Table of Contents
Before the start of last season, our annual quarterback carousel primer centered around an idea that was met with great friction from the general football community: What if Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud did not bounce back? At the time, it seemed easier to blame issues plaguing the former Offensive Rookie of the Year on play-calling than on a more systemic blend of roster construction, injuries and some of Stroud’s on-field preferences that may alter the dynamic of a play-call sheet and the weapons at a coordinator’s disposal. Few thought that Will Anderson Jr. would be the only 2023 Texans draftee walking away with a mega-extension last offseason.
Now, Stroud sits front and center as the biggest pending question that the 2026 season will answer. Stroud is straddling the dividing line between a $60 million per year contract and a stint in the Sean McVay–Kyle Shanahan school of quarterback rehabilitation (maybe that’s harsh, given that Stroud, even at his supposed “worst” was a top-12 quarterback by EPA per play and is on a team coached by a former linebacker who would prefer Stroud not be throwing the ball 30-plus times per game). Texans general manager Nick Caserio loudly rejected the idea of trading Stroud at the scouting combine, which pushed most of his chips onto the table amid an offseason where contenders like the Vikings may have paid for the privilege of rostering Stroud themselves.
This isn’t a victory lap but a reason why this exercise matters. Looking ahead to the end of the season adds an important layer of context to what is taking place during it. There are ever-evolving stakes.
Stroud certainly headlines our exercise again, alongside Bryce Young, who was drafted the same year and has seen similar stops and starts in his progress. However, much like we called our shot with Stroud this time last year, there are bigger names worth discussing now as we forecast potential movement at the end of this season.
Let’s begin there.
Jump to a category
- The big fish
- The 2023 crew and the like
- Veterans with (some) juice
- Blind swings in the dark
- On the radar for 2027
The big fish
Lamar Jackson
Jackson enters his age-29 season the way he has largely entered every NFL season of his career: saddled with questions both fair and unfair. The fair questions include that Jackson has completed two fully healthy seasons in his past five and still involves his whole body in almost every play. In both of those healthy years, he either won MVP or should have won MVP. Unfair: Jackson is just starting to shed the insubstantial evidence that he was not an effective postseason quarterback and certainly not one deserving of the league’s next fully guaranteed contract. Jackson earned both a no-trade and no-tag clause in his previous negotiations, which, if you’ll remember, suspiciously included no overtures from other teams amid the league’s wagon-circling shift against another Deshaun Watson deal.
The Ravens are now in a position where, without managing Jackson’s contract after this season, they would enter a ruinous cap situation. Jackson’s deal must be rectified, and he is well aware of his sizable negotiating power. But what interests me about Jackson is twofold. First, he is now playing for a defensive-minded head coach, Jesse Minter, patterned after Mike Macdonald, who just won a Super Bowl in Seattle with a roster heavily centered around building a dominant defense and a complementary offense. Second, he’s also entering a possibly contentious negotiation this offseason at a time when two teams (the Jets and the Browns) have armed themselves with first-round draft capital in anticipation of moving up for a rookie of their choice in the 2027 draft.
But … what if the Browns, for example, finish the season just out of striking distance for a top-four pick and the three teams in front of them all need quarterbacks? What if Todd Monken gets word to Jackson that he’s willing to soften a bit and all of a sudden that incredibly valuable No. 4 or No. 5 pick becomes Jeremiah Smith for the perpetually receiver-starved Ravens and Cleveland gets a veteran quarterback to pair with a roster that is almost there in many other ways?
What if the Jets bottom out and manage to lure Mike Tomlin out of the broadcast booth to revive their fledgling operation? What if Tomlin, unlikely to repeat the aches and pains of the Kenny Pickett era in Pittsburgh, does it under one condition: Two of the Jets’ three first-round picks must be used to acquire Jackson to pair with a defense that, while not loaded, is populated with win-now veterans on very short-term contracts. The Jets are also projected to have plenty of cap space for the 2027 season.
Jackson being under a new head coach opens up a world of possibilities, including the existing possibility that he may not be a fit for what the Ravens are trying to build and is more useful as a trade asset heading into his age-30 season. I’ll ignore the gruesome scenario where Jackson has to play eight games a year at MetLife Stadium on that turf, however.
Jalen Hurts
Hurts has been on our list before, but 2026 brings with it a fresh plot of unstable land on which the Super Bowl LIX MVP must stand.
Hurts has one more season after this in which his dead cap burden is over the $100 million mark. Teams—including the Eagles—have proved more adept at handling the rigors of large dead cap hits, though Hurts’s burden plummets after his age-29 season in 2027. Much has been made about Hurts’s history with an impossible number of offensive coordinators. Still, less focus has gone to the Eagles’ efforts to streamline their scheme and pivot away from the bully-ball formula that won the franchise a second Super Bowl title two years ago.
It’s a fair question to wonder whether Hurts is the right quarterback for that future given that, at nearly all points in Philadelphia’s recent history when this kind of restlessness pops up with the scheme, major personnel changes are en route. The Eagles traded Carson Wentz. They fired Doug Pederson. They drafted Hurts early when Wentz was still seen as a viable starter. Maybe we won’t see Hurts moved after this year if he doesn’t adapt to the offense, but may see him start to get replaced, which opens the door for a trade. I don’t think Philadelphia keeping four quarterbacks is an early indicator of this, given that rookie Cole Payton may be able to contribute as a nonquarterback, but it’s not not something. The Eagles brought in Andy Dalton—I think—in hopes that Tanner McKee would have a more robust trade market this offseason. Instead, all four passers are here competing in and learning the same new offense.
Again, Hurts is a winner with a valuable skill set. I think he is, depending on his adaptability to new OC Sean Mannion’s offense, exactly the kind of quarterback you would want in this defense-first era. He can conservatively move the chains and, despite his offseason weight loss, is still built to pick up first downs when willing. But … we all know Philadelphia’s history and we all know Howie Roseman’s specific inability to sit on his hands and let a good deal pass him by.
The Eagles have been the sleeper team several times in his tenure. What if they, too, sitting on an additional 2028 first-round pick, are quietly eyeing the appetizing slate of collegiate quarterbacks this season?
Joe Burrow
I am only putting Burrow here to make a similar point to the one I made about Jackson. Burrow is entering his final season with a dead cap burden above the $100 million threshold. After the 2026 season, the Bengals will have to sort through roughly $70 million in dead cap if Burrow is dealt. Nothing in the team’s behavior pattern suggests this is even remotely possible. The Bengals have moved heaven and earth to pacify their star quarterback and, this offseason, traded the No. 10 pick for a veteran win-now asset.
The Bengals have overspent at the wide receiver position and continue to invest in off-field upgrades to keep up with the Joneses (maybe not those Joneses) around the NFL. Burrow’s success and the team’s Super Bowl run have transformed the franchise in myriad ways for the better.
The question, though, becomes this: What if the Bengals don’t get even a whiff of what they were expecting in 2026? What if Burrow gets hurt again? Then, the Bengals would be looking at 2027 with Ja’Marr Chase entering his age-27 year and Tee Higgins needing a restructured contract to stay. Imagine if the Jets dangle three 2027 first-round picks in front of Mike Brown and, all of a sudden, Cincinnati was afforded the chance to start over with a rookie contract, maybe hire a new head coach and pivot as the AFC North takes on an entirely new complexion.
Again, it’s unlikely, given that, on pure talent, Burrow is the third or fourth best quarterback in the NFL. You deal with the ups and downs because this is better than the vast, gaping unknown. Of course—and again, note the sheer number of ifs here—if the 2027 QB class is shaping up to be like 2024 (Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams, Drake May, Bo Nix), those picks become incredibly, obscenely valuable and could be spun into franchise-altering building blocks on both sides of the ball.
Baker Mayfield
I include Mayfield at the bottom of this top-tier list for one reason: He’s more than a plug-and-play starter and he has excelled in the same type of offenses that populate about 60% of the NFL right now. Some team is going to give him more than $45 million this coming offseason if the Buccaneers don’t. If you put Mayfield on the Seahawks last season, I think they’d still be Super Bowl contenders. If you put Mayfield on the Vikings last season, I think the team would very much be a Super Bowl contender. While the tier of quarterbacks who can perform like this is small—not good enough to warrant a mass extension but good enough to get a team capably through the playoffs—it is not one to discount. Teams that miss out on the QB draft class of 2027 will be desperate, and if Mayfield has even a typical post-Browns Mayfield season, he’s going to warrant significant attention and field multiple offers.
Sam Darnold
What? The guy who just won the Super Bowl? Yes! That guy! Darnold has been exceptional but is playing for a general manager more practiced than ever at the art of moving on when something doesn’t work. Darnold’s offensive coordinator from 2025 is now the head coach of the Raiders. If the new scheme—which, I’m sure, is a lot like the old one, given that Brian Fleury is also from the San Francisco tree—doesn’t suit Darnold or the direction of the team evolves again, Darnold is in the middle of a very flexible contract for Seattle. He is entering season two of a three-year deal, which, because of the affordability, would almost assuredly be worth giving Darnold one more season, but Schneider is always searching to evolve. Darnold could also have trade value with a year left on his contract if negotiations get contentious. Imagine if Darnold has another season in 2026 where he wins double-digit games and throws 25 or more touchdowns. He’s going to want to be paid like a $60 million per year player—and rightfully so.
The 2023 crew and the like
Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud
Fascinating. There’s no other word for it. The Panthers, under coach Dave Canales and general manager Dan Morgan, have revived one of the worst rosters of the past decade, reached the playoffs and were a few plays away from stunning the heavily favored Rams in the wild-card round. The team spent boatloads of cash this offseason to upgrade its defense and secure key offensive role players and, despite its ailments at the tackle position, is still in the mix to win the NFC South. This team has to believe that it’s in a window. Young can play the 2027 season under his club option, but will it ever feel like smashing against a concrete ceiling? I, personally, am a fan of Young and believe that, when his inner confidence marries with the on-field circumstance, he is a top-10 quarterback. The Panthers don’t get a chance to see that quarterback all the time (even last year, when you factor in the Rico Dowdle effect, Carolina was still a middle-tier rushing team, finishing 18th in EPA per rush). Owner David Tepper, who is learning to develop a pragmatic side, may start to get itchy after this season if Young doesn’t take the major step into a game-altering killer, especially with the development of weapons Tetairoa McMillan and Jalen Coker.
Houston is in a different extreme altogether. This is a Super Bowl–caliber roster, with a defense good enough to crack the modern-era top 10. If the Texans don’t win it all this year, the defense still has a long shelf life but will have to perform contractual cartwheels to keep the likes of Danielle Hunter anchoring the opposite edge alongside Will Anderson Jr. Some key role players will also likely age out. You could make the argument that someone like Mayfield is actually a fascinating presence here, having played in a McVay offense that Nick Caley started working under the very next season and possessing the perfect get-it-over-the-hump swagger. But … we’re ahead of ourselves here a bit.
I’m actually more optimistic about Stroud earning a long-term extension than I was at this point last year. I’m also more optimistic about Stroud earning a long-term extension than Young. The reason is simple: Stroud was still a top-12 quarterback last year when everything around him was broken. Injuries out of camp. Lack of depth at running back. Offensive line still in transition. Young played about as well as Tyler Shough, even though much of his surrounding circumstances were ascending.
Stroud is also playing on a very different team that adjusts its play style toward efficiency and ball control given how magnificent the defense is. The sooner we—and maybe even Stroud—accept that, the sooner we can realize the value in his own personal evolution.
All of that said: Both of these quarterbacks possess incredible tools and are heavily appetizing second-chance candidates for the I-can-fix-him crowd of offensive coordinators around the NFL. Sometimes, it takes a different setting for all your NFL knowledge to settle in and take effect. As I noted above, the Darnold-Mayfield tier in the NFL is small but valuable. Both of these quarterbacks could be the next addition to that tier if their teams underperform in 2026.
Michael Penix Jr.
I don’t think enough people are factoring in the Falcons when talking about teams that may have a truly transient quarterback situation. Penix is absolutely talented, but as we continue running up against the idea that this collection of skill-position players has an expiration date, this group seems like a prime candidate to go big-name hunting after the season if neither Penix nor Tua Tagovailoa play well. Kevin Stefanski has done his best work with prebaked veteran quarterbacks. Even though his offensive coordinator, Tommy Rees, is an accomplished fixer and developer, a team doesn’t fire Dan Quinn and Raheem Morris in succession, then hold onto its ace defensive coordinator to bring in a head coach with experience to rebuild the entire roster.
Penix is certainly on the lower end of the Stroud-Young spectrum. There isn’t nearly enough sample size, and the injury history is daunting for any team preparing to give up draft capital for the privilege of evaluating Penix before his rookie deal expires. That said, teams that are left in the cold at season’s end will have to dramatically broaden their search parameters if they don’t nab either a top-end veteran or a top-five pick. Upside is the next golden goose trait on the list.
Veterans with (some) juice
Kyler Murray
Murray has the chance of a lifetime for a quarterback: Revive his career under the guidance of a McVay disciple, playing in a good scheme with the best receiver in the NFL lining up alongside you on a down-to-down basis. Minnesota is very much living year-to-year, knowing that if Murray excels this season, he’ll want to be back in the conversation of elite-paid quarterbacks. The team will have to confront the ghosts of losing Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones in a matter of months and seeing both quarterbacks go on to incredible second acts.
So, in many ways, Murray will factor into the 2027 cycle for two reasons: He could play well enough to price himself out of the market in Minnesota. He could also not comfortably take the reins of Kevin O’Connell’s offense and tumble into the Geno Smith/younger Jameis Winston/Russell Wilson category of quarterbacks with winning upside but a defined, cautious ceiling.
I wrote more about Murray’s Vikings fit here—I’m still on the fence—but the thought experiment of whether he plays well and the team wins double-digit games is worth walking through. What do you pay a 30-year-old Murray in 2027, having seen him complete fewer than 10 games in two of his last three years leading up to his debut in Minnesota? And does that number align with Murray’s expectations after he reportedly took time this offseason assessing both his current market and the projected 2027 free-agent market?
A better question might be: If Murray plays well, are there enough teams that would view him as either a bridge starter for a drafted rookie this coming April, competition for a sputtering former high draft pick (i.e., Cam Ward), or a stopgap as the team attempts to maximize a quarterbackless roster? Truly “unsettled” quarterback situations—where you could safely argue that the next long-term answer is not on the roster—include the Jets, Dolphins, Cardinals, Browns, Saints, Steelers and Falcons, with the Titans, Giants and Colts probably a year away from wading into that conversation. That’s more teams than the 2027 draft class at its peak can reasonably replenish, which presents a continuation of a sound market for Murray if he can play well under O’Connell.
Mac Jones
The best thing that could happen to Mac Jones is a fully healthy season for Brock Purdy in 2026, which would allow Jones to stand on a plucky stretch of game tape from 2025. The 49ers have an incredible financial arrangement with Jones right now—roughly $4 million per year—even though Jones showed he can run the Shanahan offense effectively, even amid a massive string of injuries when the offense isn’t functioning at 100%. This matters because, coming into 2027, Jones will enter a market where the NFL is majority Shanahan-run. At the very least, all teams will have some principles of the offense, and he makes an intriguing case to follow Darnold to Minnesota if Murray becomes too expensive or plays too poorly. O’Connell invested heavily in a modified outside-zone-style scheme this offseason and Jones may be the perfect archetype to run it for an extended period of time. At 27, Jones will be the same age that Darnold was when his own growth and maturity lined up with an excellent opportunity to pilot a functional offense under a great schematic head coach.
Matthew Stafford
I’m putting Stafford further down the list because I don’t really see it. The Myles Garrett trade, to me, defined a multiyear window, and Stafford is playing at an MVP level. Any hint of him leaving the Rams would be to bridge another contractual issue. The presence of Ty Simpson adds slightly to the intrigue, but I don’t see McVay eager to endure any rookie speed bumps, which, to me, would mean waiting until at least the start of Simpson’s third season to hand him the job. Still, if Stafford wins the Super Bowl this year, perhaps his own feelings would change about how he wants to end his career. Maybe that’s with another coach with whom he’s close, or a player, or in a location that his family wants to retire to long term. These ideas are so fleeting and moment-dependent that we can never count out a quarterback’s decision making in terms of when it’s time to walk away.
Daniel Jones
Money guaranteed for non-injury triggers in March 2027, which would set Jones up for another fruitful negotiation if he plays well this year. While it’s hard to believe, the Colts were Greatest Show On Turf–level efficient during a torrid start to the season, before injuries took hold and Philip Rivers was dragged off a high school football field to attempt to save the season. Jones is coming off both a torn ACL and a broken fibula and has a history of bad luck when it comes to making it through a season healthy. Still, there is a hive of coaches who love Jones’s toughness and processing ability. We’ve seen what is possible with a humming run game, and Jones will enter the 2027 free-agency period just shy of his 30th birthday. With experience in a Brian Daboll offense—currently the coordinator of a team that is discovering what Cam Ward can be—and a Kevin O’Connell offense alongside Shane Steichen’s system, Jones has value on the open market and, again, had a sizable 10-game stretch of last season where he had a higher EPA per play than Josh Allen. If the Colts’ season goes south to the point that Jones is available, teams may be interested in buying low on his potential with an added year of recovery from the ACL tear.
Aaron Rodgers
He said he’ll be done after this year, for sure. But he’s said a lot of things.
Kirk Cousins
Cousins will turn 39 before the start of next season but has looked spry in the preseason and will have at least a short window of time in which to make his case as a bridge starter for 2027. Cousins will not survive the entire 2026 season because Fernando Mendoza has been capable enough to stay on the veteran’s heels. But Cousins is entering a kind of wonderful, upscale Josh McCown phase of his life where teams will pay him $10-plus-million per season because of his value-add as both a branch of the coaching staff and a backup option who won’t completely destroy a game plan. Mark Brunell lasted well into his 40s on this path before moving onto coaching.
Geno Smith
Again, Smith is in New York to set the stage for either a grand swing at a veteran in 2027 or a rookie quarterback. Smith, if you discount the fundamentally broken Raiders offense in 2025, has, over the previous three seasons, compiled an EPA per play on par with Stafford and Trevor Lawrence. I think it’s fair to argue that, at 35 (soon to be 36), Smith offers a little bit more upside than Cousins and could be a lock as a bridge option for one of the teams—Miami, Cleveland, Arizona—that we expect will draft a quarterback in 2027.
Jacoby Brissett
Like Cousins, Brissett is likely in a position where he’ll set the stage for a rookie at some point this season. At 34 for the 2027 season, Brissett would offer basically a modified appeal of Rodgers: he will have a respectable touchdown to interception ratio and keep the bad-throw percentage relatively low.
Malik Willis
Willis’s three-year deal from Miami this offseason was a strong two-year pact, which likely places Willis on Miami’s roster a year from now. Unless … the Dolphins draft Willis’s successor in 2027 and he may not feel like sticking around to be a mentor. Willis represents the great unknown to the 2026 regular season and, I think, could potentially play the Dolphins out of a top-three pick in the spring. There is also the chance that he is the latest quarterback to excel under ideal circumstances but struggle after being transplanted onto a league-worst roster.
Joe Flacco
Like a security system, we hope to be in a place to not need Joe Flacco all the time. But … it’s nice to know he’s there, you know?
Blind swings in the dark
Deshaun Watson, Tua Tagovailoa, Anthony Richardson, Trey Lance, Tanner McKee, Will Howard, Justin Fields, Tommy DeVito, Davis Mills, J.J. McCarthy, Tyson Bagent
Some of these quarterbacks, such as Howard or McKee, will end up traveling to a new location with a former coach who believes in their upside. Maybe Fields will have a great season as a short-yardage quarterback for the Chiefs and revive his career a bit. Maybe there’s some coach out there who thinks he can get through to Watson. And so on.
On the radar for 2027
Here’s a final parting thought. If I had to put quarterbacks on the radar who may be the most interesting a year from now, I’d say a column leading with Jaxson Dart and Cam Ward on the eve of the 2027 season may not even turn heads. Dart has about two-thirds of an NFL season under his belt and enters a pivotal second year under new head coach John Harbaugh with an offense that is trying to marry the Matt Nagy and Greg Roman playbooks together. There’s a chance that Harbaugh, who legitimately changed the NFL both offensively and defensively as the head coach of the Ravens, has discovered another masterstroke, essentially melding the Chiefs’ playbook and install with the downhill running game Patrick Mahomes never had. Dart has the confidence, the physicality and the necessary fearlessness to be a 10-year starter in the NFL. He’s also a lot smarter of a player than I think he gets credit for.
But in any realistic range of outcomes, we also have to account for the chance—and, again, I don’t think this will happen—but the chance that Dart won’t necessarily take to the new scheme and heavier under-center usage, or misses games. I had the Giants winning six games in my preseason all-272 game predictions, but imagine if I am a game or two generous and the Giants wind up not with a Harbaugh bounce, but with the reality that this is still a roster that, a year ago, facilitated a coach being fired. What would the Giants, within the top-five-pick range, look like? Dart was drafted No. 25 by another coach and, if you think about it, is closer in pick range to Will Levis (who was the 33rd pick of the Titans in 2023 and was just waived) than he is to Jayden Daniels, Cam Ward or a top-five pick. While all first-round picks are first-round picks, the difference in bending over backward to facilitate their growth is probably different between the No. 1 pick and the No. 25 pick. Anyway, the Giants in range to take Dante Moore or, mother of God, Arch Manning, would make for one hell of a thought experiment next offseason.
And speaking of Ward, I don’t want to make too much of the Titans’ struggles this preseason. Ward certainly hasn’t, and I find him to be an incredibly honest and straightforward assessor of a situation. Brian Daboll, Ward’s offensive coordinator, also attempted to trade up and draft Ward two years ago when he was head coach of the Giants. But it’s also realistically very hard to envision this Titans team finishing the season with a winning record. Sportsbooks have Tennessee around the six-win range, which is where I have the team finishing as well in my record predictions. However, that prediction set also has the Titans beating the Jaguars, Commanders and Steelers late in the season. If my projections are off and the Titans win three games, is Robert Saleh, who performed admirably during the Zach Wilson era but was clearly and ultimately sunk by the whiffed draft pick, going to allow three or four franchise-altering quarterbacks to pass him by in the 2027 draft? Is Mike Borgonzi, who saw the franchise-altering effect of Patrick Mahomes firsthand and the kind of immediacy with which a franchise-altering quarterback can emerge in the right situation? I think there’s a chance we’ll be talking about it next season.
Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollowPublished | Modified 
CONOR ORR
Conor Orr is a Senior Writer for Sports Illustrated with more than 15 years of experience covering the NFL. His work has been cited in Best American Sportswriting and has won a PFWAA award. Prior to Sports Illustrated, he covered both the Giants and Jets for The Star-Ledger. Conor lives in New Jersey with his amazing wife and three children.
Share on XFollow authorShare on FacebookShare on XHome/NFLOriginal Article
