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
The 5-foot-11 school record-holder with 255 career receptions will suit up once more before heading to the Senior Bowl. Corley is an electric catch-and-run option, turning quick-hitters into big gains. He can be an every-down slot receiver who works through traffic — not a gadget player — and has strong hands to fight for contested catches.
Our projection: Second round
RB Rasheen Ali, Marshall
Frisco Bowl, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN
Head coach Charles Huff might have jumped the shark when he lumped in Ali as a “generational talent” with Marshall alums Chad Pennington and Randy Moss. That said, he has rushed for 2,717 yards (5.4 per carry) and 38 touchdowns in his 27 games. He makes sharp cuts bouncing runs to the outside and can be dynamic in the screen game.
Our projection: Fourth round
Three parting thoughts
1. Listed below are four headlines seen in The New York Times. Guess which one was written this week, after respected Chiefs head coach Andy Reid and mild-mannered quarterback Patrick Mahomes crushed the officials for calling an offensive offsides penalty on Kadarius Toney that wiped out a late go-ahead touchdown in their loss to the Bills?
• “A Solution for Awful N.F.L. Officiating? Simplify the Rules.”
• “Wrong Calls Focus Attention on N.F.L. Officials”
• “Games Are Hung Up By Questionable Calls”
• [Commissioner] “Gives Promise of Improved Officiating”
Sorry, trick question.
The answer: None. They are from 2015, 2008, 1991 and 1978, respectively.
The point: NFL officiating has been under fire for decades, so it’s unrealistic to think it’s going to improve to what coaches, players and fans think is an acceptable standard.
But it’s one thing when any of hundreds of other NFL players call attention to officials deciding games. It’s another when the face of the league — and that’s what Mahomes is in a post-Tom Brady world — goes against the league’s policy of not publicly criticizing officials.
Time for damage control. And yet …
“We all understand our officials are second-guessed,” commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday. “I’ve said it many times to you before: They are not perfect. No human being is. But the reality is they do an extraordinary job.”
2. Who’s the best team in the league? With eight teams owning records between 8-5 and 10-3, it’s up for debate.
It’s hard not to see the 49ers as the most talented, however.
There are 20 positions on the Pro Bowl ballot. The 49ers have the NFC’s leading vote-getter at 10 of those spots: quarterback Brock Purdy, running back Christian McCaffrey, fullback Kyle Juszczyk, tight end George Kittle, offensive tackle Trent Williams, defensive end Nick Bosa, defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, linebacker Fred Warner, punter Mitch Wishnowsky and long snapper Taybor Pepper.
Two wild thoughts when seeing those results: First, receiver Deebo Samuel easily could’ve been an 11th. Second, the 49ers let Raheem Mostert — the AFC’s leading vote-getter at running back — walk away after six seasons (2016-21) to land with the Dolphins. Even the best talent evaluators make mistakes.
3. You don’t see a lot of one-team franchise icons willing to rip their team. Certainly not their own former teammates and coaches.
Ben Roethlisberger is not most one-team franchise icons.
“Maybe the tradition of the Pittsburgh Steelers is done,” he said on his podcast, “Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger.”
He also cited an example of “bad coaching” by Mike Tomlin, who has never had a losing season at the helm.
Considering that Roethlisberger admits to feeling pushed out the door at the end of his career, you get the sense he might just be getting started.
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