There's one thing that every winning QB has in common this year
Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford sent the wrong message: This is Seaside Joe 1375
The website Pro-Football-Reference is the single-biggest reason that I have a job as a football blogger. Technically, the journey probably started about 15 years ago with their flagship site, Baseball-Reference, but their dedication to stat and record-keeping has kept me afloat with ideas and information for almost two decades as I’ve obsessively checked their pages and Stathead search tools every single day since I can remember.
Let me give you a peek at my Pro-Football-Reference homepage this morning, as I’ve highlighted eighteen NFL teams that have one thing in common. Can you guess what it is?
Here’s the AFC:
Out of 16 AFC teams, half of the franchises qualify under this category. Yes, it also so happens that six of those teams have a winning record, four are in first place, and only the Las Vegas Raiders have a losing record. But success isn’t the common factor, it is only a symptom of what I’m driving at today.
Do you know what it is yet?
You can just as easily identify what the orange teams have in common by seeing what the teams in white have in common; can you think of anything that the Broncos, Colts, and Browns have in common this year, for example?
Here’s the NFC:
Same as the AFC, we see that out of 10 orange teams in the NFC, we have seven winning records, four division leaders, the entire NFC East, and only two teams that are losing: the Packers and Cardinals.
Have you figured it out yet? Can you figure what the Packers, Bucs, and Cardinals could have in common? What about the Falcons, Panthers, and Saints? What about the Lions and Rams, two teams connected for one very specific reason?
Maybe you could figure it out through the Seahawks. What did Pete Carroll decide to do this offseason? What did he AVOID doing this offseason? What did he do this offseason that became the biggest headline of his career and how did he react to it during the ensuing fallout?
That’s right, Pete traded Russell Wilson. Who did he trade him to? That’s right, one of the teams in white in the AFC. But the Seahawks are an orange team. Who is Pete starting at quarterback?
How long has Pete’s starting quarterback been with Pete?
Is it coming together yet?
Is everything I write from now on going to be a question?
Will you PLEASE subscribe to Seaside Joe?
Every single team that I’ve highlighted has given the majority of their starts at quarterback this season to a player who has been with the team since at least 2020. Every single team in white has been mostly quarterbacked by a player who is only in his first or second season with the franchise.
That seems notable for two reasons:
Almost every team in orange is good
Almost every team in white is bad
Maybe transitioning to become a franchise quarterback can’t happen overnight, or even in the course of one year. Even if, in the case of someone like Geno Smith, you spend a couple of seasons as the team’s backup. Clearly Pete Carroll valued Geno’s experience with the Seahawks over the “But this other guy is better” memos that fans kept sending to Seattle in the offseason.
Which now strictly reads as a list of players who have been benched.
It’s funny that this current NFL quarterback carousel, the one that has rapidly shifted from franchises taking painstaking efforts to keep their starting quarterback forever to a system that practically begs teams to make headline-busting news in the offseason, was all started by arguably the two greatest of all time.
Peyton Manning transitioned from the Colts to the Broncos.
Eight years later, Tom Brady transitioned from the Patriots to the Bucs.
They both won Super Bowls with their new franchises and it was probably Brady’s first-year success in Tampa Bay that prompted general managers like Les Snead of the Los Angeles Rams to ponder the possibilities of trading first round picks for quarterback upgrades. Then Matthew Stafford won a Super Bowl, too!
We will not see a repeat of Brady and Stafford’s first-year success in 2022.
Maybe Manning and Brady had success because they’re Manning and Brady. Surely they did the best job of choosing which teams were only a quarterback away. Maybe the Rams were even less than a quarterback away from winning the Super Bowl, but Stafford slightly pushed them over the top.
Surely Russell Wilson is questioning his decision to go to the Denver Broncos just as much as the Denver Broncos are questioning their decision to trade for Russell Wilson. Will this season put a stop to the quarterback trading carousel?
No, but let’s review it anyway.
Longest-tenured QBs in AFC: Derek Carr (9th season), Patrick Mahomes (6th), Lamar Jackson (5th), Josh Allen (5th), Ryan Tannehill (4th), Justin Herbert (3rd), Tua Tagovailoa (3rd), Joe Burrow (3rd)
There are eight winning teams in the AFC and the only one that doesn’t qualify is the 7-5 Jets. However, Joe Flacco did start three games and Robert Saleh has him (and his three seasons of experience with the Jets) in the QB room AND breakout sensation Mike White is also in his third year with the Jets. He’s kind of the young Geno of the AFC.
The only losing team here is the 5-7 Raiders, but I’m convinced that Vegas has been the victim of bad luck.
The quarterbacks/teams were are left with are Wilson’s Broncos, Matt Ryan’s Colts, Trevor Lawrence’s Jaguars, the Texans, Mitchell Trubisky/Kenny Pickett’s Steelers, the team that previously belonged to Jacoby Brissett, and Mac Jones’s Patriots.
Next season could be the year that Lawrence ascends to the AFC playoffs.
Longest-tenured QBs in NFC: Aaron Rodgers (18th season), Dak Prescott (7th), Jimmy Garoppolo (6th), Kirk Cousins (5th), Daniel Jones (4th), Kyler Murray (4th), Geno Smith (4th), Jalen Hurts (3rd), Tom Brady (3rd), Taylor Heinicke (3rd)
The only losing QBs here are Rodgers and Murray. You could say that Rodgers is becoming a little too tenured, but I wouldn’t bet the farm against the Packers winning their last four games to finish 9-8.
Look at how Geno has emerged to become the best QB in the NFC after spending 2019, 2020, and 2021 on Seattle’s bench. Look at how Taylor Heinicke (5-1-1) has outplayed the newly-acquired Carson Wentz. Notice that as whelming as Jimmy Garoppolo is, the 49ers have been playing like the most complete team in the conference and that seems like it would have been impossible with the inexperienced Trey Lance.
The quarterbacks/teams were are left with are Stafford’s Rams (now Mayfield’s Rams), Mayfield’s Panthers (now Sam Darnold’s Panthers), Andy Dalton’s Saints (Jameis Winston could qualify as long-tenured, but was replaced early in the season), Jared Goff’s Lions, Justin Fields’s Bears, and Marcus Mariota’s Falcons.
Mariota was officially benched for rookie Desmond Ridder on Thursday.
And honestly, I think people should watch out for the Lions in 2023, as Goff could be steady enough in his third season with Detroit to lead that roster to the playoffs; Goff was in his third season with the Rams when they went to the Super Bowl in 2018.
This desperation that teams have to get a “QB upgrade” might make some GMs blind to the fact that what they already have on the roster could be even better. Like a journeyman backup who was just waiting for his second chance. Or a practice squad hero who might be even better than 2021’s second overall pick. Or even someone like P.J. Walker, Carolina’s fourth-string quarterback who ran circles around Mayfield when he became the next man up.
Walker is in his third season with the Panthers.
It’s important to be talented in the NFL, whatever “talented” is supposed to mean. However, no amount of what you’re born with can ever account for what you must learn through experience and clearly the job of being a great quarterback in this league is not something that can be easily attained in a matter of months. There’s no dots to connect between “Tom Brady did it” and “Baker Mayfield could probably do it too!”
It’s like you saw Tom Brady jump over a cavern and you convinced yourself that “if he can do it, I can do it too” and then…
Instead, Pete Carroll looked to Geno Smith and they decided to take the bridge.
It is another reason that Seattle will look to keep both Geno Smith and Drew Lock in 2023, not only for their options to start, but also Pete’s option as a replacement in the future. The Seahawks could draft a quarterback as well and if we’ve learned anything this season, there’s no reason to rush him into a job if he’s not ready for it.
When he is, I’ll see him on Pro-Football-Reference.
You were right and I was wrong on Baker Mayfield. I thought you just hadn't seen much of him and were judging him too harshly. Surely if he were in the right environment he could flourish. Which I suppose could still be true, but is looking doubtful.
If I may indulge a little backstory as to why I thought you were quick to judge, I'd seen him play a lot of his NFL snaps. The Browns became Mrs Turtleman's #2 team (no pun intended) when she saw them celebrate their only win of a season 6-7ish years ago. If I recall correctly, they were 1-31 in those 2 seasons pre-Mayfield. So we watched most Browns games that and the following seasons since they rarely conflicted with Seahawks games. And they were the Hard Knocks team that year, so Baker became her QB crush in the NFL. Week 3 of his rookie season as a backup, Tyrod Taylor got hurt and Mayfield came in the game and lead them from behind against the Jets. That Browns team became energized as soon as he stepped behind center. He grabbed the starting job and made more chicken salad out of chicken sh*t in Cleveland than I would have ever thought possible. He even vanquished the rival Steelers in the playoffs. I thought he was special, in spite of average size and athleticism. I didn't care for his Twitter beefs with Cowherd and such, but I liked him as a QB. And have to admit that his Progressive ads were pretty good.
That's interesting. Remember back in the day when backups used to stay with teams for a long time? Danny White came in for Roger Staubach after years as a backup (and punter). Frank Reich was a backup in Buffalo forever and always played well when called upon. Jeff Hostetler was a long time backup for the Giants before he went to the Raiders.