The QB Conundrum: Too many arms for 32 teams

There was once a time where mediocre quarterbacks could hold down a starting gig for a significant time. John Kitna managed to start twelve or more games in seven of his fourteen seasons in the NFL. Matt Shaub ran the show in Houston for six years with a 46-42 record in that span. Jake Plummer finished his career with 136 starts and as many touchdowns as he had interceptions. The entirety of the NFL’s life span has seen plenty of opportunities for passers to start despite not being high quality. Well, it seems like we may be facing the end of those days.

In today’s football landscape, we’re witnessing the signal-callers be shown the door if they aren’t meeting a significantly higher criterion than those before. Josh Rosen, the tenth overall selection in the 2018 draft, was handed his exit papers with only thirteen starts to his name. The Chiefs dumped Alex Smith, who led the team to 50-26 in his five seasons, in favor of second-year QB Patrick Mahomes (that one seems to have panned out, though). Some even worry for Sam Darnold (third overall in 2017) and Dwayne Haskins’ (fifteenth overall in 2019) starting gigs if their teams don’t exceed expectations in the upcoming season. So, why have teams suddenly lost patience? Blame College Football.

At the time of this writing, I have five QB’s in the 2021 draft class with first-round grades. 24/7 Sports has four mocked to go in the first 32 picks next year.CBS Sports has six.. The College Football scene has been spitting out high-level prospects under center at an extremely high rate, with fourteen QBs being drafted in the first round since 2017. That’s almost half of the league taking a gamble on a new passer in four drafts. Quarterbacks are being taken in the later rounds in hopes of developing into a starter. There’s a surplus of talent at the position. While it could be a great benefit to teams like Dallas who will have to make a decision on paying Dak Prescott soon, it hurts QB’s because they can now be replaced at a much higher clip.

This is all just natural evolution. Athletes are improving drastically across sports. LeBron James and Zion Williamson are freaks of nature and are doing things that even the most athletic basketball players would struggle doing two decades ago. Mike Trout is breaking the mold of what baseball players can do. 40-yard dash times at the combine seem to get faster every year at the combine as a collective, with Mekhi Becton’s freakish 5.11 seconds as a 6’7, 364 lbs. behemoth and Henry Ruggs’ 4.27 seconds being one of the combines all-time best. It’s only natural that QB’s are following the same trajectory that other athletes are following. There’s a new level of excellence that you have to reach if you want to be a starter for a long time. If you can’t accomplish it, there will be someone new who’s waiting in the wings to steal that spot.

Now, all of this is not to say some ‘meh’ signal-callers will not still be starters, but there’s a very specific reason why they won’t be replaced; money. Kirk Cousins, Matt Ryan, Jared Goff, Jimmy Garoppolo, and company won’t have to worry as much due to the sheer size of their contracts. Their teams all decided to pay them tons of money because they have faith in them, but if they begin to underperform, they aren’t as much on the hot seat as some of their colleagues.

This evolution of talent is great for us as fans because it ensures we’re watching the most talented era of athletes lay it on the line every week. The progression of these athletes is a great thing to see. It’s just really inconvenient for the old guard. But soon, plenty of NFL quality QBs will be looking for jobs, and unless the XFL or similar league provides a place to house the extra talent, there will be a lack of storage for them.