Earlier this year, Brock Osweiler, the hand picked successor to Peyton Manning in Denver, decided to turn down a huge salary with a championship caliber team to follow a slightly higher pay check to Houston to join the Texans.
The Texans haven't really had a franchise quarterback since someone had a problem with Matt Schaub in one of his down years and shipped him off to Oakland.
Why is it a bad decision?
On Chasing the Money:
NFL Players make their business decisions for a ton of reasons. As fans, we tend to lose sight of the fact that NFL teams are businesses, because of our almost tribalistic fervor for our teams. Some times, these decisions mean that they chase money. Now, I don't blame them. I hear a lot of NFL fans complain whenever there is a collective bargaining agreement issue, or a player holding out. They all pretty much say the same thing, "These players get paid so much money, I don't want to hear them complain about only getting a few million while I'm bringing home 40k a year!"
In my mind, this thinking breaks down when one looks at the average career length of a player, 3 years, and the average salary of a player, something like $1.9 Million . The point is, they train majority of their lives, and the highlight of those lives will most likely be over by the time they are 30. Unless they are a quarterback who is good enough to be a long-term starter, or even back up, they don't have long to cash in.
A lot of things have to fall into line to ensure a player's success in the NFL. Politics, just like everything humans are involved with, run rampant. Does the coach like the player? Does the player fit the scheme? Who's "guy" is the player? If a coach leaves and certain players were drafted under that regime, it could cause issues for that player's career. Examples of this are Colin Kaepernick after Jim Harbaugh left for Michigan, or Tim Tebow after Josh McDaniels left Denver. These players had their issues, but the coach who wanted to work with them was no longer there to be the chief proponent and adapt schema to their strengths.
Specifically, for a quarterback, as important as a scheme, is how good the defense is. If a defense is solid, a team can win a Superbowl without amazing quarterback talent. Trent Dilfer comes to mind. A great defense is the foundation of a solid team. Look at Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. And, during the early Tom Brady years, it was the Patriots defense that stood out. Tom Brady is great, but young Tom Brady was not as good as we now know him to be. Defenses that make opponents scared take a lot of pressure off quarterbacks and can help a young quarterback to succeed. Denver has one of these defenses, right now. And Brock Osweiler walked away from that for a couple million more a year. After taxes that isn't much in the overall scale of the money about which we are talking.
Furthermore, quarterbacks, fairly or not, get the credit for the wins and the blames for the losses. Right now Osweiler has a few wins under his belt. But, he is by no means a solid starting quarterback. The most similar case of which I can think is Matt Cassell, who took over after Tom Brady went down with a knee injury. Cassell performed well with the Patriots, but since then, he has played for the Chiefs, Vikings, Bills, and Cowboys. He is always somewhere between a starter and a back up and doesn't ever perform as well as his potential suggests.
Had Osweiler signed the three year contract in Denver, he may have been able to have any of his deficiencies as a start covered up by the defense while he became a better QB. After three or four years, with a winning record, due to his defense and his increased skill, he could have commanded a Joe Flacco like salary on the open market. He could have stayed in Denver and been the answer to Peyton's absence.
Instead, he went to the Texans. To be fair, the Texans were a good looking squad this year. However, years of watching the Browns fail utterly at life, and the Bengals get booted from the playoffs in their first game, I believe that some organizations are doomed to fail because of the personnel/ownership in the higher places in the organization. (Read: San Diego Chargers, Browns, Bengals, Raiders, Cowboys after 1995, San Francisco 49ers after Harbaugh, Detroit Lions). The Texans barely made the playoffs in the weakest division in football. This expansion team has a lot to learn as an organization, and Osweiler gave up the world in his hand to become the most recent horse in the Texans' quarterback carousel.
Post Script: Found this article, which if nothing else, seems to confirm my fears for the Osweiler-Texan relationship. The one hope for the Texans is their new head coach, Bill O'Brien. And no one really knows how a good college coach will end up performing as an NFL Head Coach, but O'Brien bringing the Texans to the playoffs in his first year is a good sign. But, this article outlines how O'Brien signed Osweiler without being able to have a real conversation with him.
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000648634/article/obrien-wants-to-meet-free-agents-before-they-sign
