NFL: QB Carousel: Who needs a new quarterback in 2019?

The NFL season is in the second half of the season, and that also means an honest look in the mirror. For some, the focus is already shifting towards Free Agency and Draft, others are still fighting this season. But with several teams it becomes more and more clear: A new quarterback is needed! SPOX highlights the most shaky and potentially interesting quarterback situations in the NFL.

The weeks immediately before the start of the current season were unusual: for the first time in a very long time, the quarterback situation seemed to be more stable with all 32 teams in mind than it has been for a very long time.

All franchises had either a clear superstar quarterback like Brady, Rodgers, Brees, Rivers, Ryan or Roethlisberger, a young, up-and-coming quarterback like Wentz, Goff or Watson, an established starter like Dalton, Cousins, Tannehill or Alex Smith – or they had a very young (quasi-)rookie to which Patrick Mahomes would have been added. And even question marks like the Chiefs-QB or Andrew Luck developed more than just positively.

Of course not every single one of the 32 QB situations was perfect; but at least every team could list arguments why there is no need for action at the moment on the position. A rarity in the NFL and accordingly this impression should not last long.

So there are several teams at the start of the second half of this Regular Season, where it seems clear: A new starting quarterback is needed – sooner rather than later.

There are some very exciting teams where the situation is still open and the respective starter will be on the hot test by 2019 at the latest. No franchise fits better into this description than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Jameis Winston, a turnover-prone Jameis, was the worst-case scenario from Bucs’ point of view after the suspension; Winston played so badly that head coach Dirk Koetter, who was fighting for his job, was forced to let Ryan Fitzpatrick start again.

In the short term an understandable decision – at least in the medium term Winston is the answer. This seemed to have finally come true in the second half of last year’s season, then came this season. So what would be a likely scenario? Tampa can still hold Winston next year over the option for the fifth year of his rookie contract and would charge the cap for it with $20.9 million, still acceptable for a starting quarterback.

It is likely that after this season there will be a new coaching staff in Tampa, who will get a year together with Winston. If things go wrong, there will be a new quarterback in 2020. If Winston 2019 is still a Buccaneer, he will play for his job without any question.

Theoretically, this would be a possibility that could also be imagined in Dallas, in an absolutely extraordinary situation: Dak Prescott had his best season as a rookie by far, since then he has deteriorated considerably. This can be partly explained by external circumstances, but is also individually the case as far as Prescott’s game is concerned – especially for a quarterback this is an elusive development that makes it difficult to predict Prescott’s future.

Team owner Jerry Jones has publicly announced at the beginning of the week (for whatever reason) that Prescott is getting a new contract, so the cowboys here are asterisked. But Prescott’s development is at least worrying.

For Raiders quarterback Derek Carr it is not even the individual development but rather the constant problems and the strong dependence on the circumstances that stand out. Even in 2016, his best NFL season so far, he had problems with pressure – an extremely fast short pass game and a very good offensive line made sure that he could often act from a clean pocket.

This theme runs like a red thread through Carr’s career, and whoever observes Jon Gruden’s radical upheaval in Oakland can ask himself: how much does he like Carr? Or does he rather see it as a temporary solution until he finds his desired QB in the draft next year or the year after next?

The 27-year-old still has a contract until 2022, but the Raiders could dismiss him very cheaply from next year (Dead Cap: 7.5 million in 2019, then 5 million, then 2.5 million) and it doesn’t take too much imagination to imagine a corresponding scenario.

For some teams, however, the topic is much more acute. Where could or should we see a new starting quarterback in the coming season?

Current starter: Blake Bortles.

Contract situation: Contract up to and including 2020. Cap Hit 2019: 21 million dollars. Dead Cap on release after this season: $16.5 million.

The situation: The familiar situation – Bortles is Bortles. This means above all: pure inconsistency in all conceivable extremes. Bortles has good to partly outstanding games in it every year, this year he played against the Patriots in Week 2. Only one week later he crash-landed against Tennessee.

This pattern can be traced every year, last season for example he was outstanding for three weeks against Indianapolis, Seattle and Houston – framed by terrible games in Arizona and San Francisco, against two teams for whom it was not about anything. Bortles has games in which he destroys enemy lightning bolts and then he has games again in which he doesn’t sell 3-yard screens.

Throw mechanics just like Reads and his apparent understanding of the game are not at the level you’d want from a starting quarterback in his fifth season and the point is: There’s no sign that the soon-to-be 27-year-old will ever flip a switch. Much more likely is that Bortles this in every way remains inconstant quarterback that he has always been. And the Jaguars have put more than enough time and resources into this experiment.

What will happen in 2019? The title window for this Jaguars team is expected to close in 2020. At the end of the 2020 season, the contracts of, among others, Myles Jack (contract to 2019 inclusive), Yannick Ngakoue (2019), Keelan Cole (2019), Calais Campbell (2020), Jalen Ramsey (2020), Tashaun Gipson (2020), Barry Church (2020), Cam Robinson (2020) and Dede Westbrook (2020) expire.

Jacksonville will not be able or willing to hold all these players, but many of the pillars of defense will be gone by 2021. It is important to make the best possible use of the remaining title window. That’s why the Jaguars are a candidate for getting a quick solution rather than investing in a rookie in the long run.

Should Teddy Bridgewater not stay in New Orleans, he would once again be the best possible way for the Jags, in the interest of both sides. However, Jacksonville would then have to negotiate a contract spread over later years – for 2019 the Jags are already well above the Cap and will have to cut for the time being.

Quarterback Search Part 1: Three Wildcards – and a Clear Case

Quarterback search part 2: who needs a new signal caller?