INDIANAPOLIS — While it’s true that the quarterback position is the most important and impactful position in the NFL, it’s also true that while the position is indispensable, the players playing that position are usually highly fungible. There aren’t many Tom Bradys who play two decades for one team, and as we all know, Brady himself might not be back in Foxborough in 2020.
Several head coaches and general managers were grilled about their fractious quarterback situations during their media sessions at the scouting combine, and here’s what we can gather from their words.
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Bruce Arians: Jameis Winston ‘could be’ the guy
Last season, Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians, one of the league’s better quarterback instructors and passing game architects, had to watch in what we would assume was abject horror at times as Jameis Winston became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions in the same season. Arians has said before that not all of Winston’s 30 picks were his fault, but even a cursory review of the most impactful interceptions shows a quarterback who tested Arians’ “No risk-it, no-biscuit” philosophy to its illogical end.
Winston will be a free agent unless the Bucs re-sign or tag him, and there’s a legitimate question to ask there: Why would they want to do that? On Tuesday, Arians was asked point blank whether Winston was “the guy,” and his answer was succinct:
“He could be.”
Winston had LASIK surgery this offseason, and maybe that will help. Was this a big deal to his coach?
“I don’t think so,” Arians said. “It’s more of a personal thing. His deep ball increased dramatically. So I don’t think he has problem seeing the guys. He has problems seeing the scoreboard sometimes.”
Well, there is that. Like everyone else in the NFL, Arians is waiting to see what happens when the new league year kicks over on March 18, and a nearly unprecedented haul of free-agent talent at the position could be available. It makes the Winston decision easier and harder at the same time. Arians may believe that he can corral Winston’s rogue elements and bring out more of the guy who led the league with 5,109 passing yards.
“It’s amazing because you really don’t know who is available until the tags come out and then you’ll know,” Arians concluded. “Then you get a short window to talk to somebody. The legal tampering period. Right now, you don’t even know if a guy is going to be on the market. It’s hard to say. All these quarterbacks are out there? I think maybe two or three will be out there.’’
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Dave Gettleman: Daniel Jones will have to compete. Wait, what?
Giants general manager Dave Gettleman’s press conferences are always remarkable for their… uh, shall we say, atypical views. Last year, Gettleman was as confident as could be that Duke quarterback Daniel Jones, selected with the sixth overall pick in the 2019 draft, was his guy. Jones made Gettleman look pretty smart with a rookie season in which he threw 24 touchdowns to 12 interceptions, and looked more like an NFL starting quarterback than a loot of people expected.
So, with needs all over his roster, and the quarterback position sewn up, you’d think Gettleman wouldn’t want to cast doubts. Ah, then you don’t know the guy some in Giants media calls “Crazy Uncle Dave.”
When Gettleman hit the podium Tuesday, he did everything he could to put a burr under Jones’ saddle regarding his starting position.
“I view Daniel Jones as going into his second year and learning how to be an NFL quarterback,” Gettleman said when asked if Jones was the no-doubt starter going forward.
Okay, so that was going to get some follow-ups, which is where Gettleman usually goes off.
“Why should you put the pressure on the kid? It’s not fair. It’s no different than the expectations your bosses have for you guys. Second year in, writing reports, they expect better reports. 10 years in, they expect real good reports. I’m not putting expectations on anybody. I don’t know if any of you guys had a chance to read the book, Bill Walsh’s book, [Finding] The Winning Edge. In that book, at that time, because we’ve discussed this, he had a two-year rule. We’re talking in the ‘80s, when players were coming out and they were 23, 24 years old. They had been in school four to five years. We were drafting guys and just having to put a little polish on it, where we’ve talked about and discussed fundamentals are a thing of the past. The college game is not our game. He had a two-year rule. That meant everybody in the building, so if you’re a scout, a coach, an executive assistant, a player, you had two years to prove your worth. Now, with what’s going on, it’s three years. Again, I’ve said it to you a million times, we’re dealing with 21-year-old kids and they’re young.”
So. Maybe this is all a smokescreen to get a quarterback-needy team to trade up to the Giants’ fourth overall position. Though Gettleman has literally never traded down in his entire career as a GM. Or, it’s another example of Gettleman getting weird because he can. Both options are entirely in play.
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Mike Mayock: Nothing is guaranteed for Derek Carr
Change is coming for the Raiders in all kinds of ways. There’s the move to Las Vegas. You can expect general manager Mike Mayock and head coach Jon Gruden to use this draft to clean up a defense that finished 31st in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted metrics. And there’s no certainty about the future of quarterback Derek Carr in a Raiders uniform. Rumors started late last season about a “significant disconnect” between Gruden and Carr, and Gruden has been known to be brutally exacting with his quarterbacks. Gruden has said nothing to assure Carr of anything, despite a season in which Carr moved over the 100 mark in passer rating for the first time in his career.
On Tuesday, Mayock added to the uncertainty.
“I’m surprised it took two questions to get to Derek, but thank you. The bottom line is this. Everybody needs to understand at what level Derek Carr played last year, okay? The guy completed 70% of his passes, he had almost a 3-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. I think we were No. 11 in the league in total yards, we were seventh in third down conversions. We did a lot of really good things on offense last year. The disconnect was, we didn’t score a lot of points. You’re 11th in yards, and 24th in points, there’s an issue. It’s defense, it’s special teams, it’s not scoring in the red zone, and it’s not scoring in goal-to-goal. To me, those are the issues. Derek Carr played at a high level. I’m very happy with Derek Carr. What I’ve told everybody I’ve been in touch with since the day I took this job, we’re going to evaluate every position, every year. And if we can get better, we will. I know you guys get tired of me saying that, but that’s really what I told [Raiders owner] Mark Davis before I took the job. That’s really my mantra.”
Not a yes, not a no. Mayock did follow up with “We have a quarterback who runs Jon’s offense at a very high level,” but given Gruden’s historical dissatisfaction with the quarterback he has, and interest in just about every other quarterback, nothing here is guaranteed for Carr. The six-year veteran has a contract that runs through the 2022 season, with a $21.5 million cap hit if he’s on the roster, and a cap savings of $13.6 million if he isn’t.
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Matt Nagy: Looking at Trubisky’s last stand?
After a 2019 season in which Mitchell Trubisky finished 28th in Football Outsiders’ season-cumulative opponent-adjusted efficiency metrics, the Bears went all in on improving Trubisky with a new coaching staff aligned for — well, if not quarterback perfection, perhaps league-average performance. Outside of his five-touchdown performance in the first half against the Buccaneers in September, 2018, there hasn’t been much of that. So, in comes Bill Lazor as the new offensive coordinator, John DeFilippo as the quarterbacks coach, and former quarterbacks coach Dave Ragone promted to passing game coordinator. These guys all need to align with head coach Matt Nagy, the designer of Chicago’s current passing offense, such as it is.
Nagy said Tuesday that he’ll still call the plays, and was asked how to blend all the voices in the room. “Too many cooks” can be a problem even if the recipe calls for boxed mac-and-cheese — which is kind of where Trubisky is at this point in his career.
“Yeah, well, we’re doing that now in the offseason with the blend,” Nagy said. “We’re thick in… matter of fact, we’re getting together in a few hours to even get at it more. Scheme wise, what did we do well last year as a team? We know offensively we struggled in a lot of different areas, but we’re about fixing it. If we’re OK with what we did last year, then we’re in the wrong place. And we’re not. So we gotta fix things. And so how do we do that? We get good minds together that talk it through. We’re real with each other. This wasn’t a good play. This wasn’t about the player, this was about the coaches. And when you can do that and show accountability, you continue to build that trust. And so our goal is to be a lot better offensively, and if that’s less is more, then great. Whatever that is, we’ll work that way all the way to training camp with all of those coaches.”
Accountability has to transfer to the quarterback, though. Not that Trubisky doesn’t hold himself accountable, but the results have not been what the Bears wanted since they took him with the second overall pick in the 2017 draft, passing on Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson to do so. At this point, Nagy sounds more like a coach who wants to maximize the environment around Trubisky than maximize Trubisky. Perhaps that’s because he’s done as much as he can do with a limited player.
“This will be going into his fourth year. For us, if we all think that that’s what we want from him, from last year, we’re fooling ourselves. He knows that, and we know that. But at the same time, we need to be real. What’s around him? And that’s where we’re at. I know it’s hard sometimes for all of us to understand that, and you see what’s going on with the instant gratification now, but there is a process for us. I do know that Mitch is very hungry. He understands that we want him to play better; he understands that we want to coach better. So now we cannot worry and dwell about what happened last year. If you do that, you get stuck in the mud. We can’t do it. It’s a clean slate. Now we’ve gotta get better for this year.”
The bill becomes due when the Bears have to pick up Trubisky’s fifth-year option. That decision has to happen by May, and general manager Ryan Pace seemed entirely noncommittal when he spoke here on Tuesday. Stuck with the wrong quarterback for two more years is not where you want to be, which gives more credence to the notion that hey, if Trubisky doesn’t work out, at least they did everything we could to help him along. At best, it’ll work. At worst, it’s a decent CYA move.
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Matt Rhule: We’d love to have Cam Newton back… maybe?
Over his last two seasons, Cam Newton has played 16 games and missed 16 games with a variety of injuries. New Panthers head coach Matt Rhule, fresh from three years at Baylor, came to his first combine podium session ready for the inevitable questions about Newton’s futrure.
“I know there’ll be a lot of questions about Cam,” Rhule said in what amounted to an opening statement. “My son keeps calling me, asking me questions. So I figured I’d address that right off the bat. From my perspective, I am unbelievably excited to get a chance to work with Cam. You come in from the outside, you kind of know as just a fan, but just on a personal note getting to know him, he is a diligent guy. He’s working so hard, both in Atlanta and in Carolina, to get himself healthy. You meet him, he’s this massive man, impressive man. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know him. Sitting down in the cafeteria when he comes by, sitting down in my office. I think he’s doing a great job. The way he balances being a great father, the way he balances being a great quarterback and the things he does in the community are really important. So I want to make sure I say that. I’m excited to get him healthy. Obviously, that’s the No. 1 goal for us. He’s doing a great job of doing his part. We have to make sure that we’re doing our part as we try to get him healthy for the 2020 season.”
All well and good if Newton’s healthy, which he hasn’t been over the last two seasons, and his performance has reflected that. Rhule said that he, general manager Marty Hurney, and owner David Tepper are all on the same page regarding Newton’s future, but it’s also worth remembering that Tepper fired Ron Rivera last December because he wanted to “elevate the organization,” and “without shaking the tree you can’t get any apples.” Standing around waiting for Newton to be what Newton once was doesn’t seem like Tepper’s kind of play, and the goalposts could move quickly.
If that happens, and the Panthers are all of a sudden in the market for a franchise quarterback in the draft or free agency, they’d get a $19.1 cap savings in 2020 by releasing Newton in the final year of his contract. Moving on is something the Panthers are okay with in the hypothetical realm.
“I think we’re going to look at the absolute best fit at everything,” Rhule concluded. “I think when you’re picking seventh, that usually means you have to do something. You have to get an impact player. So we’ll look for the impact player. That’s the process while we’re here. I’m probably not even thinking ‘draft’ yet. I’m probably more thinking ‘combine’. From my perspective, I don’t want to miss out on a player. I want to get the very best fit for us. So to me, how do you do that? You’re really diligent in the process along the way of the formal interviews, the formal interviews, the weigh-ins. Especially this being my first combine in this role, I want to make sure I’m doing a good job, and I’m trying not to let anything slip through the cracks. So I’m so focused right now on just this – then, when the draft comes, you know, Marty and I will get together and hopefully make the right picks. Definitely make the right picks.”
That is the hope every franchise has. But for these five franchises, the quarterback situations could complicate the process.
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Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
