A little over two years ago, when the Miami Dolphins signed Ndamukong Suh to a staggering deal loaded with $60 million in guaranteed money and worth over $19 million per season, an exasperated NFL executive spoke to Yahoo Sports and asked a pointed question.

“So what do we pay quarterbacks now?”

Welcome to the latest part of the Ndamukong Suh ripple.

The Oakland Raiders have made quarterback Derek Carr – with one winning season and zero playoff games under his belt – the NFL’s highest-paid player. By all accounts, this is an aggressive forward bet: Carr is 26 years old and has spent three seasons putting up video game stats; he’s the ascending centerpiece of a franchise moving to a new market; and he’s a top-end quarterback in a positional market that was due to move north.

All of that said, it would be ignorant to not to see Suh’s place in this.

When the defensive tackle smashed the financial market for an unconventional position, it reset the league’s compass in top-tier salaries. Most especially, it altered the future of top quarterback pay in the NFL – which until 2015 had arguably seen stunted growth when compared to other elite positions.

Then came Suh’s monumental payday, sending a memo to the NFL’s agent community. If an elite defensive tackle was worth nearly $60 million in guaranteed money and an annual salary over $19 million, the top-15 quarterback market (and especially the top-five) was about to go on a financial run.

Now the first two mega-deals since Suh are officially in. First was the Indianapolis Colts’ Andrew Luck setting a new ceiling in 2016 with his five-year, $123-million deal (including $87 million in practical guarantees) and a per-year average of nearly $24.8 million. Then. Thursday brought Carr’s five-year, $125 million extension, which will ultimately come in lighter on guaranteed money ($70 million according to a league source who told Yahoo Sports the majority of that will be paid out in the first three years). Carr’s per-year average for new money will effectively be $25 million.

View photos Derek Carr has thrown 81 touchdowns vs. 31 interceptions in his three seasons. (AP) More

But here’s what’s important in the sauce: Carr is not yet definitively the NFL’s top quarterback. And there’s an argument he hasn’t yet cracked the top five. But like Ndamukong Suh before him, he is striking his deal inside a perfect storm of circumstance, and now an entire class of quarterbacks is going to benefit. The Detroit Lions Matt Stafford in particular, as he will likely outpace Carr’s deal in total value, total guarantees and per-year average salary. All of which should make Stafford the next player to take the baton as the NFL’s highest-paid player.

Boiled down, it means that when Stafford’s deal comes in, three quarterbacks who are not considered the best player at the position – Luck, Carr and then Stafford – will all have taken turns as the league’s highest-paid “per-year” player. And it’s no coincidence that they’ve all happened since Suh.

In the wider view, it’s also important to note that it has occurred during an era when the salary cap jumps have spun up premiums on all elite-level players (not to mention backup quarterbacks). But it can’t be discounted that Suh’s deal in 2015 cemented a piece of leverage for agents to work with, one that has played across the board for other players as well (see Denver Broncos pass rusher Von Miller, whose representation heavily leveraged the Suh deal in their negotiations).

In the long view of history, the Suh deal has a chance to be seen as the deal that signified the busting of the NFL’s free agent market – almost a trigger of sorts that spelled out where money was going for the upper class of free agents. But maybe most especially for elite quarterback deals, which haven’t broken out the way top-end money has for almost every other NFL position. That’s about to change, to the point that it’s almost certain that some rancorous negotiation is going to deliver a $30-million per-year quarterback in the next few seasons.

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