The Tampa Bay Buccaneers pulled off something remarkable Sunday: They won a game in which their quarterback barely mattered. It was the first such victory since 1974, when a team finished without completing a pass. Baker Mayfield’s role was basically to take the ball from one place to another and hand it off.
Tampa Bay won on the ground. Not every team can pile up more than 300 rushing yards, especially in awful conditions. But Mayfield’s near-total lack of impact points to a bigger problem across the NFL: plenty of quarterbacks are being paid enormous sums without delivering much in return.
Thirteen quarterbacks currently count for at least $30 million against their teams’ salary caps. Many have been underwhelming this season, raising questions about whether they’re worth the cost. Their teams are spending heavily not just on the contracts themselves, but on building around them, too.
- Justin Herbert ($46.4 million): The Chargers are 0-7, and Herbert leads the NFL with 10 interceptions.
- Dak Prescott ($44.6 million): The Cowboys are 3-5. Prescott has led just one game-winning drive.
- Deshaun Watson ($40.6 million): The Browns are 5-3, though Watson ranks 16th in passing yards.
- Baker Mayfield ($34 million): The Buccaneers are 3-5, and Mayfield didn’t complete a pass in Sunday’s win.
- Jalen Hurts ($31.9 million): The Eagles are 2-6. Hurts is hurt, but Philadelphia was struggling before his injury, too.
There are other cases worth debating. Joe Burrow and the Bengals haven’t exactly taken off, needing overtime to beat the struggling Titans and having trouble in the AFC North. Lamar Jackson keeps dealing with injuries, Jordan Love hasn’t consistently taken control of games, and Sam Darnold has been uneven. Again and again, big-name quarterbacks are having a hard time adjusting to a league that’s leaning more on the run, strong defense and carefully designed blitzes meant to disrupt passers.
If one player is taking up more than 10 percent of a team’s salary cap, you’d expect him to help offset some of those challenges. That hasn’t happened consistently. Unless you have a Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes, or a quarterback still on a rookie contract, things can get difficult quickly. And there’s no easy way to rewind the market now. Teams should be thinking seriously about what comes next.
One reason teams are still unhappy with Cleveland’s fully guaranteed contract for Watson is that it helped reset expectations for quarterback deals. Once one team guaranteed a huge contract, agents had a powerful example to point to, and other quarterbacks began pushing for more guaranteed money. Watson wasn’t a top-three quarterback, yet his deal also helped make contracts above $40 million a year seem normal.
Without that contract, it’s hard to imagine Herbert signing a $262.5 million deal. Matthew Stafford asking for $55 million on a one-year contract might not have happened either. Maybe that money could have gone toward other parts of the roster, instead of a team sitting at 4-4. The problem has two sides: quarterbacks are asking for more than ever, while their effect on games seems less decisive than it has been in years.
Right now, there’s no clear link between a team’s success and standout quarterback play. The days of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees carrying teams on their own feel far away. Meanwhile, we’re in an era where quarterbacks understandably want to maximize their earnings, even when the size of a deal can leave a team weaker elsewhere. Players should get paid, of course. Still, it’s hard to ignore that Mayfield is making $34 million this season while Tampa Bay’s two running backs earned a combined $8.1 million and rushed for 310 yards in the win.
The NFL needs a reset in how it pays quarterbacks. I’m not suggesting they should go back to earning $10 million a year; they’re still the most important players on the field. But paying a quarterback 10 or 15 times what several teammates make, without seeing a comparable impact, doesn’t seem sustainable.
Maybe the only way the market changes is if teams start treating quarterbacks more like running backs. Rather than draft one high and plan around him for a decade, teams could play a quarterback through his rookie contract and then move on. That’s how teams have increasingly handled running backs, and the biggest deals have generally gone to the truly exceptional players.
It may be time to take a similar approach with quarterbacks.
Winner: Pittsburgh Steelers
The Steelers aren’t a great team, but they’re taking advantage of the AFC North falling apart around them. The Bengals won, but only just, against the Titans, who have looked like the league’s worst team. Pittsburgh showed it’s much better than Cleveland, while Baltimore is short on healthy quarterbacks who can throw.
The mood in the division has shifted from “anyone could win this” to “Pittsburgh might run away with it.” It feels like another season in which the Steelers make the playoffs, lose early and leave everyone wondering how they got there. There’s something to be said for simply outlasting the competition. Pittsburgh is doing exactly that.
Loser: Any team that needs a quarterback right now
The NFL’s two purple teams are desperate for quarterback help, and it’s not obvious where they’ll find it. Kyler Murray looked ineffective in Minnesota’s loss to Detroit. He has struggled to move the ball downfield consistently and can get locked in on his tight ends. The Vikings’ offense has been dreadful, and they need a passer who can put together a few sustained drives.
Baltimore has lost Lamar Jackson for the season with a thumb injury, and Tyler Huntley is dealing with turf toe. It’s a rough situation. With Joe Fagono and Skylar Thompson also hurt, the team has virtually no one else available to throw the ball.
The outlook is bleak for teams searching for a quarterback. Could Kirk Cousins or Joe Flacco help? Would anyone give Kenny Pickett another shot? The NFL’s supply of capable backup quarterbacks looks awfully thin right now.
Winner: Jacksonville Jaguars
Jacksonville has had a remarkably easy schedule, facing several teams that have been struggling. Its losses came against the Broncos and Texans, two opponents that have at least shown some competence. Still, a team can only play the schedule it’s given.
The AFC South is such a mess that the Jaguars look well positioned to reach the playoffs. At the same time, Trevor Lawrence is putting together a genuinely interesting, MVP-caliber season, and the defense has been stingy enough to keep the team in games.
I’m still not sure whether Jacksonville is a real contender or just looks good in a weak division. Either way, it’s worth watching.
Loser: Justin Herbert
I’m not sure what happened to Herbert. His decline this season has been striking. He was once viewed as a future elite passer because of his accuracy and decision-making. Now he looks like a quarterback sitting on the sideline, wrestling with what went wrong.
This goes beyond a struggling offense or injury concerns. Herbert has played poorly. Both of his interceptions came on throws where he seemed to miss the coverage and lose track of where the ball was going. The second came against a basic Cover 2 look, a coverage an NFL quarterback should be able to recognize.
Herbert is in a bad way, and I’m not sure the Chargers could get more than a mid-round pick for him if they tried to trade him.
Loser: The Falcons
Atlanta entered the week with a real chance to take control of the NFC South, then let it slip away. The conditions were miserable, certainly, but the Falcons didn’t help themselves by getting pushed around by a Buccaneers team that barely needed to pass.
It takes a special kind of defensive failure to know exactly what the opponent is going to do on every play—run the ball—and still have no answer for it.
