Welcome to the weekly edition of QB Room. Let’s get this season started with the NFC’s pressing quarterback questions.
NFC East
Is this the Dak Prescott finale in Dallas?
With the CeeDee Lamb extension in the books, Prescott’s extension will be the cloud hanging over the franchise until there is some kind of resolution. Cowboys ownership has said publicly there is no ticking deadline on the deal but it’s highly unlikely that Prescott will reach an agreement once the season begins.
With the extension decks now clear of the Lamb talks, Dallas can now focus solely on Prescott until Week 1 kickoff on Sept. 8. While I don’t think it’s a great sign that a Prescott deal didn’t get done while the team was in Oxnard for training camp, I do think the order of affairs were designed to get Lamb’s extension done first. So technically, a Prescott deal is still on the anticipated schedule.
For those seeking optimism beyond the Lamb deal getting done, fans can also take heart in Trey Lance having showcased in the preseason that he’s nowhere near being a starting NFL quarterback. That five-interception exhibition finale should be a not-so-gentle reminder to ownership of what it could be like going back into a quarterback-needy abyss.
One other thought that should be suggestive that an extension is coming in the next 10 days: There is no clear Plan B at the position for Dallas in the event Prescott leaves in free agency. Any promising scenario is going to cost assets and money, and still have a significant element of risk (see Denver’s trade for Russell Wilson in 2022). The obvious move with the least amount of risk is still signing Prescott to an extension. Just like it has been for the past year.
Is Daniel Jones starting the season in danger of getting benched?
Jones certainly did nothing in his limited preseason action to suggest that he has a stranglehold on the starting job. The Giants’ first-team offense got beaten up in joint practice with the New York Jets, and Jones’ lone preseason game against the Houston Texans featured a pair of interceptions. Frankly, it was fair to contemplate if New York should have started Jones in the preseason finale just to give him a chance to put something good out there heading into the regular season. Then again, Jones looked superb in his lone preseason game last year, and we saw how little that meant once the games began counting.
The one thing Jones has going for him is that backup quarterback Drew Lock has an equally poor overall record as a starter and currently doesn’t present much hope as a long-term answer, either. But there’s more weighing on the Jones situation than just his on-field performance. He has $23 million in injury guarantees for the 2025 season, which presents some risk for the Giants if Jones is mediocre and the team plans to move off him after the season, especially coming off neck problems and a torn ACL. As it stands, the Giants could save nearly $20 million off next year’s salary cap if Jones is cut loose before next season. That’s something they’ll have to mull if they get off to a poor start or Jones can’t quickly turn a corner.
Can adding Kellen Moore and Saquon Barkley get Jalen Hurts back on track?
For the third straight season, Hurts has a different play-caller holding the reins of the offense. That’s not great, especially as evidence continues to mount that his 2022 offensive coordinator, Shane Steichen, might have been the secret sauce behind Hurts’ development into one of the best young quarterbacks in the league. Brian Johnson didn’t get it done, and something about the chemistry between Hurts and head coach Nick Sirianni seemed to go awry. This is what Moore was hired to resolve and Saquon Barkley was signed to cushion. One consistent play-caller and one dynamic weapon to balance the scheme and take some pressure off Hurts’ shoulders.
Some of the priorities in the offseason have been evident, with a more decisive Hurts appearing to get the ball out of his hands faster on throws, while also still showcasing his explosive running ability. And yes, he’s supposedly seeing the middle of the field more. Of course, his health will factor into what Moore can ultimately do with him, too. Hurts was clearly not 100 percent healthy down the stretch last season, which altered some of the explosive playmaking traits that were so evident in 2022. Now? He looks fresh again.
It remains to be seen what the loss of center Jason Kelce will do to the offensive line’s stability, and if the Eagles will use Barkley as much as they supposedly intend to do.
Will the Commanders be able to protect Jayden Daniels?
Daniels didn’t play much in the preseason, but the little bit that he did looked special. In many ways, what he showcased at LSU in 2023 as a passer, runner and playmaker appears to have translated well to the NFL. That’s the good news. But at least a part of it is also the bad news. Daniels took physical risks to make plays happen in college, and he looks like he’s not going to change that style anytime soon. That puts a lot of pressure on the Commanders to pull him back at times and also figure out how he can best be protected.
There’s no getting around the reality that the Commanders’ offensive line is still in the process of both a talent and chemistry build. And it’s already getting complicated by injuries, as the Commanders’ likely starting left tackle, rookie third-round draft pick Brandon Coleman, has been slowed by a pectoral issue since mid-August. It’s already dicey depending on Coleman for such a massive protection assignment out of the gate in his first NFL season — and now it’s pushing off into the season with missed preseason reps. Add Coleman to the signing of left guard Nick Allegretti and center Tyler Biadasz and you’ve got a heck of a lot of chemistry fluidity to work out. New offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury is likely going to have to scheme some movement for Daniels to help him at times … not to mention depend on the running game a lot.
NFC North
Can Caleb Williams transform the Bears into this season’s Houston Texans?
I should preface this question with a little reality: C.J. Stroud wasn’t entirely responsible for the Houston Texans’ turnaround during his rookie season in 2023. But his playmaking and efficiency was certainly the team’s driving energy on offense, and having a budding star at quarterback seemingly lifted every corner of the franchise. Given Williams’ titanic level of talent, it’s fair to wonder if he might be able to galvanize the entire organization with a brand of QB excitement it has never experienced.
Despite so many of the offseason headlines being devoted to the Bears’ offense, I’m not quite sure people outside of Chicago fully appreciate how loaded the skill positions are surrounding Williams. The top three wideouts — DJ Moore, Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze — could end up in the running for the best trio in the league. The tight end room has depth, and the running backs have the versatility to pound and finesse opponents. So long as the offensive line can come together (and I’d be a little worried about right guard Nate Davis), Williams could be positioned for one of the best rookie quarterback seasons in NFL history. Maybe even better than the numbers Stroud put up one season ago.
Will Jared Goff thrive under Super Bowl expectations?
I love what Goff has become in Detroit. He has been everything the team could want from a leadership centerpiece, and his output is once again reaching his best levels as a Los Angeles Ram. That said, he’s now stewarding a Detroit Lions team that arrives in 2024 in a vastly different place. One year ago, they were an upstart franchise with fun Super Bowl potential. Now that potential has been replaced with the target of being expected to be among the NFC’s elite, right alongside the San Francisco 49ers. Make no mistake, they are getting circled on every opposing calendar. Beating Detroit now means something, so the Lions can expect every team’s “A” game from week to week.
That kind of scenario puts leadership at a premium, especially at the quarterback spot, where elite players often have an ability to bring a sense of calm and confidence to an organization. How Goff leads the Lions out of the gate will matter, especially after losing underrated “glue” guy Josh Reynolds from the wide receiver room, and needing 2022 first-round pick Jameson Williams to step up and consistently produce in a No. 2 receiver role. If Williams can do that, and second-year tight end Sam LaPorta can build on an All-Pro rookie season — and Amon-Ra St. Brown can simply replicate his All-Pro season from 2023 — the soon-to-be 30-year-old Goff may still have some ceiling left in his game.
Rarely does everything go right in the NFL. Especially under intense expectations. How Goff responds to unavoidable adversity will deeply impact Detroit’s season.
Can Jordan Love continue last season’s red-hot finish?
Most are asking if Love can live up to that staggering four-year, $220 million extension he signed in July. That’s a question that will take several years to answer. For now, a good start would be picking up where he left off in 2023, which saw him put together a flawless finish from mid-November to a second-round road playoff game that had the San Francisco 49ers on the ropes. In the nine games prior to that playoff loss, Love was dealing heat from the surface of the sun, posting an absurd 21-to-1 touchdown pass-to-interception ratio. If you want to know where his eye-popping extension came from, it was that expanse of the season.
Now Love has to prove the Packers right, after they wagered an astronomical piece of capital on his short résumé of excellence. Of course, he’s not alone, guiding along a deep and talented group of skill position players. But that group is also very young — especially at the wideout and tight end spots — so it’s also going to be very important to see how many teammates can ascend to the next level alongside Love. As much as Love could spread the ball around, he’s going to need to find a consistent go-to No. 1 and No. 2 wideout combination from the quartet of Romeo Doubs, Christian Watson, Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks.
Does Sam Darnold have a Baker Mayfield resurrection in him?
One year ago, I assumed Mayfield’s career was completely cashed out despite his earning the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ starting job entering the 2023 season. My rationale? NFL quarterbacks rarely bounce around and then put their career onto the right rack with their fourth different team. But Mayfield did exactly that with the Buccaneers, so I’d urge at least a teaspoon of caution for those who are expecting nothing more than mediocrity from Darnold’s attempted resurrection with the Vikings.
Like Mayfield in 2023, this is Darnold’s fourth team. And also like Mayfield with the Buccaneers last season, Darnold will be overseeing the best trio of pass catchers he’s ever had as a starting quarterback (Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J Hockenson). He’s also in his second year in a Kyle Shanahan-type scheme, which is usually when quarterbacks start to see some good traction in that offense. Yes, Darnold locked down this starting job by default after the season-ending injury to rookie J.J. McCarthy. But he also turned 27 in June and still has time to make something of his career. Did we mention he’s a free agent after this season? He’s the epitome of a quarterback who has every reason on Earth to play his butt off in 2024.
NFC South
Will Kirk Cousins be healthy (and play well enough) to stifle a QB controversy?
You might as well affix this question to Cousins as long as he’s the starter for the Falcons and first-round draft pick Michael Penix Jr. is his backup. It’s simply part of the deal now in Atlanta — and exactly what the franchise asked for when it added both quarterbacks in the same offseason. Much like we saw with Atlanta’s surprising decision to expose Penix to only one preseason game, the “what does it mean?” dynamic will be debated following virtually every decision made with the two players. All of that said, there is an underlying reality with Cousins that has to be recognized. A lot is expected from him inside the organization.
Cousins’ story in Atlanta is not about holding off Penix. Instead, it’s about making that $100 million in contract guarantees justified. And he does that by getting the most out of the considerable offensive talent around him, winning games, propelling the Falcons to the top of the NFC South, and driving Atlanta into the playoffs this season and beyond. If Cousins does all that, the Penix chatter will settle down and everyone will focus on the results. But first and foremost, Cousins has to step onto the field and show that he has fully recovered from last season’s ruptured Achilles. He can’t play well if he can’t play healthy. And if he’s neither healthy or playing well, this entire situation will get very messy very fast.
Can new head coach Dave Canales reboot Bryce Young?
In 2022, when Doug Pederson took over the Jacksonville Jaguars, everything in the organization was measured through one lens: Could he get Trevor Lawrence onto the right track after a fairly disastrous rookie season? Seven years ago, in 2017, Sean McVay was asked a similar question during his hiring process with the Los Angeles Rams when it came to Jared Goff. And Kevin Stefanski in 2020 with the Cleveland Browns and Baker Mayfield? Same scenario. From time to time, offensive-minded head coaches are hired to fix a failing quarterback who was drafted with the No. 1 overall draft pick. This is how I am absorbing Canales’ hiring in Carolina. Surely he was hired to do many things … but none of them are more important than what he accomplishes with the 2023 draft’s No. 1 overall pick, Bryce Young.
If you don’t think the Panthers’ entire 2024 season is summed up by that priority, you must have missed the preseason game against the Buffalo Bills, when a solidly sharp game by Young was called a “hell of a day” by Canales and punctuated by a measured sigh of relief from the Panthers fan base. Canales is tagged with being the “whisperer” behind the career years of Geno Smith in Seattle and Mayfield in Tampa Bay. He was hired to accomplish a similar feat with Young, who still has ample time to get up and running in the NFL.
It’s worth noting, the Panthers have exponentially less offensive line and skill position talent than Seattle or Tampa Bay in Canales’ seasons guiding quarterbacks in those franchises. His work in Carolina is a far steeper climb.
Will Derek Carr fend off a lurking “bridge quarterback” label?
I’m not sure any quarterback (aside from Kirk Cousins) has been more historically productive and also been easily dismissed as consistently as Carr, who posted extremely respectable numbers in 2023 — 3,878 passing yards on a 68.4 percent completion rate, 25 touchdowns vs. eight interceptions, and a 97.7 passer rating. Yet here we are, going into 2024 and wondering if the Saints are sitting on the future of their team in fifth-round draft pick Spencer Rattler, a rookie quarterback who had some nice preseason flashes largely against guys who won’t be on NFL rosters in two weeks. More than ever, this is feeling like Carr’s ending with the Las Vegas Raiders, when it seemed like he was holding the top QB spot for a player to be named later.
I have no idea what Carr will do in 2024 for the Saints, but I do know that his age (33) and his dead money charge in 2025 ($50.1 million) are going to become the most prominent parts of the conversation around him from this season forward. For all intents and purposes, the dead money layout suggests Carr is going to be the starter in New Orleans through 2025. And for that very reason, I think he’s going to be viewed as a bridge QB, either to Rattler or another young addition next offseason, until his time with the Saints concludes. Of course, Carr can still impact that situation, but it will take a career year in 2024 — exceeding his career-high of 32 touchdown passes — to convince the outside world that he’s anything more than a placeholder. Aside from fading running back Alvin Kamara and long-term building block wideout Chris Olave, I’m not sure Carr has the surrounding cast to make that happen.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Can Baker Mayfield achieve season-to-season consistency without Dave Canales?
Since being taken with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, Mayfield’s most consistent quality has been his season-to-season inconsistency. It’s what motivated the Cleveland Browns to trade Mayfield to the Carolina Panthers in 2022, and then for the Panthers to release him later that season — only to see a brief stop with the Los Angeles Rams eventually turn into a much-needed reboot with the Buccaneers in 2023. The underlined message on his career was that he could never stack two straight seasons of consistently high-level play. You could blame that on injuries or surrounding talent or staff changes, but the fact was Mayfield’s career was in a quagmire that couldn’t seem to be escaped.
The Buccaneers were hopeful that could be achieved in 2024 with Mayfield returning on a contract extension under offensive coordinator Dave Canales, who played a big part in getting the quarterback’s career back on track last season. Unfortunately for the franchise, Canales’ talents drew the attention of division-rival Carolina, who hired him last January to help fix its own quarterback problems. Now the Bucs have turned to Liam Coen, who was the offensive coordinator for the Rams for one season in 2022, when he briefly worked with Mayfield. It’s not the deepest of histories, but Mayfield seems to have some level of trust in Cohen from their previous work.
NFC West
Can Kyler Murray settle in as a franchise quarterback?
It’s Year 6 for Murray and we’re still waiting for him to get his traction as one of the league’s cornerstone quarterbacks. The Cardinals’ coaching staff and front office sure seem to think he’s on the doorstep of that moment, although it’s hard to tell if they’re simply coaching Murray up or he’s really turned a corner. He has Marvin Harrison Jr. and Trey Benson added to the skill positions around him, and Trey McBride looks like he’s ready to join the league’s top tier of pass-catching tight ends. But this is as much about Murray as it is the guys around him.
He has been a far more present part of the team in the offseason than in past years, which is a change the new staff wanted to see happen. The next step? His availability during the season.
Murray hasn’t had a decently healthy season in a long time. Since suffering an AC joint sprain in 2020 — his second season in the league — Murray has had an array of health issues that have either caused him to miss games or significantly impacted his play. He has missed portions of the past three seasons with an ankle sprain, a hamstring strain and finally, the ACL tear at the end of the 2022 season that caused him to also miss portions of 2023. That has to end if Murray is going to get on track and turn the corner on consistency.
Los Angeles Rams
How much prime does Matthew Stafford have left?
With Stafford slated to turn 37 in February, we’ve crossed into the territory of realistically wondering about two timelines: How much time does he have left in the league, and how much of that time will still look like “prime” Stafford?
He has missed 10 games over the past two seasons with injuries, and hasn’t replicated his high level of play in 2021. Part of that has been due to an offensive line rebuild and the running game being retooled, but it’s also fair to question whether we’re ignoring the first phases of slippage that (aside from Tom Brady) typically become more noticeable in a quarterback’s late-30s. Stafford may still have a couple elite years left, but the Rams recognize that they are now in a zone where they have to maximize every single season.
It was interesting to see Stafford play hardball to essentially get his 2025 salary guarantees bumped into the 2024 season, effectively putting him onto a one-year, $40 million deal this season. You can look at that move two ways. If you think Stafford is going to be around longer, then it appears he basically set himself up for another contract negotiation this offseason, where he would likely look for a short-term (2-3 years) deal that would net him at least two more years of fully guaranteed money and take him to the end of his career. Conversely, if you think Stafford is leaving the door open for retirement, then his adjusted deal crammed as much money as possible into this season for his last hurrah.
Both of these scenarios are in play, and Stafford’s health and performance in 2024 will make the decision for him.
San Francisco 49ers
Is Brock Purdy’s choppy training camp without Brandon Aiyuk cause for concern?
I feel like we learned last year not to get concerned about Purdy’s preseason practice interceptions. He had a spate of them last year and everything turned out just fine. But there is an added bit of angst overall with the missing element of Aiyuk and the general curiosity of what the 49ers’ offense is going to look like coming out of the gate if the team’s leading receiver isn’t on the field. Clearly, Purdy was taking a lot of chances in practice this preseason — including risks that he’s far less likely to take once the season kicks off. But it also seemed to lead to some less than stellar performances in his two brief preseason outings, including the exhibition finale against the Las Vegas Raiders that saw Purdy throw an interception.
It’s odd that the Aiyuk deal isn’t done by now and seemingly everyone is frustrated, including the teams that inquired about trading for him. And the Cowboys’ deal with CeeDee Lamb came in at numbers that aren’t going to make Aiyuk’s negotiation any easier. If it doesn’t get done by the time the season starts, Aiyuk’s hold-in will likely become a holdout, with him leaving the team once the season starts. After that, the offensive performance and Purdy’s numbers will get a very intense microscope put on them. And that has to have some in the organization white-knuckling it right now.
Seattle Seahawks
Is Geno Smith playing for his job in 2024?
The money says Smith is basically on a pair of one-year deals starting this season. Releasing him next offseason would save the Seahawks nearly $25 million against the salary cap, which is usually a natural pivot point for a 34-year-old quarterback who isn’t playing exceptional football. Smith was good in 2023 but not great. He fell off a little from his breakout 2022 season. You have to wonder how much he was impacted by the departure of Dave Canales, who joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as their offensive coordinator and resurrected the career of Baker Mayfield. Given that reality, this will be a bit of a prove-it year in 2024 to convince Seattle that he’s worth the $38.5 million cap commitment in 2025.
It’s that reason that I think Sam Howell is a bigger threat here than some might think. He was acquired in the offseason in a package deal that sent a third-round draft pick to Washington, which should have been the first signal to everyone that this wasn’t Seattle just casting a line for an experienced backup. Howell has two years left on his rookie deal, which positions him to learn the offense in 2024 and potentially compete for the job, then stick around in 2025 in what would likely be a prove-it season if a switch is made.
Then again, Howell could take the job from Smith at some point in 2024 and head to the negotiation table for extension talks if he has the requisite success. With the younger, cheaper player in-house and Smith needing to regain that high level 2022 traction, this is going to be something to watch.
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