We live in a world where good quarterbacks are rare and get paid as such. It makes sense — teams with a great roster but even mediocre QB play usually meet their doom eventually during the regular season or early on in the playoffs (see: the Chicago Bears).
There are some outliers to this narrative (2015 Denver Broncos, anyone?), but over the past two decades, we’ve seen that most Super Bowl winners get to the top of the mountain on the strength of good play from their signal-callers.
Because of this idea that you can’t win without a top-tier QB, the NFL has seen the price of quarterbacks skyrocket over the past few years.