re: Is Brees really worth the money he's paid?

You are asking the wrong question. The answer to yours is yes because that's the market for his level of QB in the NFL. The proper question... Is the QB position so important you need to spend that much money. Teams are locking down too high a percentage of the salary cap on one player IMO. I don't blame the GM's because there would be hell to pay if any of those QB's walked out the door, someone is going to pay them what they want. Paying that much for one position makes winning much harder as you can't really spend elsewhere.

Look at the salaries, on average, of the SB winners. Typically it is QB's before they really cash in. Seattle is the favorite to win this year with a QB on his rookie contract. Once these guys get paid, you start either losing elite players, Nicks, replacing good players with poor replacements, Goodwin for De la Puente, and being handicapped on who you can sign in FA. It all then depends on the draft. It worked before with guys like Evans, Bushrod (can't believe I miss him) and Nicks. We've absolutely struck out on Charles Brown, Armstead isn't ready, and we haven't gotten a good pick in at C. I think our guards, obviously Evans is great, are plenty good enough. Brown and Strief desperately need to be upgraded.

So basically we had to pay an elite QB because we would have lost him otherwise. Our only chance at winning is by drafting extremely well to provide him with proper weapons. We are doing much better on drafting D, we need to really hit on the offensive side. You can win paying out the arse for an elite QB. I just think it is much more difficult as you have to depend on your evaluation of college players. If you miss on a position in the draft, especially Oline and WR, your elite QB is going to look like shite.