Bridgewater, who spent 2018 with the New Orleans Saints. Taylor just finished a two year, $30.5M contract with a $10M base salary and $16M cap hit in 2018. Bridgewater played the 2018 season on a 1 year, $6M contract. Both would have to take pay cuts – in Taylor’s case, a very substantial one – in order to be within the rough price range that Washington could realistically afford. That’s possible but not likely given that the market for quarterbacks is usually strong, although Taylor had a poor year before being replaced by Baker Mayfield, and Bridgewater barely played given that future hall of famer Drew Brees was healthy all season. Would Bridgewater accept another one or two year contract with a cap hit at less than $5M? Only if there’s no market at all for him except the Redskins. My guess is that at least one team will be willing to offer Bridgewater a large multiyear deal of some sort. We’ll see.
Eagles quarterback Nick Foles may or may not be available this year. The Eagles must opt in on his contract for 2019, at a cost of $20M in base salary, within one week of the Super Bowl. If the Eagles opt in, Foles can then void his contract within five days of the Eagles’ decision by repaying $2M of his 2018 bonus. If Foles hits the open market, he should command a full value long term contract that is way, way out of the Redskins’ price range. His agent won’t let him void his Eagles deal unless he knows that such a contract is coming. Hypothetically, the Eagles could at that point franchise tag Foles and them try to trade him to a quarterback needy team. No matter what happens, his required 2019 cap figure will be dramatically out of the Redskins’ price range.
Other quarterbacks who will be available on the open market include Ryan Fitzpatrick, Josh McCown, Matt Schaub, Robert Griffin III, Brock Osweiller, and Matt Cassel, none of whom being an improvement over a potted plant, and a host of other even more undesirable types, who would all be cheap but none of whom belong anywhere near the Redskins’ roster.
Ravens’ quarterback Joe Flacco and his $26.5M cap hit will almost certainly not be back in Baltimore next season. He has a $16M dead cap figure, which means the Ravens can cut him, but they will probably try to orchestrate a trade before resorting to cutting him. The Redskins cannot trade for him due to his enormous 2019 salary cap figure. The odds of Flacco being cut and his market value small enough that the Redskins could afford him are remote.
The Jacksonville Jaguars will probably want to move on from Blake Bortles, either via trade or otherwise, but he obviously isn’t a quality starter and (if traded) has a $21M cap hit for 2019. The Dolphins are supposedly tired of the Ryan Tannehill Experience and could look to move him, but his cap hit is also way out of the Redskins price range for a trade.
A couple of slightly off the radar candidates to serve as a developmental backup are Davis Webb, who was with the Jets this season, the Colts’ Brad Kaaya, and Nick Mullens with San Francisco, all of whom have some talent but are but who will be exclusive rights free agents and would therefore probably require compensation of sort from the Redskins to bring to DC. The Jaguars’ backup to Bortles, Cody Kessler, is a decent prospect with some experience and one modestly-priced year left on his contract. Perhaps Jacksonville could be convinced to part with him for a mid-round pick. Nick Saban’s first boy wunderkind, A.J. McCarron, was the backup in Oakland last season. He also has one low-priced year left on his deal. McCarron was traded to Oakland last offseason via a 5th round pick, so if the Redskins were willing to do better, Oakland could possibly persuaded to let him go.
As you can see, Washington’s options for bringing in a proven veteran aren’t good. The most realistic option beyond McCoy who isn’t completely terrible is probably Ryan Fitzpatrick, who has played for seven different teams in his career and definitely isn’t a long-term solution. The truth is, though, that either McCoy or a draft pick is probably best for the 2019 Redskins. My recommendation to you is to expect little on the quarterback front; that way, so if something great happens, you can be surprised.
[1] Yes, I know it’s actually called an “external fixator” that is bolted into his bone. I just like the Darth Vader thing better.