Perhaps Zac Taylor had enough on his plate without solving the age-old problem of NFL quarterback development.
Or perhaps even the Cincinnati Bengals head coach knew that his success picking Joe Burrow first overall was not necessarily indicative of a greater trend, that one human’s experience cannot always be superimposed onto the next with expectations of the same result.
Either way, Taylor was not interested in delving into the challenge facing the six teams carrying first-round rookie quarterbacks on their rosters this year.
He’s not the head coach of the Chicago Bears, Washington Commanders, New England Patriots, Atlanta Falcons, Minnesota Vikings or Denver Broncos.
So Taylor bowed out when asked how teams should handle their debuts.
“There’s a lot of decisions that have to be made there,” he said during training camp. “And that’s not my problem.”
Thank goodness, coaches with quarterback answers say, that’s not their problem.
NFL teams devote hundreds of millions of dollars and dozens of employees’ long hours to determining who should fill the most impactful spot on their roster.
But merely drafting a talented quarterback is no guaranteed elixir.
Teams must decide when to start the quarterback they drafted and under what circumstances. They must project and take risks and hope that their bet pans out. Oftentimes, it doesn’t.
“It’s still a million-dollar question — nobody really knows the answer,” Marc Trestman, who spent eight seasons as an offensive coordinator and two more as Chicago Bears head coach, told Yahoo Sports. “An investment for the next decade that will determine the longevity of the head coaches and general managers and so forth.”
As quarterbacks flew off the draft board in record time this spring, Yahoo Sports set out to determine: When do coaches and executives across the league believe it’s the “right” time to start a first-round rookie quarterback? And what factors influence the likelihood of success?
The dichotomy between Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud’s rookie seasons highlighted how drastically the outcome can swing.
As the Patriots hand over the keys to 2024 third overall pick Drake Maye this week, they reignite this debate with full force.
Is Maye more likely to pan out if he sits his rookie year, like Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes did?
Or is he better off with trial by fire like Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Stroud and even Jayden Daniels this year?
Yahoo Sports conversations with 26 sources from 12 NFL teams, including five general managers and six head coaches, suggest the debate sparks more questions than answers within club halls. Decision-makers are far more willing to espouse a dynamic philosophy — especially one that has impacted their own career — than one they believe is universally applicable.
“I don’t think there’s a one size fits all and I don’t think one is right or wrong,” Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay told Yahoo Sports. “Human beings are always the separator.”
As Patriots start Maye, is there a clear right or wrong answer?
Coaches and executives willing to take a strong stance hailed from different teams and job titles.
But Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst, Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy and Detroit Lions quarterbacks coach Mark Brunell (a Pro Bowl NFL quarterback himself) have something in common: They have all reaped the benefits of a quarterback beginning his career on the bench.
“Patience has been a bit of our superpower,” Gutekunst told Yahoo Sports two days before he signed Jordan Love to a $55-million-per-year contract extension despite Love sitting three of his first four years with the team. “It’s not a patient league.”
Quarterbacks start imminently for different reasons, coaches and executives say. Sometimes the breadth and depth of their college experience indicate they’re ready — Denver Broncos rookie Bo Nix played 61 college games before he was drafted 12th overall — and oftentimes organizations are desperate to re-engage drifting fans. Trial-by-fire advocates said that rather than sit a player adjusting to the playbook, coordinators can offload protection responsibilities to a starting center and manage the inescapable errant throws.
Advocates for starting a quarterback ASAP noted the importance of a player’s practice repetitions with the first-team offense, and the rest of the offense’s familiarity with a playbook tailored to the young quarterback rather than his predecessor. Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry, who overlapped with Peyton Manning in Indianapolis, recalled Manning’s appreciation for how his 28-interception rookie season (his record stands 26 seasons later) gave Manning insight on which throws he could not make as a rookie and thus needed to drill most that offseason en route to 14 Pro Bowls and five MVP seasons.
In all, four of 17 decision-makers who weighed in on rookie timelines told Yahoo Sports they would always push to sit a rookie quarterback; two said they’d always start them; and 11 said they’d tailor their philosophy to the individual player and the cast around him, to determine his likelihood for success.
“There may be a cookie-cutter list of some macro variables,” Rams general manager Les Snead told Yahoo Sports. “But within those macro variables, there’s a lot of micro variables.”
Simplifying the playbook could help a quarterback adjust to the pro game’s speed, but at what point does a vanilla playbook feed so much into the defense’s hands that the disadvantage is insurmountable?
Learning to hang tough and throw with poise from a muddy pocket is a necessary NFL skill, but there is a saturation point at which the merit of toughness fades and the chance of permanent damage spikes, decision-makers say.
Respondents tended to cling to their own career experience, also noting that flexibility to sit a quarterback is a luxury coaches increasingly aren’t afforded.
“I’ve seen it where you throw them in there and they’re getting the s*** knocked out of them, they’re getting sacked and they’re throwing interceptions and pretty, pretty soon you’ve got a damaged young quarterback that is just overwhelmed with a lack of success,” said Brunell, who earned three Pro Bowl berths in 19 seasons after starting zero games his first two years. “For some guys, it’s too hard to overcome.”
There’s a clear top obstacle to rookie QB success
This year’s starting quarterback group also features late-bloomers like Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield and Geno Smith who struggled with their initial teams before finding later-career success elsewhere.
Evaluators believe it’s possible to ruin a quarterback by mismanaging their timeline or onboarding, some quarterbacks busting not due to nature but nurture.
What traits do evaluators most seek once a quarterback’s in the building?
It’s still a million-dollar question — nobody really knows the answer.Former Bears head coach Marc Trestman on when you know rookie QBs are ready
Coaches and executives cite decision-making as the most important trait, defined more as anticipation of game scenarios and diagnosis of opposing defenses rather than the understanding of a team’s offensive system itself. Ten evaluators cited decision-making as a key indicator a quarterback is ready to start; seven cited the confidence and resilience a quarterback needs to rebound from an almost inevitably bumpy debut year; six cited command of the offense or playbook; and two cited leadership.
Any NFL player will encounter a transition in difficulty level upon arriving in the league, but McCarthy said adjustment to the game pace is “magnified at about 10 for a quarterback, just because of their responsibility level.”
Snead compared quarterbacks’ acclimation to listening to audio files at warped speeds.
“You can’t go from 1 to 2.5 — you gotta go to 1.25, 1.5,” Snead said. “So playing does help, for sure. But there is that moment where, ‘Wow, I just listened to this book at 2.5 and I don’t know what was just written and now I got to take a test on it, and oh, by the way, it’s multiple choice and I don’t know whether it’s A, B, C or D.
“If you’re guessing and you’re not getting the right answer, how then do you handle that?”
While a quarterbacks’ work ethic and physical gifts will help, decision-makers stressed how unlikely quarterbacks are to succeed without sufficient support.
What support is most crucial? Seven cited the benefit of streamlining a quarterback’s line-of-scrimmage responsibilities, while five cited protection as paramount or even a non-negotiable to trotting out a rookie. Three indicated the importance of reliable targets to ease the two-person job of a completion, and one mentioned how a good defense can relieve the pressure to score quickly and at times even increase the number of possessions the offense gets thanks to takeaways.
There is a moment, coaches and executives said, where a quarterback proves he’s ready. That could be a practice throw when he adjusts to a pressure and responds within structure, or a film session in which he diagnoses not only what he saw but also what he did in real time, indicating alignment between execution and intention.
At that point, is there any reason not to let the future unfold in the present?
“The only way I’m going to hold him back if I think he’s ready is if I can’t protect him with the line, because that has the potential of damaging somebody for their career,” one NFC executive told Yahoo Sports. “When you get hit hard early and often, you start to see ghosts. It’s hard to overcome.”
The good and the bad news for Patriots against Texans
Setting aside for a moment the vicious defense Maye will face Sunday, there is irony that he will receive his first pro start against the Texans.
It is Texans quarterback Stroud, the 2023 No. 2 overall pick, who last yearshowed the league how tantalizing a successful rookie quarterback could be. Teams marveled not only at Stroud’s arm talent but also at how calmly and meticulously he dissected defenses in real time as Houston transformed from 3-13-1 to a 10-7 division champion in one year.
Stroud led the league with 273.9 passing yards per game last year, registering a 100.8 passer rating as he threw 23 touchdowns to five interceptions.
In contrast, the Panthers went 2-15 as their first overall pick threw 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, Young getting sacked 62 times to Stroud’s 38. Young’s league-leading statistic: 477 sack yards.
The what-if questions fascinate league minds.
“I think of, ‘What if you put Bryce Young in Houston and what if you put C.J. in Carolina?” Brunell said. “What does that look like? I don’t know. And I’m not taking anything away from C.J. at all. There have been very, very good quarterbacks that have been thrown to the wolves and it just never really worked out for him early on and they just weren’t able to recover from it.
“Who knows if they were in a better situation where their career would have gone?”
The latter question is the crux of the concern for Maye as he prepares to start.
The Patriots’ injured-and-rotating offensive line ranks dead-last in pass-block win rate, per ESPN, managing to protect its quarterback just 42% of the time. Maye’s draft classmates who have started enjoy far surer lines: the Bears protect Caleb Williams with the 12th-best pass block win rate; the Commanders rank eighth for Jayden Daniels; and the Broncos fifth for Nix.
The Patriots have allowed the highest quarterback pressure rate this season and the highest unblocked pressure rate this season, per Next Gen Stats. They’ve allowed the highest pressure rate from left tackle, center and right guard each.
Losing 121-game starting center David Andrews to a torn biceps is arguably the biggest cause for concern. Not only will that muddy Maye’s pocket but also Andrews prepared through training camp to handle protection calls, the Patriots shifting that responsibility from quarterback to center.
The Texans defense arrives with the fourth-best pass-rush win rate.
Maye hopes to play within structure nonetheless.
“Early on, just try to take what they give me and find completions,” he said this week. “I think that’s the biggest thing for a young quarterback going in there. Then from there, just don’t try to get hung up off-platform, off-play, off-schedule throws.
“Just play within the pocket, trust my feet and go out there and play.”
Coming off four straight losses, the Patriots believe Maye gives them a better chance to win than veteran journeyman Jacoby Brissett. They hope Maye’s athleticism, arm strength and head-turning release angles will empower him to throw targets open and take pressure off his line even if they don’t take much pressure off him.
Maye would not be the first quarterback to overcome shaky protection, Stroud’s line giving him just the 22nd-best pass-block win rate last season compared to Young at 28.
And if the Texans do blow up the Patriots’ backfield?
While Houston sacked Williams seven times in a 19-13 win last month, this year’s first overall pick rebounded the following week to throw for 363 yards and his first two career touchdowns. His passer rating has trended steadily upward each week since.
The Bears’ settling offense should encourage the Patriots.
Yes, they need to solve their quarterback question. But perhaps, they don’t need to find all the answers this week.
“Every team, even this early in the season, is still trying to figure out who they have, what they are as an organization and their identity,” head coach Jerod Mayo said. “I would say Drake is going to make us a better football team today and going forward.”