so i disagree:
-first of all i forgot to address your other point about the 5th year option. you seem to position it as a 100% certainty that tua will have a year that will only increase his market value. that is factually incorrect. of course there is a chance he has a year that decreases his market value. he either gets hurt, his performance regresses, or maybe more of the same which is he plays poorly against the better teams, which eventually also degrades his value. it is reasonable to argue about the probabilities of each thing happening. you would probably ascribe a much higher probability to the value enhancing case than i would. fine. but i also warn you that humans tend to be overconfident. i wouldn't go much higher than 60-65% even if I was bullish as you are on tua. a lot can happen. look at what just happened with jalen hurts, daniel jones, herbert, and heck even joe burrow. daniel jones obviously would not get that deal now, burrow probably would, i doubt hurts would, and herbert is a big question mark. there is an old statistics question which is something along the lines of "give me a range for the length of the nile river that you can be 99% confident is correct." to be 99% confident, the answer should be something akin to "between an inch, and the circumfrence of the earth." anyway given where I am on the probabilities, for me the math is make him play out the 5th year option. if tua has the home run year, and proves he is an elite playoff game winning QB that can elevate the team on his shoulders, and we have to pay more for him, i am happy to pay up knowing i have a greater degree of certainty that he is worth it. i put value on that information. i also put value on having the option to pay him alot less if he gets hurt again or does not perform at the level we hope he does. that is my view of the math. i understand you disgaree, which is fine. but again, my point is there are two sides to what can happen to his value this year. it can go up, it can go down. it is decidedly not a one way street.
-when you say value is a function of skill and performance, yes and no. value is a function of other teams view of the players skill and performance. their view may not be the same as your view. these other teams all gave those QBs those deals, because they felt that if they didnt do it, the players would only get more expensive over time, and another team would be willing to hit the price. similar to your view on tua. were they right? lets keep it simple, in the giants case, obviously they were not. nobody is paying their QB for charitable reasons. they are doing it because they believe in the QB, and they think the early deal will be cheaper than waiting the QB out. sometimes they are right, sometimes they are not. the chiefs and bills got it right with allen and mahomes. others clearly made bad bets. what i do know is the view of the rest of the NFL on tua is not nearly as positive as your view. it comes up constantly on finheaven. a national pundit calls tua a "system QB" or "limited and QB #15 in the NFL" and people on finheaven go nuts about it. it is fine to disagree with what the national pundits say. but it is also folly to dismiss what they say. it is data. it is an indicator of how tua is thought of around the NFL. my view is that the rest of the NFL does not put tua in the same category as burrow, mahomes or even herbert. they have him a notch or two below those guys. therefore my belief is there is nothing to force miami's hand to give tua the $55mm deal. if he doesnt get it from us, he wont be getting it from anyone else either. it is like when you buy a house. if it is listed for $100k and you like it, and think it is worth $200k, and the next best offer is $101k, you dont offer the $200k, you offer $102k. and to be honest, we know what miami says about tua, but we dont know what they really think about tua. the good news is, at some point we will find out. i am still of the view something gets done, it will be healthy, but it will not be a top of the market deal
