I did the same thing after I posted. I didn’t take it as far as you did, however. I was quite surprised to see that the Steelers still have an outside shot at the #1 seed.
As a casual fan, it does seem that there is a lack of good QBs in the “prime” age range. There’s the old veterans in their late 30s to 40s like Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Rivers, and Roethlisberger. There’s a bunch of young guys like in their early to mid 20s like Mahomes, Jackson, Watson, Mayfield, Jones, Murray, Burrow, Lock, and so on. But there seems to be a lack of quality QBs in their late 20s to mid 30s. Russell Wilson is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. That probably explains what’s going on with QB contracts.
If we look at the QB classes by year, who would now be in that age range, we see a lot of guys who either didn’t pan out at all, were promising but got hurt, or who wound up as journeymen. Other than Wilson, I’d put Stafford, Carr, and maybe Tannehill in the “quality QB” camp (Newton and Dalton belonged on that list at one point, but probably not any longer), but I agree, there wound up not being many lasting stars from those years.
Listed below are QBs who were drafted in the first three rounds in the years 2009-2014. (source)
2009
Matthew Stafford
Mark Sanchez
Josh Freeman
Pat White
2010
Sam Bradford
Tim Tebow
Jimmy Clausen
Colt McCoy
2011
Cam Newton
Jake Locker
Blaine Gabbert
Christian Ponder
Andy Dalton
Colin Kaepernick
Ryan Mallett
Terrelle Pryor (supplemental)
2012
Andrew Luck
Robert Griffin III
Ryan Tannehill
Brandon Weeden
Brock Osweiler
Russell Wilson
Nick Foles
2013
E.J. Manuel
Geno Smith
Mike Glennon
2014
Blake Bortles
Johnny Manziel
Teddy Bridgewater
Derek Carr
Jimmy Garoppolo