The NFC's open secret
Do you need a great quarterback to compete for the NFC Championship? Seaside Joe 1724
As much as I would like to see the Seattle Seahawks have an elite quarterback, because that’s the guy who has the most control over a football game compared to anyone else on the field, we know that’s easier to wish for than it is to manifest into reality. The 2024 quarterback carousel leaves a lot to be desired, as I wrote recently, and the Seahawks have a two-pronged attack against any fans who want them to draft a franchise player at the position in the first round:
A) “We probably won’t have a top-20 picks” and B) “We wouldn’t want to do it even if we did!”
The Seahawks have drafted two first round quarterbacks in the history of the franchise (and none in the second round, for that matter), and neither of those picks worked out. Not that a team should be gun shy because of a lack of success at something—especially when they never even try—but for better or worse it doesn’t seem to be “The Seahawk Way”.
Based on what I’m seeing on the quarterback landscape of the two respective conferences, maybe it doesn’t have to be.
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The Weird State of NFC QBs
The 2023 NFL Draft
How interesting is it that of the three quarterbacks selected in the top-four picks this year, the standout (C.J. Stroud) went to the Houston Texans? The player who was getting the most attention (Anthony Richardson) went to the Indianapolis Colts. And the guy getting tenderized, literally and figuratively, (Bryce Young) is the one who went to the Carolina Panthers in the NFC.
Even the top second round pick (Will Levis) is housed in the AFC South with the Tennessee Titans and an added dose of intrigue is a fourth round pick (Aidan O’Connell) replacing Jimmy Garoppolo on the Las Vegas Raiders and a fifth round pick (Dorian Thompson-Robinson) expected to start the rest of the season for the Cleveland Browns.
We could see as few as two or as many as five quarterbacks from the 2023 draft who are starters on AFC teams in 2024. That’s five new quarterbacks to the conference that was ALREADY well ahead in the two-conference race to have the most talent at the position.
Which is…maybe not a race you actually want to win.
It’s not a first round marathon in the NFC
Here are the starting quarterbacks in the NFC who were first round picks:
Daniel Jones, Giants (torn ACL+not good)
Jared Goff, Lions (not drafted by Lions)
Jordan Love, Packers (TBD)
Justin Fields, Bears (has won fewer starts this year than Tyson Bagent)
Baker Mayfield, Bucs (not drafted by Bucs)
Bryce Young, Panthers (rookie+not good yet)
Matthew Stafford, Rams (not drafted by Rams+not good anymore?)
Kyler Murray, Cardinals (recovery from torn ACL)
The number of quarterbacks in this group who are really good? Maybe Goff? For now?
The number of good quarterbacks who were drafted by the team they’re on? Zero.
With the exception of 2019, first round QB selections have leaned heavily in favor of the AFC over the past six years (in bold: Still on team)
2017: Mitchell Trubisky in the NFC, Pat Mahomes and Deshaun Watson in the AFC
2018: Josh Rosen in the NFC, Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson in the AFC
2019: Kyler Murray, Daniel Jones, Dwayne Haskins in the NFC
2020: Jordan Love in the NFC, Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert in the AFC
2021: Trey Lance, Justin Fields in the NFC, Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Mac Jones in the AFC
2022: Kenny Pickett in the AFC
2023: Bryce Young in the NFC, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson in the AFC
That is 10 first round quarterbacks in the NFC (four present starters) and 15 first round quarterbacks in the AFC (13 present starters, including Watson, Mayfield, and those injured like Richardson or on thin ice like Pickett, Jones).
Even someone who missed in the AFC, that being Baker Mayfield, is a borderline Pro Bowl player in the NFC.
If that wasn’t enough, over the past two offseasons, AFC teams have traded for Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson. Whether those moves will look better in time remains to be seen, but what I know for sure is that good quarterbacks are not going the other way. Derek Carr moved from the AFC to the NFC and, well, that speaks for itself.
The best of the NFC
It’s rarely been this easy to pick the NFC’s Pro Bowl representatives at quarterback: Brock Purdy (7th round pick), Dak Prescott (4th round pick), and then maybe there’s some competition between Jalen Hurts (2nd round pick) and Jared Goff (trade throw-in). (With the exception that former free agent Kirk Cousins is out for the season and probably would have been in the conversation too.)
In the AFC, maybe teams with Hurts or Goff would miss the playoffs. In the NFC, they’re 9-1 and 8-2 and sitting back like:
Am I exaggerating? You tell me:
Where would Goff rank in the AFC East with Tua and Allen? Where would Hurts rank in the AFC North if all things were healthy between Jackson, Burrow, and Watson? Where would they rank in the AFC West next to Mahomes, Herbert, and Russell Wilson? Even the AFC South now features Lawrence and Stroud.
I don’t mean to ignore the fact that the Steelers are currently a wild card team with Kenny Pickett or that Wilson and Watson aren’t good anymore. But seriously, this is a conference in which Josh Allen, Joe Burrow’s team, and Justin Herbert are OUT of the playoffs if the postseason started today.
The NFC South-leading Saints have wins over the Titans, Panthers, Patriots, Colts, and Bears. They’ve also lost to the Packers, Bucs, Texans, Jaguars, and Vikings with Josh Dobbs.
The three-best teams on their entire schedule play…in the AFC!
Where would Josh Allen or Justin Herbert be sitting today if they played for the Saints instead of the Bills and Chargers?
Even the two of the 49ers’ three losses this season came against the AFC (Browns, Bengals). The Lions and Seahawks both suffered their worst blowout losses of recent history to the Baltimore Ravens. The Eagles, who did defeat the Chiefs on Monday Night (not without the help of a few drops on Kansas City’s part), owe their only loss of the year to the Jets.
The simple fact remains and is undisputible that the AFC significantly out-classes the NFC in quarterback talent. If you’re a fan of an AFC team, the good news is that you’re probably at least rooting for an interesting quarterback. Not saying all of them are playing well, because they’re not, but someone like Allen would go from the middle to the very top if he was in the NFC. On the other hand, AFC teams know that having a good-to-great quarterback could still leave them on the outside looking in come January.
There are two ways to look at this if you’re an NFC team, like the Seahawks.
‘What do we do?!’
Try to be the best: Panthers model
Far be it from me to say that any team wants to smell like the Panthers…
But it’s abundantly obvious that owner David Tepper has been trying to win the NFC by being the team with the best quarterback. His ‘good intentions’ have led to wasting picks on Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, and Matt Corral, then most recently trading away as many asssets as he could find for Bryce Young.
People will say that was stupid to do, and I understand that sentiment, but I can also see what Carolina was going for: If Young works, the Panthers could easily have the best quarterback in the NFC by 2024 or 2025 just because basically nobody else is trying.
As bad as the Panthers are now—and they’re REALLY bad—they actually might be the best bet to win the NFC South next season if you consider the respective situations of their competitors:
Might fire head coach: Saints, Falcons, Bucs, Panthers
Might need new starting QB: Saints, Falcons, Bucs
The Falcons have let it be known that they want to keep Arthur Smith barring disaster…Well, who is to say that Atlanta might not be headed for disaster? Their last three games are losses to Will Levis, Josh Dobbs, and Kyler Murray.
The Panthers could, and I think probably will, fire head coach Frank Reich. And if they do so, they’ll be in a position, as the Jaguars were with Lawrence in 2022, to sell themselves to the best candidates that they already have a franchise quarterback in place. That could give Carolina a leg up on the Saints and Bucs if they’re competing for the same coach. Plus, the other three NFC South teams will win too many games to draft the top one or two quarterbacks. They could trade up…which is exactly what the Panthers are being criticized for doing now.
I think Carolina just decided to get an early headstart on the other teams knowing that eventually all of them would need new quarterbacks.
Maybe Bryce Young will be a bust, maybe he won’t. But there are not very many other quarterbacks in the entire conference like him, so I can respect the effort.
Actually don’t try to be the best: The Seahawks model
Contrary to the Panthers, the other way to see the NFC’s situation is to think that if a B+ is good enough to pass the class, then why put in the extra effort to get an A?
This is how the Seahawks appear to see it.
When outsiders demanded that the Seahawks follow up the Russell Wilson trade by going after Deshaun Watson, Matt Ryan, Baker Mayfield, Jimmy Garoppolo, Malik Willis, etc., Seattle zigged and re-signed Geno Smith for a competition against Drew Lock.
And what did fans say about the untouchable Geno Smith less than 18 months ago? “The Seahawks are the dumbest organization in football if they let him start.”
Hmmm. It at least makes you wonder how many other backups could get a passing grade in the NFC.
Smith’s 2022 performance put him in the top-5 or 6 of the NFC quarterbacks (tied with Andy Dalton for the fourth-best adjusted net yards/attempt in the conference, trailing Garoppolo, Goff, and Hurts) and he’s smack dab in the middle of the pecking order in 2023.
In ANY/A, Geno trails Purdy (NFL leader at 9.05), Cousins (7.18), Prescott (7.11), Goff (6.87), Hurts (6.34), and Mayfield (6.24), with a rate of 6.10. Geno’s 2022 ANY/A was 6.54.
By DYAR, the DVOA-adjacent metric formerly of FootballOutsiders, Geno Smith is fifth in the NFC behind Purdy (NFL leader), Goff, Prescott, and Cousins.
Despite being on track for a worse season than he had in 2022, Geno actually is not drowning the NFC quarterback echelon. That is thanks to the fact that his competition for the rest of the season will include Tommy DeVito, Josh Dobbs, a fledgling Matthew Stafford, a flailing Bryce Young, Sam Howell, Jordan Love, Justin Fields, Kyler Murray, and some combination of players on the Saints and Falcons.
If the Seahawks take a big swing on a quarterback in 2024, then they might end up dominating the conference because that’s total “big fish>small pond” vibes right now.
And yet, if the Seahawks pour their resources into other needs and let Geno or Lock man the ship for another season or three, they might not be any worse off than the top-three quarterbacks in the NFC. Even Jalen Hurts has not played exceptionally well this season and Goff, Dak, Purdy are more than capable of mistakes.
Plus, here’s the funkiest part of all: The AFC could still win the 2024 QB draft cycle again!
2024 Draft
The current draft order has the Panthers sending the number one overall pick to the Chicago Bears, an outcome that gets closer to reality every week. The next five picks are: Cardinals, Patriots, Bears, Giants, Titans.
It doesn’t really matter where the Seahawks are projected right now, it will depend on how their playoff hopes go, but Seattle is super unlikely to pick in the top-18 just because the NFC is that bad and 9-8 or even 8-9 should get a wild card.
The Bears have Fields, so they could choose—as they did in 2023—to keep him and trade the number one overall pick for a bounty. That’s not what I would do, but it doesn’t really matter what I think as clearly a lot of people in Chicago still believe they have their guy already. And I’m not so sure that Caleb Williams or Drake Maye, the top two prospects in 2024, will be guaranteed upgrades.
It could be just enough for a team like the New England Patriots to agree to trade their first round pick and next year’s first round pick for the rights to pick Williams or Maye. (The salacious writer in me wants to hypothesize trading Bill Belichick to the Bears.)
Either way, it’s no guarantee that the team with the top pick will want a quarterback, whether that be the Bears or the Cardinals, and they hold three of the top-four right now.
Even though eight of the top-10 teams in draft order are in the NFC, it could still turn out that one of the top-two quarterbacks goes to the Patriots. The Titans could lose out and see a rookie as an upgrade to Levis. It’s not hard to imagine that half of the 2024’s top quarterback prospects will still go to the AFC and as we’ve seen with Stroud, that could be enough for them to “win” another draft class.
That could be the best thing possible for a franchise like the Seahawks, who won’t be picking anywhere near the top.
What should the Seahawks do then?
As I wrote recently, I don’t see many better options on the veteran market than keeping Smith and Lock for another season. I also don’t see them drafting a quarterback early, but I would highly encourage Seattle to strongly consider picking one on day two—or even day three.
The top-three QBs in the conference were picked in rounds two, four, and seven. John Schneider has only EVER drafted Russell Wilson and Alex McGough. I understand being picky with your quarterbacks, but that’s overkill of caution.
It’s hard to believe he learned drafting from his time with the Green Bay Packers and Ted Thompson.
There should be a lot of interesting quarterback names called after the top-10 picks and while you know where my heart is, you should also know that I am not going to be upset if the Seahawks decide that someone like J.J. McCarthy, Bo Nix, Jayden Daniels, Cameron Ward, Carson Beck, Michael Penix, or etc. are the choice. Evaluation is too difficult for someone like me to be choosy…but the evidence is there for the Seahawks to finally be choose-someone.
He doesn’t even have to necessarily be great to be…great.
Very interesting piece. I do not think a team has to have an elite quarterback if they have an outstanding defense and they have an excellent running game. I think we saw that in the Super Bowl seasons. Wilson was good, but not elite. He just did not make mistakes.
I do wonder if we need to pay Smith all that money or if we could get equivalent play from somebody like Mayfield or players of similar caliber. I would like to see them to continue to invest in the lines.
I am not saying they should not draft a quarterback, but I would look for one between the third and the fifth rounds
Great article. My take is that there will be so many QB prospects this year not named Caleb Williams or Maye that everyone who wants one can get one, and the best QB to come out of this draft might very well be undrafted. There are dozens of prospects coming out this year. A list of the top twenty might not include someone like the guy from Miami. Van Dyke or something. The top twenty QB prospects certainly won't include the guy whose tattoo is one the back of SSJ. Shamefully, I can't remember his name. My age showing. McSomething.
I'd give my right testicle to get Caleb Williams. He's that good. It could be done. But there are so many potentially great QB's coming out this year, we will get at least one.
I believe this team is significantly better than the team we saw play last year. The eye test tells me so. Geno isn't better, but still, as a team we are still better than last years' team. We are playing a significantly harder schedule, including losing two games to LA rather than win two games against LA without most of their stars. That alone will adversely affect our won loss record. It has to be made up for with wins against who or whom? Dallas? SF X 2? Philly? Pittsburg? Maybe Arizona. We have as few as one more win this year even if we play pretty good football.
Personally, I think we'll get a top 15 draft pick.