2023 has been a banner year for backup quarterbacks.
We’ve already seen a record 10 rookies step into starting roles, whether permamently by design or temporarily due to disaster. Not coincidentally, we’ve also seen a distinct downtick in scoring. NFL teams averaged 23.0 points per game in 2021. This year, that’s down to 21.8.
That’s left some teams looking for answers behind center. There’s no position more important to a football franchise than quarterback and 2023 has seen a lot of them struggle en route to disappointing campaigns and losing records. Veterans like Jimmy Garoppolo and Ryan Tannehill have already had their starting roles usurped. A few others have been bad enough to teeter on the edge of outright replacement.
Let’s talk about those bad quarterback situations, what went wrong and what could be next.
5
Derek Carr, New Orleans Saints
Waiting in the wings: Jameis Winston, Taysom Hill
There’s no panacea to the Saints struggles, but one thing has been clear. Derek Carr is roughly the same guy he was the last few seasons — the same guy the Las Vegas Raiders were willing to cut loose.
Carr’s 8.2 air yards per throw is roughly in line with the 8.1 he averaged between 2020 and 2021. Same with his sack rate (5.9 percent, just about where it was as a Raider) and passer rating (89.8 after averaging a 91.8 in Oakland/Las Vegas). This is all completely reasonable, unexciting football.
The Saints have asked him to operate in a quick hit offense that has seen his pressure rate drop alongside his average time to throw (from 2.7 seconds to 2.3 this fall). That’s been most noticeable for second-year wideout Chris Olave, who is catching more balls on way more targets this season but for fewer yards per game. His average catch distance is down from 11.6 yards downfield to 8.0, leaving him less effective in what looked like a breakthrough sophomore campaign.
As a result, the New Orleans’ passing offense has been … just sorta there. The Saints are undefeated when Carr throws multiple touchdowns but that’s only happened three times this season. He’s twice left games due to injury and, even when on the field, is the alpha of an aerial attack that ranks just 21st in expected points added per dropback at -0.004. Everything there is forgettable and inoffensive.
The guys waiting in the wings are the opposite of that. Winston is a mess, but there’s no denying the excitement he brings to the offense both good and bad. His arrival in Week 10 sparked the team’s first touchdowns of the game and took Olave from a 0-0-0 line to six catches, 94 yards and a touchdown. More importantly, four of those catches came at least 15 yards downfield — an element of the passing offense distinctly missing from Carr’s game.
Of course, Winston balanced out two touchdown passes with two interceptions in fewer than two quarters of play. He remains an unmoored cannon, firing indiscriminately and doing damage to whatever gets in his way. Hill exists as a perfect gadget play guy (four touchdowns his last four games) who is untenable as a full time … uh, anything.
Neither of these guys are consistently better than Carr, who is one of the highest-floor completely forgettable quarterbacks in the league. But Carr isn’t the one making his coaches watch through clasped fingers winging touchdown passes across his body like this:
literally only jameis winston pic.twitter.com/qMUMnqaW1B
— Hayden Winks (@HaydenWinks) November 13, 2023
So, with Carr ailing there’s a chance for replacement. Thus, he ends up on the list.
4
Zach Wilson, New York Jets
Waiting in the wings: Tim Boyle, still, somehow
Wilson isn’t going anywhere. The Jets had a chance to upgrade at quarterback at a low, low price before the trade deadline and didn’t. They could sort through the chaff remaining on the open market and probably come up with a moderate option and haven’t. Head coach Robert Saleh would like you all to know that his quarterback, currently the worst starter in the NFL, is actually pretty good thank you very much.
Jets’ HC Robert Saleh told reporters today that he’s sticking with Zach Wilson as his starting QB. “He’s actually playing pretty well,” Saleh said.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 13, 2023
Saleh’s belief aside — and honestly, if Wilson’s gonna have anyone in his corner that’s the right guy — this season has been a disaster for the Jets’ offense. By most traditional metrics, the third-year quarterback is merely disappointing and not disastrous. His 16.6 percent bad throw rate isn’t a top 10 worst number and he’s balanced out the third-highest pressure rate in the NFL (28.7 percent of his dropbacks) with a useful scrambling game. His completion rate and passing yards per game are both career highs.
These numbers, praise so faint they’re evaporating like McFly children even as I type them, are a lie. Wilson stinks. He is the worst starting quarterback in the NFL, non-Tommy DeVito division.
Wilson’s game is not defined by what he brings to the offense but what he takes away from it. Garrett Wilson’s route tree has been trimmed down to shorter, more manageable throws, leading to big numbers (thanks to non-stop targets) but declining yards per target (7.5 to 6.8) and success rates (47.6 to 45.3). He should be the Stefon Diggs providing a high tide for the rest of his passing offense but instead Zach only has a 72.3 passer rating when targeting him (down from 86.6 in 2022), which is criminal.
Breece Hall is averaging 1.1 rushing yards over expected (RYOE, an advance stat that measures a player’s output against what he’d an average runner would be expected to get in the same situation), which is third-best in the NFL. He’s averaging 4.9 yards per carry, which is barely a top 10 number, because he’s constantly stuck facing defenses compressed near the line of scrimmage because his quarterback can’t scare anyone downfield.
These are young studs who should be All-Pros but can’t be because they’re showing out in spite of their quarterback instead of in concert with him. And it’s going to have to stay that way because Saleh held tight at the trade deadline and, even if he quietly knows Wilson is butt, option B is Tim Boyle. Boyle may be better known as the holder of the most inscrutable seven-year NFL career in history and should not be taking meaningful snaps in any professional league in 2023.
So yeah, Wilson isn’t going anywhere. Thus, the Jets and their young studs will keep that low ceiling for at least eight more games. Brutal.
3
Whomever is taking snaps for the Atlanta Falcons
Waiting in the wings: Either Desmond Ridder or Taylor Heinicke
A Ridder injury gave way to Heinicke in a narrow Falcons loss. A Heinicke injury gave way to Ridder in a narrow Falcons loss. And on and on it goes, this thing of ours.
If this is an audition for the 2024 Falcons — and with just-OK draft position and a middling amount of estimated salary cap space for next season, it may be — it’s an underwhelming one. Ridder’s turnover problems (six interceptions, seven fumbles in eight games) gave Atlanta its own low key Daniel Jones experience. Heinicke arrived in relief, traded off excitement for accuracy and was mostly, overall, the same kind of frustrating quarterback as the man he replaced:
- Desmond Ridder’s passer rating through Week 10: 84.2
- Taylor Heinicke’s passer rating: 84.1
Hmm. It doesn’t help that everything about this Falcons offense is just sorta greasy and unappealing. Head coach Arthur Smith has three different recent top three picks at wide receiver, tight end and running back, respectively. They’ve combined for seven touchdowns in 10 games for a unit that barely cracks the top 25 in a 32-team league.
There’s little to like about this passing offense. Ridder is steadier downfield in a stodgy offense; he’s completed 54.5 percent of his throws of 10-plus yards vs. 38.5 percent for Heinicke. He’s also prone to absolutely backbreaking bad decisions that allow his team to win the yardage battle and lose the game.
Heinicke offers a higher floor and more proven production, but less accuracy and little upside for the future. We know who he is, and while Ridder hasn’t wowed the world at large and is 24 years old, he’s still got the higher overall ceiling even if his odds of scraping it are low.
That’s the conundrum Smith faces, though his job reportedly won’t rely on it. Team owner Arthur Blank is content to keep him for another season unless his players begin to tune him out. Still, this is a team that’s failed to maximize its draft investments because it can’t trust whomever is taking snaps. That’s what threatens to make 2023 another losing season despite a very winnable NFC South.
2
Brett Rypien, Los Angeles Rams
Waiting in the wings: Matthew Stafford (when eventually healthy), Carson Wentz
Things are going poorly if your team, in the year of the football gods 2023, signs Carson Wentz. Yet that is exactly where the Los Angeles Rams have wound up.
Fortunately for head coach Sean McVay, the Wentz signing appears to be solely for preparedness’s sake. Stafford is expected to return from the right thumb injury that kept him from the field in Week 9’s loss to the Green Bay Packers in time for Week 11’s NFC West showdown with the Seattle Seahawks.
This will help, because Rypien has been terrible. He’s completed less than 50 percent of his passes (18 of 38) and his 49.5 passer rating is fewer than 10 points higher than the default, toss every ball into the dirt rating of 39.6. It will not fix things entirely because Stafford, frustratingly, has continued a trend of injury-riddled regression in 2023.
2022 was an awful year for the Rams and served as a reset for a team that vacated its championship hopes and replaced the bulk of its starting defense. Stafford missed roughly half the season that year and saw his touchdown rate drop by more than 50 percent — from 6.8 (second-best in the NFL) to 3.3 (27th) when healthy — all while his interception rate remained static.
That’s continued in 2023. Through eight games Stafford has eight touchdowns (a 2.9 percent TD rate, just barely ahead of Bryce Young) and seven interceptions. His passer rating of 82.0 is his lowest in more than a decade. His -5.9 completion percentage over expected (CPOE, the comparison of a quarterback’s actual completion rate vs. what an average passer would be expected to produce in the same situation) is the worst in the NFL.
This is a problem! Stafford has a pair of dynamic wideouts, a useful young running back in Kyren Williams (when healthy) and a weak offensive line. Improvements up front could help restore his game, but his pressure rate is actually down significantly from 2022 (23.4 percent to 17.9) and he’s still been less efficient as a passer. There’s a reasonable chance his window of high caliber quarterback play is slipping away.
Stafford has salary cap hits of $49.5, $50.5 and $49.5 million over his next three seasons. Releasing him would accelerate at least $49.5 million in dead space onto the team’s cap in 2024 and $18.5 million if the team waited until 2025. Per Over The Cap, the Rams can create a little wiggle room through restructures, but the fact remains Stafford is locked in with LA through 2024 and moving away from him in 2025 will still be costly.
Rypien and Wentz aren’t the answer, but the Rams have to at least begin thinking of a contingency plan if Stafford’s third act in the NFL is as a below-average starter. He’s got eight games to prove he can still be the guy who earned a Super Bowl ring 21 months ago.
1
Mac Jones, New England Patriots
Waiting in the wings: Bailey Zappe, Will Grier, Malik Cunningham
Yeah, this? This cannot be allowed to continue unabated.
It’s that much worse on the A22. pic.twitter.com/kTTEqhlELo
— Mike Kadlick (@mikekadlick) November 13, 2023
Jones is a disaster. Playing with his third (or fourth, depending on how you measure the Matt Patricia-Joe Judge school of dysfunctional parenting) offensive coordinator in three years has left him unable to reach even the modest highs of his rookie campaign. His touchdown rate has dropped for the second straight year and his interception rate has risen in turn, best exemplified by the hot garbage seen above.
He’s attempting shorter passes than any other time in his career. He’s attempted 33 deep throws, per SIS, and completed four of them. Sure, his wideouts stink and his offensive line is a mess, but this is inexcusably horrid. This is so, so bad.
There’s no fix here. Bill Belichick has inserted Bailey Zappe into three different losses and gotten a 40 percent completion rate from the former fourth round pick. Cunningham, an undrafted weapon whose best case scenario appears to be as a Taysom Hill-style boogeyman, has six offensive snaps to his name this season. His one quarterback stat is a five-yard loss on a sack. Grier hasn’t thrown a regular season pass since 2019, where he compiled a 33.0 passer rating in two losses as a Carolina Panther.
With nothing to play for in 2023, this feels like a situation where Belichick will juggle quarterbacks and head into next year’s draft with a top three pick. The Patriots have the capacity to rise above the Chicago Bears (via the Carolina Panthers) and New York Giants in the draft order. Each remaining team on their schedule, barring the Giants, has at least four wins through 10 weeks and remains in the playoff hunt.
That’s pretty much the best New England can hope for at this point. Jones isn’t the answer and Zappe has taken every opportunity to grab the reins as a chance to hasten his own departure from the league. This is a mess, and there’s no way to fix it in 2023. But when each loss brings the Patriots closer to a potential franchise quarterback, well, things could be worse.
