Patrick Mahomes just received the largest contract in NFL history (and arguably the largest in professional sports history). While the Chiefs will not be hamstrung by his contract in 2020 since Mahomes will only have a cap hit of 5.3 million, they will quickly feel the pain as his cap number goes to 24.9 million in 2021 and 31.5 million in 2022.
In this study I am going to try to answer a simple question: Does paying a QB an oversized chunk of your teams cap hurt your chances of winning? In other words, if you spend too much on your QB you will not be able to spend money to retain other key members of team or have the money to sign top free agents.