Mark Madden: NFL teams are overpaying underachieving quarterbacks, crippling their franchises

Jordan Love signed a four-year extension with Green Bay worth $55 million per. That ties him for highest average annual value among quarterbacks.

Tua Tagovailoa signed a four-year extension with Miami worth $53.1 million per. That puts him fourth in average annual value.

Neither Love nor Tagovailoa has played in a Super Bowl. Neither is likely to.

Same goes for Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence, who is tied with Love and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow at $55 million AAV.

Why do teams spend extravagantly to retain quarterbacks who aren’t in the class of their new paychecks?

Because they’re the devil they know. Who else are they going to get?

It’s why Dallas ultimately will re-up Dak Prescott for northward of $60 million per. He’s incredibly overrated: 2-5 in playoff games.

These idiotic contracts have the full backing of the ex-athlete sports media, who think everybody deserves “the bag” even when they don’t. Especially when they don’t.

The Steelers are spending just $5.6 million on their quarterback room. That’s just over 2% of their total cap.

Compared to teams with “elite” quarterbacks, that gives the Steelers about $50 million more to spend on the rest of their roster. Yet they somehow still don’t have a No. 2 wide receiver.

I back the Steelers’ method, however haphazardly they stumbled onto it.

I’m also not sure any of their quarterbacks are any good. But it sure beats giving Kenny Pickett a lucrative second deal.

Then again, how much will Justin Fields want to re-up for? He’d probably fumble the pen before he signed the contract.

Here’s how NFL teams should handle the quarterback position: Draft a quarterback in the first round. That starts the cycle.

If, in the first four years of his contract, he’s Josh Allen, Burrow, Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes, pick up his fifth-year option.

If, in that fifth season, he confirms he’s Allen, Burrow, Jackson or Mahomes, negotiate a long-term deal.

Coming close doesn’t count. Don’t be fooled into hoping. You have to know. Your quarterback has to be truly and obviously elite.

If your quarterback is real close, but you’re not 100% convinced, franchise him for a year. Even two. Like Washington did with Kirk Cousins in 2016 and ’17.

You have a four-year window to find out. You can finagle it to five, six, even seven.

The minute you cut bait on that quarterback, draft your next quarterback. Renew the cycle.

Play your quarterback as a rookie. Find out. Don’t draft long-term projects.

If there’s no quarterback suitable to draft, sign a veteran for a year. Don’t go expensive. It’s good to finish 5-12 once in a while. The Steelers should have done that in 2019 when Ben Roethlisberger popped his elbow.

It makes no sense to give out Love money or Tua money or Lawrence money if your quarterback isn’t nailed-on elite. You don’t get what you’re paying for, and the cap hit weakens the rest of your team.

If your quarterback holds out or holds in, that’s OK. If he skips games, he misses game checks and becomes the bad guy. Exercise your control.

Sure, your fans are going to complain if you let your quarterback walk.

But, using Tagovailoa for an example, some Miami fans are already complaining. The complaints will get louder when he fails: “How could you give him that kind of money?”

Not signing Tagovailoa would make for less expensive complaints. Because he won’t win anything significant. And the rest of the Dolphins roster would be better.

Few of the top quarterbacks are worth what they’re making. Except Burrow at $55 million per, Jackson at $52 million per, Mahomes at $45 million per and Allen at $43 million per.

San Francisco would be crazy to give Brock Purdy what he’s going to want when his contract expires after the 2025 season. Purdy would go somewhere else and go splat. He was Mr. Irrelevant in the 2022 draft for a reason.

I bet the 49ers don’t spend crazy on Purdy. If Purdy is reasonable, he can continue to quarterback a great team.

Green Bay brags about its great lineage of quarterbacks dating to Brett Favre and now extended with Love succeeding Aaron Rodgers. But they’ve won two Super Bowls in that time. Two Super Bowls in 33 years.