Ranking NFL backup QBs and how free-agent market can change

Never before has a time-tested sports cliché so badly needed a revision.

Years of believing that “if you have two quarterbacks, you have none” has been replaced in this Year of the Backup Quarterback. Make room for: “If you don’t have two quarterbacks, you are done.”

The NFL postseason picture was altered by the (likely) season-ending injury suffered by the Jets’ Aaron Rodgers in Week 1, and the impact of season-ending injuries has continued with the Bengals’ Joe Burrow, the Vikings’ Kirk Cousins, the Browns’ Deshaun Watson, the Giants’ Daniel Jones, the Colts’ Anthony Richardson and the Chargers’ Justin Herbert.

The instant reaction to those injuries could be the increased valuing of backup quarterbacks during the offseason.

“All of a sudden, I think it’s going to switch the thinking of roster-building: ‘Hey, we do need two quarterbacks. We need to allocate X amount of money to go to the backup quarterback space,’” retired quarterback and NFL Network analyst Chase Daniel told Post Sports+. “Do you want your entire season to go down the drain because you don’t have a veteran quarterback you trust? Because you don’t want to spend a few million bucks, when $5 million to $7 million gets you a really good player?’”

Daniel earned $41.8 million over a 13-year career, according to Spotrac, as an insurance policy. He estimates there are six to eight proven backup quarterbacks — and not 32 viable starters — available for contenders to fight over, which should raise the players’ leverage when teams fall back on salary-cap excuses.

Backup quarterback “is where they cut corners,” Daniel said.

Chris Simms spent eight seasons in the NFL, mostly as a backup quarterback. He did not need a history lesson on the importance of a reliable No. 2 after the Giants won a Super Bowl in 1990 with Jeff Hostetler filling in for an injured Phil Simms (Chris’ father) in an era when football was a more brutal game.

“Because of the rule changes and the way quarterbacks are not allowed to be hit anymore, that’s why teams started to feel comfortable about, ‘We don’t need a big-time [backup] quarterback. The way the rules are, quarterbacks are not going to get hurt anymore,’” Simms said.

“Let alone teams got into the idea of, ‘I don’t want my starter to feel threatened at all by any backup, so I want him to be the man and not having anyone in the locker room think, ‘Our backup is kind of good. Did you see him today at practice?’ The league changed that way within the last 10 to 15 years.”

Fifty-four different quarterbacks have started a game this season — one year after a non-strike-season NFL record (66) was set. Ten of them are rookies.

Every coach has different ways to prepare a backup.

For instance, Giants head coach Brian Daboll gives the backup quarterback zero snaps with the first-team offense during a game week, preferring for him to run the scout team. Simms said he would get “four or five” practice snaps on a Friday, so do coaches need to consider tweaking their schedules so backups are more prepared?

“Definitely,” said Simms, whose grander belief is the restrictions on practice times and contact practices are limiting player development across the positional board. “But I don’t blame coaches because they have a limited amount of reps, so they go, ‘We can’t waste them on the second- and third-string quarterback.’

“But some coaches are finding ways to finagle more reps with their backup quarterbacks, whether that’s Wednesday staying out late with the young receivers and saying, ‘You guys go through your own little practice.’ I think that will slowly trickle across the rest of the NFL.”

Eight backup quarterbacks could start in Week 15 for teams within two games of a playoff spot, so let’s rank them in order of most to least trusted to win a game with other variables being equal.

1. Gardner Minshew, Colts

The Colts are 3-2 when Minshew throws 40 or more passes, so he isn’t being handcuffed. He has an 81.7 quarterback rating and 4-1 record over the past five games. The former Jaguars starter has 55 touchdowns, 23 interceptions and six game-winning fourth-quarter drives in 45 career games. The mustache makes him recognizable. His guts earn him team-wide respect.

2. Joe Flacco, Browns

You’ll only find one former Super Bowl MVP on here. Sure, that was more than a decade ago and Flacco is 2-9 in his past 11 starts (mostly for the hapless Jets). He’s a statue in the pocket, but he still throws the deep ball well and has five touchdowns and two interceptions since coming off the couch last month. He gets by on the savvy gained through 182 career starts.

3. Jake Browning, Bengals

After four seasons of not playing, mostly as a third-stringer, Browning made himself some money with two wins (and three touchdowns and a completion percentage of 81.9) against playoff contenders in a six-day span. He joined a list of mostly Hall of Famers as the 12th quarterback in NFL history to complete at least 86 percent of his passes and throw for at least 354 yards in a game against the Jaguars.

4. Tommy DeVito, Giants

The undrafted rookie is more than just Italian stereotypes. He is one of six rookie starters to beat the Bill Belichick-coached Patriots. He is the reigning NFC Offensive Player of the Week after leading a fourth-quarterback comeback to beat the Packers. He has three straight wins and three straight interception-less performances, allowing him to Wally Pipp the accomplished Tyrod Taylor while the 13-year veteran was injured.

5. Mitch Trubisky, Steelers

The former No. 2 overall draft pick always will be thought of as the bust drafted before Patrick Mahomes. But he went 29-21, made a Pro Bowl and reached the playoffs twice over four seasons with the Bears. He hasn’t played well, however, in back-to-back losses to the lowly Cardinals (off the bench) and Patriots (starting).

6. Zach Wilson, Jets

Like Trubisky, he will always be seen through the lens of the draft. But the Jets have learned the hard way that it can always be worse. Over the past two seasons, they are 10-10 when Wilson plays from the first quarter on and 2-8 when any other quarterback does. He is the reigning AFC Player of the Week after the best game of his three-year career.

7. Nick Mullens, Vikings

How volatile is the life of a backup quarterback? Josh Dobbs was looked at as a savior when he led back-to-back wins after he was acquired at the Oct. 31 trade deadline. Three straight stinkers got him benched for Mullens, who led a late field-goal drive in last week’s 3-0 win against the Raiders. Mullens is 5-12 with 27 touchdowns and 23 interceptions in his career.

8. Davis Mills, Texans

Put in the uncomfortable position of replacing Deshaun Watson as a rookie with Watson nearby casting a shadow over the Texans locker room, Mills went 2-9. He went 3-10-1 once Watson was gone, however. He tied for the NFL lead with 15 interceptions last season. Rookie C.J. Stroud’s potential absence is as big as any of the others.

9. Easton Stick, Chargers

Once the successor to No. 2 overall draft pick Carson Wentz at North Dakota State, Stick won three FCS national titles and went 29-1 over his final two years starting in college. He is “used to winning,” but this is the NFL, where he threw one pass and played in one game over four-plus seasons before getting his first real taste of action replacing Herbert in the Chargers’ loss last week.

Kick in the pants

The Chiefs’ Harrison Butker, the Falcons’ Younghoe Koo and the Raiders’ Daniel Carlson are three of the four most accurate kickers of all time.

What else do they have in common? All three lasted less than a month with their original team.

What sounds like three isolated mistakes — made by the Panthers on Butker, the Chargers on Koo and the Vikings on Carlson — actually is part of a much bigger trend of kickers who failed before finding their spot to succeed.

“Young kickers as a whole in this league, most of them get cut a bunch of times before they stick,” Giants special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey said. “That’s part of a lot of these guys’ process. It’s rare that a guy just shows up, gets drafted or picked by a team and he stays with that same team for 15 years like the Sebastian Janikowskis of the world or Justin Tucker.”

Tucker (90 percent over 12 seasons with the Ravens) is the only kicker who has fared better than Butker (89.4 percent), Koo (89 percent) and Carlson (87.6 percent) among those with a minimum of 100 career regular-season attempts. Janikowski (80.4 percent over 17 years with the Raiders before one with the Seahawks) is No. 64 on the list.

Why don’t young kickers get the same leeway to develop that is granted at other positions?

For starters, organizations rarely are heavily invested in kickers. Janikowski (2000) was the only kicker drafted in the first round, and Robert Aguayo (2016) is the only second-rounder since Mike Nugent in 2005. Furthermore, it is easier to shine an individual spotlight on a kicker than it is most other non-quarterbacks; most head coaches never coordinated special teams and late-game kicks often decide games, and thus determine others’ job security.

“When you have talented guys, you’ve got to commit to them,” McGaughey said, “and then once you commit to them, you’ve got to know, ‘Hey, look, this guy’s going to miss kicks.’ Because they’ve got to learn just like every other position. Young quarterbacks make mistakes, young running backs make mistakes. They all make mistakes — they’re young.”

Of the 25 kickers who have converted at least 18 field goals this season:

• Seven are still with their original team, though three are rookies.

• Four spent multiple years with their first team before parting ways.

• Fourteen spent one season or less with their original teams, including 11 who never even attempted a regular-season field goal before the split

“For me, I just needed some years to learn,” Giants kicker Graham Gano told Post Sports+. “In the NFL game, there’s not a lot of room for error, and you play in a lot of different climates and conditions. That’s something I wasn’t used to.

Gano spent one year as a kicker in college, was cut by the Ravens, earned a second chance through the United Football League, and spent three years with Washington before blossoming into a Pro Bowler and one of the NFL’s top kickers with the Panthers (2012-19) and Giants (2020-present).

“By my third season in Washington, I hit 14 of my last 15 field goals and they decided to let me go,” Gano said. “Right as I thought I figured it out, they thought otherwise, but it was a blessing in disguise.

“Teams, generally, need to have more patience with guys. Sometimes, it’s not a good fit. Sometimes, coaches don’t play to your strengths at some places. Sometimes, the [kicking] operation is not very good.”

Let’s go bowling

Just when we were getting used to college football’s bowl season being watered down by NFL Draft prospects opting out of games without playoff implications, now we have the urgency of the transfer portal combined with the allure of NIL payments to strip away even more talent. Some players are choosing to skip bowls with their current teams to get a jumpstart on college free agency.

Weeding through all those possibilities, Post Sports+ came up with this list of five prospects playing in the nine bowl games that will take place over the next week. They already are on the NFL scouting radar and could make some gains with a strong finish.

OLB Brian Ugwu, Miami (Ohio)
Cure Bowl, Saturday, Dec. 16, 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC

After playing three career games over three years at Rutgers, Ugwu reset his career with 105 tackles, including 22 for loss, and 13 sacks over the past two seasons as a transfer. He can bend the edge, and his motor will keep running through the whistle. He knows how to use his hands in the pass rush, which is advanced.
Our projection: Sixth round

WR J. Michael Sturdivant, UCLA
LA Bowl, Saturday, Dec. 16, 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC

Projected first-round pick Laiatu Latu is skipping the bowl game for UCLA, but the freakish Sturdivant is expected to play. Sturdivant reached 23.2 miles per hour, bench-pressed nearly 300 pounds and squatted almost 400 pounds before the season, according to The Athletic. His quick acceleration lends itself to the vertical passing game, and he tracks the ball well down the sideline.
Our projection: Third round

LB Steve Linton, Texas Tech
Independence Bowl, Saturday, Dec. 16, 9:15 p.m. ET, ESPN

The Syracuse transfer has been invited to multiple postseason All-Star games. All three of his sacks came in one game against Baylor, but there is plenty of tape to show that he packs a pop when he closes on a ball-carrier. He will get knocked for his size (235 pounds), but he makes up for it with quickness and twitchy movements.
Projection: Fifth round

WR Malachi Corley, Western Kentucky
Famous Toastery Bowl, Monday, Dec. 18, 2:30 p.m. ET, ESPN