With seven weeks of the NFL regular season behind us, the haze is starting to clear. Draft positions are far from locked in, there is a pronounced handful of bottom-dwellers that have a real shot at the top two or three picks in this year’s draft and there’s enough time before the trade deadline to actually do something about it.
I am certain that talking about this is something that would aggravate the daylights out of a coaching staff. Except for the Panthers, who would require a run of absolutely historical proportions to right their season, no one feels like it’s over for them and no one will behave like the season is over. Just this past week, for goodness’ sake, the Patriots beat the Bills. The Broncos beat the Packers. The Giants beat the Commanders. If anyone is “tanking,” they are doing an incredibly bad job of it. That said, the trade deadline should help reveal some ultimate intentions.
So we’re taking every team with two or fewer wins at this point in the season and ranking them based on how fun it would be if they continued to lose enough to warrant one of the top two picks in the draft. (Of the nine teams that fit the bill, we are leaving out the Chargers, who we think are set long-term at quarterback, and the Panthers, who owe their first-round pick to the Bears.) This exercise was a lot easier a week ago, when it looked like our opinion on a few bad teams—cough, Chicago—was a bit more straightforward. Quarterbacks from Shepherd University are going to do that to you every time.
Nell Redmond/USA TODAY Sports (Maye); Gary A. Vasquez/USA TODAY Sports (Williams)
We’ll be talking about what, in particular, having Caleb Williams or Drake Maye would do for the franchise and why it would be a blast to watch. We’re also identifying some obviously tradeable pieces that could aid in their process of getting a top-two pick, should that be of interest to them.
Speaking of changing perceptions, Williams has had two of his worst games under the spotlight at USC each of the past two weeks, in losses to Utah and Notre Dame. He or Maye will still undoubtedly be the prize at the end of this process, but it just shows how quickly life can change and how muddy a picture can become in a matter of a few weekends.
7. Green Bay Packers
Why we want them sitting at No. 1: Based on the fact that they are No. 8 on this list, we don’t. The Packers have been so blessed at the QB position, and while a lot of that is due to their own foresight and scouting methods, the NFC is a lot more fun with them playing at the line of mediocrity. It would be an obvious fit, of course. Williams has a great deal of Aaron Rodgers in his game, and I think he would excel in an outside-zone-themed system. There is little doubt that what Williams is running could be easily imported by Matt LaFleur. Similarly, Maye has the build of someone who could withstand the Green Bay weather and play a beautifully prototypical quarterback, almost in the vein of a souped-up Daniel Jones with way more upside.
What assets should they sell off at the deadline?: I think the Packers are more likely to hoard talent. This isn’t a roster with the luxury of being able to ditch players who can stay on the field and contribute. Their 2024 free-agent class includes AJ Dillon and Rashan Gary, one player I assure you would not draw much of a market and another who should be considered franchise cornerstone.
How Caleb Williams would change the franchise: The pick would certainly be an indictment on Jordan Love, who played well at the beginning of the season but hasn’t sniffed a triple-digit QB rating since Week 2. The Packers have been in a sort of wait-and-see approach with Rodgers’s heir apparent. This has by no means been fair to Love, who was very much a No. 2 quarterback for most of his career and now, without the same offensive line or receiving corps, is expected to perform at the upper limits of the scheme. I think Love is worth keeping around, but losing enough games to find yourself at either No. 1 or No. 2 would make that decision for you. Could you get anything in return for him?
6. Tennessee Titans
Why we want them sitting at No. 1: I would like the Titans to have a first-, second- and third-round pick at quarterback on the depth chart at the same time and see Mike Vrabel throw the three of them into the Hunger Games during training camp. I think part of our excitement here is based on an outdated perception of the Titans offensively. Back when Derrick Henry was routinely clubbing folks in a downhill outside-zone offense, sure, plug any quarterback into the equation with a higher upside than Ryan Tannehill and we’re talking about a team that possibly could’ve made the Super Bowl in 2021 instead of the Bengals. Now the quarterback will define the identity. The Henry offenses were innovative and effective at the peak of everyone’s powers, offensive line included, but it’s time to reimagine the Titans. Williams or Maye would force them to do that fairly instantly.
What assets should they sell off at the deadline?: In our very primitive Madden-playing minds, it makes sense to ship off Henry and DeAndre Hopkins, and wait for the sweet draft equity to roll back in. The problem with that? I don’t know how much desire there is to trade top picks for either. Kevin Byard was by far the most valuable player who could be had, and he was traded to the Eagles on Monday. He was, at one point, one of the best defensive players in the NFL under Vrabel’s watch. The return, fifth- and sixth-round picks plus Terrell Edmunds, shows a willingness to move more. However, is it worth it for that paltry a sum?
How Caleb Williams or Drake Maye would change the franchise: Having a cost-controlled QB option for Tennessee, a franchise oft interested in saving a buck or two, would be a major step for the Titans to take aim at a playoff run in 2025. Vrabel can attract veterans to supplement a roster, especially if there is early promise. The challenge between then and now is replenishing the talent pool around the quarterback. Williams or Maye can do only so much with the roster as presently constructed.
5. Denver Broncos
Why we want them sitting at No. 1: This has been a season of recycling recent, flag-raising comments made by Sean Payton, so it would be fun for one of the more paranoid, the-league-is-out-to-get-me coaches to get questioned over his previous comments on Williams. Ultimately, we’d want them at No. 1 for the theater of it all. They would have to get rid of Russell Wilson and come to terms with the scattershot team-building process that forced them to endure a one-and-done coaching tenure in 2022, and have to pay a coach at the very top of the market in ’23 to “fix” the problem. Outside of giving Wilson a percentage of ownership and a cubicle in marketing, there isn’t an easy way to make his contract simply disappear. A rookie quarterback would have to endure some dead-cap-eating years ahead, which, as we’ve seen in a few other places, doesn’t often mean optimized, well-balanced rosters.
What assets should they sell off at the deadline?: Here’s the team we’re most watching, and what happens should be emblematic of the power dynamic moving forward. In Jerry Jeudy, Courtland Sutton, Justin Simmons and Garett Bolles, there are a handful of young players who are good enough to return some capital. The question becomes, if you’re Denver, are these guys worth getting rid of at the expense of a quarterback who will almost certainly not be Wilson next year (should they go down this path)? To Wilson’s credit, he is playing better, but an optimal Russell Wilson isn’t much more than an every-now-and-then winner right now. Once in a while he can put a team on his back, but Payton didn’t come out of retirement to babysit a stagnant garden. This team is shooting for a résumé-padding Super Bowl at some point, and Wilson isn’t getting them there. So, we will see how much Payton is able to offload assets in favor of cheaper players who can help them stay competitive while Wilson’s dead money erodes. Of course, we’re seeing the absolute cap jungle Payon left behind in New Orleans, which is something the Broncos need to be aware of.
How Caleb Williams or Drake Maye would change the franchise: Either would get Denver out of the mercenary business and into a more proper growth timeline where the team can reset its roster, take stock of what it has and build around a player. It would also provide the irresponsibly high level of hope that Payton has found another Drew Brees whom he can operate with and design an offense around. It would be refreshing for the Broncos to know who their quarterback was on a year-to-year basis, have that player cost less than $50 million per year and not cause an audible groan at the mention of his name. Just getting out from under that boulder would be major progress.
4. Arizona Cardinals
Why we want them sitting at No. 1: We are in a bit of a quarterback depression in the NFL now. Scoring is down, and I feel it’s due in equal parts to the widespread usage of hard-cap, umbrella-style defenses; the prevalence of more intermediate throwing; and the popularity of both rookie quarterbacks and rental-type quarterbacks in big-time starting roles. I don’t know what Kyler Murray would look like in a scheme without Kliff Kingsbury, but I would like to find out. I would also be curious to see what would happen if Kingsbury’s former team earned the No. 1 pick and Kingsbury was positioned alongside Williams as assistant at USC (obviously, Arizona could prefer Maye, and this would no longer be a discussion). While the NFL doesn’t work this way, there is the kind of nebulous idea of whether a team deserves a franchise quarterback. Certainly, New England, after having one for two decades, doesn’t deserve one, but I’d like to see the Patriots find another nonetheless. Same for the Giants. The Bears, more than any team on this list, probably deserve one if we’re talking in terms of sheer tortured fan bases. Arizona, while distanced from previous regimes, is still an organization with a tricky history for how it’s treated players, and certainly how it’s treated coaches and quarterbacks (to be clear, I’m not lumping the current coach and general manager into this). So from a 30,000-foot perspective, part of me would enjoy seeing ownership learn a hard lesson. But, I do think that Jonathan Gannon and Drew Petzing’s crew deserve a big-time creator under center.
What assets should they sell off at the deadline?: The Cardinals have a few tradeable names, such as tight end Zach Ertz and safety Budda Baker. Running back James Conner’s contract is up in 2025 and, thus, he would offer an acquiring team an additional incentive for signing him. We all know how poor running back depth is at this time of year. I would guess, outside of the culture-specific pieces Gannon wants in place for next year, that any person not nailed down is available. The question becomes what they will get in return.
How Caleb Williams/Drake Maye would change the franchise: A quarterback would give Arizona all kinds of flexibility. For what it’s worth, when I poked around on Gannon and Murray during the preseason, the response was that the coach loves Kyler. He wants to make it work with Kyler. Would Arizona trade the No. 1 pick? Man, I doubt it. Would that kind of trade haul do more for the Cardinals’ roster over the long term, assuming Murray is on board, jells with this new staff and plays like a top-10 quarterback? Absolutely. Those are big assumptions, though. In a nutshell, the No. 1 pick would give the Cardinals flexibility. It would give them breathing room, just like it gave the Bears a year ago. There would be a tremendous amount of pressure on the front office to get this right either way, meaning adequate compensation without cap destruction in a Murray trade or a monstrous return for the No. 1 pick (remember, Arizona also has Houston’s first-rounder from the trade made on draft day in 2023).
3. New York Giants
Why we want them sitting at No. 1: While social media has, in a way, eliminated the idea of massive media markets ruling the sport (Kansas City may be the most notable team at the moment, while both L.A. franchises are barely recognizable to their own locals), there is an undoubtable energy to a draft when the Giants are picking within sniffing distance of a possible generational quarterback. Williams or Maye would, at least from the outside looking in, represent an upgrade over Daniel Jones and would help the franchise out significantly from a cost-saving standpoint. Jones’s best physical attribute, his toughness, earned the Giants a playoff berth in 2022 but has contributed to his tumultuous ’23. While his movement skills are a weapon, he is not the kind of quarterback accustomed to making that an essential part of his game. All that said, it makes sense for Jones to possibly bridge the Giants into the future. The NFL is better when the Giants are better. I know plenty of Cowboys fans who would disagree with that sentiment, but having one of the league’s oldest and most important franchises in lockstep with a firebrand like Williams or a potential system-expanding quarterback like Maye, is one step closer to the franchise returning to the consistent relevance of the Tom Coughlin era, which, again, was great for everyone. Coach Brian Daboll has made the most out of quarterbacks at many stops. What could he do with his hands on a QB he picks himself?
What assets should they sell off at the deadline?: The Giants’ 2024 free-agency list is notable on paper: DE Leonard Williams, RB Saquon Barkley, CB Adoree’ Jackson, etc. The problem with a lot of these big names is that they will garner rental prices in return, unless, like the Giants and Williams initially, perhaps one franchise hopes to skip the line in free agency (although Williams isn’t that kind of player anymore). New York’s ’25 free-agent class is less attractive. At this point, it would be about the Giants’ own internal calculations and the quality of the offers they receive. Could they beat a return of picks they’d get from the compensatory draft pick system, or are they better off allowing these players to hit free agency and stockpiling their draft picks organically? It’s easy for us to sit here and say that there are a lot of big names sitting around who would not likely help the Giants in the future, but will someone call GM Joe Schoen and offering a second and a fifth for Barkley? I don’t think so. Christian McCaffrey netted a second-, a third- and two fourth-round picks with less baggage on the injury front and a wider breadth of scheme fits. The idea of a team dealing a first-round pick for a running back is toxic. The only way I could see the Giants’ netting a haul is by capitalizing on the desperation of a few hoarding teams. Along those lines, though, are the Giants going to deal with teams like Philadelphia or Dallas? One would assume not.
How Caleb Williams/Drake Maye would change the franchise: The Giants are an international commodity when they have an elite quarterback. We know this. While neither of this year’s top passers can replicate the marketing juice of someone born into Manning Inc., there is plenty of buzz on Williams and his plans to change the way we think about a quarterback’s value and visibility. I like that the Giants aren’t afraid to reach for these personality types, as evidenced by the Kayvon Thibodeaux selection in 2022.
The acquisition of one of these quarterbacks would complicate life temporarily, given that Jones will be on the roster for at least the 2024 season. In the long term, it would give them a chance to take some time and build an offense that can sustain itself and grow with new personnel instead of surviving as a kind of stopgap. As we’ve written, the Giants were in need of a hard reset, which was delayed due to their success a year ago.
2. Chicago Bears
Why we want them sitting at No. 1: Pure and simple: chaos. That’s why we want the Bears to pick No. 1. Obviously, the 0–6 Panthers are not on this list because the Bears own Carolina’s first-round pick. If Chicago lands the top two picks, it would have to cause a complete and total organizational standstill. Would they trade any of the picks? What could they get for Justin Fields? Who would be making the picks? Do they trust GM Ryan Poles, who has actually done fairly well in the draft, especially at the back end? If they are going to make a change, would they take the unorthodox step of shifting their front office before the draft despite the existing folks’ having compiled most of their relevant scouting information? Would they keep the coach? Would they keep the offensive coordinator? Who would they hire if not? Landing the first two picks in the draft, where the Bears could wind up with a combination of Williams and Marvin Harrison Jr., or Williams and Laiatu Latu? I like these moments because ownership can’t simply run and hide. I’m not suggesting the Bears’ ownership group will do this, specifically, but I am saying that owners have perpetually had the ease of blaming ill-fated decisions on the people picking the players and calling the plays. This would be an absolute glass house of intrigue. Bears ownership would be in charge of either the second professional sports organization in U.S. history to have the top two picks at the front end of the draft—the 1992 Colts selected Steve Emtman (!) and Quentin Coryatt (!!)—or the spearheading of a kind of asset flip on the scale of the Herschel Walker trade.
What assets should they sell off at the deadline?: The Bears are not short on tradeable players—CB Jaylon Johnson, S Eddie Jackson, WR Darnell Mooney—but I do think this is a situation that has to be handled delicately. As we saw when the Panthers emptied the cupboard before trading for Bryce Young, the resulting product was so poor that it stymied the growth of the quarterback. Chicago’s roster isn’t terrible. It’s a team that has faced some difficult circumstances both on and off the field. If the Bears end up with the first two picks in the draft, or two of the first three picks, they’ll have the unbelievable luxury of holding on to most of their core assets and not needing to shed assets to improve their position.
How Caleb Williams/Drake Maye would change the franchise: I think any time you can stabilize the quarterback position with a developing roster, you are going to see steady growth. The Bears remind me a bit of the Jaguars in that the talent is in the “Phase 2” process, where there are some top-end, NFL-caliber pieces but there is still another foundational draft and targeted free-agency period to go before we can pencil them in as any sort of contender. After swings and misses on Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields (for the sake of this exercise, at least), this franchise desperately needs to snap out of the malaise and jettison into a new identity. Getting the quarterback and, perhaps, the wide receiver out of Ohio State, could have a Joe Burrow–Ja’Marr Chase–type effect on the team.
1. New England Patriots
Why we want them sitting at No. 1: I mean, are you kidding? Kliff Kingsbury goes to USC and steers Williams toward New England and Bill Belichick, where Kingsbury started his career as an NFL quarterback. The Patriots have, for the first time since drafting Drew Bledsoe No. 1 in 1993, the kind of historic, collegiate star player who comes into Foxborough with backbreaking expectations. Because of the Patriots’ dynastic run, Belichick and Robert Kraft were never picking high enough to land themselves a true blue-ribbon quarterback prospect or even a player at a different position who carried such gravitas. I like the Patriots’ picking No. 1 for so many reasons. The presence of Williams could immediately change our perception of the franchise, which has fallen into bare-cupboard status. The arrival of Williams or Maye would either indefinitely prolong the Belichick era or take it to an expedient finish. We would always wonder whether Belichick’s preseason leading up to the 2023 kickoff was among the most elaborate, under-the-table tanking efforts in NFL history and whether this was his plan all along. We would silently wonder whether Kingsbury, too, was somehow in on the fix. We would also salivate over the idea that Belichick would trade out of this pick and end up making his first selection—a blocking tight end from Ouachita Baptist—at pick No. 41, ready to roll with Matt Gutierrez as QB1 on opening day ’24.
What assets should they sell off at the deadline?: The Patriots this year remind me a bit of the Texans during the David Culley season (2021). This is a team that, in theory, should be a seller at the trade deadline, but the question doesn’t hit us until it’s too late: Who is shopping there? TE Hunter Henry, TE Mike Gesicki, S Kyle Dugger, RB Ezekiel Elliott and CB Jalen Mills are their “big” free agents of ’24. LB Matt Judon, DT Davon Godchaux and CB Jonathan Jones are coming up in ’25 and could add more value. In theory, Judon would be a bit on the older side once a team with a rookie quarterback is ready to compete.
