A rookie quarterback has never won the Super Bowl, so when we’re talking about this season and expectations, this is a bit of a slower burn. This season is about the start of something and, especially when we’re talking about the 2024 campaign, the quality of an economic assessment made by a handful of different general managers. One could argue, as I have here, that as many as four of the six quarterbacks selected in the first round are not expected to be immediate starters. Indeed, Drake Maye, Bo Nix, Michael Penix Jr. and J.J. McCarthy all enter camp either clearly entrenched in a No. 2 position or with quality veteran competition (or some combination of those things), alongside a coach and a general manager who need to produce results and cannot wait for a rookie quarterback to develop.
So let’s keep that in mind as we enter this year’s rendition of realistic expectations for our rookie passers. New this year is a deeper background on the play-callers, which should help flesh out some of our reasoning and inform what we know about each individual situation as we head into training camp.
1. Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears (No. 1 pick)
Top weapons: WR DJ Moore, WR Keenan Allen, WR Rome Odunze, TE Cole Kmet, RB D’Andre Swift, RB Khalil Herbert
Coordinator: Shane Waldron
Coordinator’s resume:
• Play-caller, 2021 to ’23 (Seattle Seahawks)
• 14th, 10th, 11th, respectively, in net passing yards per attempt
• 31st, 15th, 17th, respectively, in passing attempts per game
• Run/pass ratios: 413/495 (’21), 429/573(’22), 382/575(’23)
Projection: 65% completion rate, 26 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 3,727 yards
Why: Waldron is a gifted offensive coordinator who, alongside Panthers head coach Dave Canales, led an offensive renaissance in Seattle that segmented quarterback Geno Smith’s strengths and built a playbook around his favorite throws and his strong suits. Despite Pete Carroll’s penchant for an incredibly balanced run/pass ratio, the Seahawks entrusted Waldron to unleash the team’s core of wide receivers. By Smith’s last year with Waldron, the Seahawks’ run-pass ratio was skewed beyond that of Russell Wilson during his final year with Carroll.
The baseline comp I used for this was Jared Goff’s sophomore season. These numbers are mostly in line with Goff’s first season with Sean McVay. Waldron was on that staff and would have had an active role in handing over the offense to Goff in very small pieces. I ratcheted up the number of interceptions Williams would throw versus Goff because I think he will have more freedom. I also think Williams’s completion percentage will be better than Goff’s because Waldron has been excellent during his latter years in Seattle building in high-upside, short-yardage completions.
Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders (No. 2)
Top weapons: WR Terry McLaurin, WR Jahan Dotson, TE Zach Ertz, RB Brian Robinson Jr., RB Austin Ekeler, WR Luke McCaffrey
Coordinator: Kliff Kingsbury
Coordinator’s resume:
• Play-caller, 2019 to ’22 (Arizona Cardinals)
• 22nd, 18th, 11th, 31st, respectively, in net passing yards per attempt
• 18th, 15th, 18th, 4th, respectively, in passing attempts per game
• Run/Pass ratios: 396/554 (’19), 479/575 (’20), 496/591 (’21), 434/664 (’22)
Projection: 62% completion rate, 18 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, 3,234 yards
Why: Kingsbury is an interesting figure because his Air Raid principles were curbed and molded by an offensive staff with more professional football experience. Over time, Kingsbury’s Cardinals began to look less like Texas Tech and more like a kind of Air Raid–McVay hybrid. After spending a season at USC alongside Lincoln Riley, Kingsbury is back in the NFL with a much different set of personnel and a quarterback in Daniels who does not demand any of the careful considerations that Murray did. At his disposal, Daniels has a great receiving corps but not the kind of outsized talent advantage—two of Daniels’s wide receivers at LSU went in the first round of the NFL draft in 2024—that he enjoyed in college. Instead, a Daniels offense will have to be built similar to the way Jalen Hurts’s early offenses were with the Eagles, or even Robert Griffin III’s early offenses in Washington.
So, I used Hurts’s first season as a kind of very raw baseline, adding a pair of touchdown passes but also increasing the number of interceptions given that Kingsbury will hopefully let Daniels rip and accentuate his deep passing ability. I also added passing touchdowns to the Hurts baseline because Daniels’s frame is far-more slender. He cannot be considered as reliable a factor in the running game and the hope is that he turns into more of a pass-first threat.
Drake Maye, New England Patriots (No. 3)
Top weapons: RB Rhamondre Stevenson, WR Ja’Lynn Polk, WR Kendrick Bourne, WR K.J. Osborn, WR Juju Smith-Schuster, TE Austin Hooper, TE Hunter Henry
Coordinator: Alex Van Pelt
Coordinator’s resume:
• Offensive coordinator, 2020 to ’23, OC/QBs ’23 (Cleveland Browns)
• 11th, 22nd, 20th, 24th, respectively, in net passing yards per attempt
• 28th, 28th, 21st, 5th, respectively, in passing attempts per game
• Run/Pass ratios: 495/501 (’20), 485/520 (’21), 532/540 (’22), 518/624 (’23)
Projection: 60% completion rate, 4 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, 295 yards
Why: As of the writing of this piece, Jacoby Brissett is the team’s starting quarterback. And while the door has been jarred open for Maye to win the battle, I wonder how much the Patriots are going to want to squander a valuable redshirt year when their only true goal is to look more alive and coherent than they did toward the end of the Bill Belichick era. Robert Kraft isn’t going to give up on Jerod Mayo after one year, so it makes all the sense in the world to press pause.
This is why it’s hard to put too much stock in the offense or the coordinator. Alex Van Pelt was not the play-caller in Cleveland and dealt with a massive amount of variance. His team pivoted from Baker Mayfield to Deshaun Watson, then to a host of rookie quarterbacks, then back to Watson without Nick Chubb and finally to Joe Flacco without Chubb. The vastly different situations made it hard to get a sense of who Van Pelt was and what, exactly, his mark on the offense was given that Kevin Stefanski brought the system with him from Minnesota.
Michael Penix Jr., Atlanta Falcons (No. 8)
Top weapons: RB Bijan Robinson, TE Kyle Pitts, WR Drake London, WR Darnell Mooney, WR Rondale Moore
Coordinator: Zac Robinson
Coordinator’s resume:
• Career-long assistant with the Los Angeles Rams (2019 to ’23) culminating in pass game coordinator/quarterbacks coach in ’23
• We won’t include Rams offensive metrics here because Robinson is a first-time play-caller. Obviously heavily influenced by his time with McVay, Robinson also had a four-year NFL career with stops in New England, Seattle, Detroit and Cincinnati, all of which could and will influence his play-calling style. Robinson also played in a wide open, spread-style system under two different coordinators at Oklahoma State.
Projection: Sits for his entire rookie season.
Why: Honestly, projecting any games played for Penix this season would also be projecting a Kirk Cousins injury and that’s not the kind of business I’m interested in. Penix was meant to be a slow-burn, developmental prospect who can also give the Falcons some contractual leverage when the guaranteed money on Cousins’s deal begins to wither. Still, Penix is firmly behind Cousins right now, there does not seem to be any interest in knifing open a training camp competition, and we’re simply left to wonder if the Falcons could clinch the division early enough to get Penix one Patrick Mahomes-style appearance this season as a kind of appetite-setter for the following few seasons. Obviously, his mobility and strength, along with his incredible deep throwing skills offer some serious upside. However, him playing a down this year would signal a major hiccup in the plan.
J.J. McCarthy, Minnesota Vikings (No. 10)
Top weapons: Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson, Aaron Jones
Coordinator: Wes Phillips (head coach Kevin O’Connell is the play-caller)
Coordinator’s resume*:
• Head coach, 2022 to present; non-play-calling offensive coordinator, Los Angeles Rams, ‘20 to ’21
• 13th and 10th, respectively, in net passing yards per attempt
• 3rd and 4th, respectively, in passing attempts per game
• Run/Pass ratios: 404/672 (’22), 393/631 (’23)
Projection: 62% completion rate, 640 yards, 5 touchdowns, 1 interception
Why: O’Connell is a former NFL quarterback who knows what it’s like to battle for reps in practice. Given that Sam Darnold is projected to take a majority of those critical reps, one could surmise that Darnold is being utilized as a kind of bridge quarterback for the 2024 season and the Vikings are planning on winning enough games to be out of contention for a quarterback in the ’25 draft, hence, taking McCarthy a year early and allowing him time to develop. Darnold is on a one-year, $10 million deal, while McCarthy is still very young (21), especially when compared to the rest of a seasoned ’24 rookie quarterback class, which we wrote about some here. Chances were taken on the likes of Nix because of his massive library of experience. McCarthy has far less of a baseline of experience and flourished under the notoriously quarterback-kind Jim Harbaugh. O’Connell is never going to put a quarterback in a bad spot, so my projection reflects some playing time but not enough to compile a massive sample size. Given O’Connell’s background, I’ve also built in a reasonably high completion percentage and low number of interceptions. When he does play McCarthy, I think it’s going to be in situations where the former Michigan quarterback can clearly build confidence. Again, if McCarthy is playing more than this, we’re looking at either Darnold withering, being injured or the Vikings simply being caught up in an unexpectedly poor season, all of which are entirely possible.
*Given that O’Connell has been the play-caller of his offenses in Minnesota, we’re using his numbers specifically.
Bo Nix, Denver Broncos (No. 12)
Top weapons: WR Courtland Sutton, WR Josh Reynolds, WR Marvin Mims Jr., RB Javonte Williams, RB Samaje Perine,
Coordinator: Joe Lombardi (Sean Payton, head coach)
Coordinator’s resume*
• Head coach, New Orleans Saints (2006 to ’21), Denver Broncos (’23-present)
• 10th, 5th, 12th, 26th, respectively, in net passing yards per attempt (last four years)
• 13th, 25th, 30th, 27th, respectively, in passing attempts per game
• Run/Pass ratios: 405/581 (’20), 494/522 (’21), 510/504 (’22), 451/513 (’23)
Projection: 68% completion rate, 1,987 yards, 9 touchdowns, 6 interceptions
I am predicting a nine-game season for Nix, who has competition in the form of Zach Wilson and Jarrett Stidham, both of whom have more experience running an NFL offense. In this scenario, the Broncos play quarterback roulette as they try to find some consistency. Without Drew Brees, Payton has juggled passers and was the first coach to really try and develop a Swiss army knife like Taysom Hill. I’m not saying this is a sign of impatience, but it is an acknowledgement that he likes a lot from his passers and, if he can’t get it in one package, he’s going to manufacture it in pieces. Payton, though, has a lot of pressure on his shoulders this year. As coaches of his generation are phasing out, and the mystique of so-called offensive geniuses or quarterback whisperers are coming undone once those whisperers lose their generational quarterback to which they whisper, he has to show his ability to mold a rookie quarterback for the first time in ages. While Payton did work with Tony Romo from 2003 to ’05, the breadth of his experience has been with a generational, Hall of Fame player in Brees. Also, Romo was not a full-time starter until ’06.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as 2024 NFL Rookie Quarterbacks: Realistic Expectations and Projected Stats.
