Sunday wasn't a great day to be a struggling NFL quarterback. Several of the passers who flailed through the first three weeks of the season didn't turn things around in Week 4. One appears to have paid for it with his job, as Mitch Trubisky was benched at halftime for the Steelers, who turned to rookie first-round pick Kenny Pickett. Unfortunately for coach Mike Tomlin's team, Pickett then threw three interceptions in an eventual 24-20 loss to the Jets.
With just under a quarter of the season in the books (thanks, 17-game schedule), this is about the time in which teams have enough game tape to start seriously reevaluating their offseason decisions. Teams desperate to turn things around after slow starts are going to make adjustments. Some of those can be schematic. We can see teams rotate players in different ways or even make changes to less visible parts of their roster.
Making a change at quarterback, though, is the biggest decision a coach can make. Think about how it transformed the Titans in 2019, when Ryan Tannehill took over a 2-4 team and helped get it to the AFC Championship Game. The same move can tear a team apart and get a coach fired, as Doug Pederson found out with the Eagles when he benched Carson Wentz for Jalen Hurts in 2020.
It's no fun rooting for quarterbacks to get benched, but it would be naive to ignore what's happening or wonder about what teams might do to kick-start their offenses in the weeks to come. Let's talk about the Pittsburgh situation and then get to a few other quarterback jobs around the NFL where the current starter might be in danger. It's risky to make a move too early, but I wonder whether the Steelers might have made their move too late:
Jump to a team with bad QB play:
Atlanta | Carolina | Houston
New Orleans | Pittsburgh | Washington
Pittsburgh Steelers
Tomlin is one of football's best coaches. I don't like disagreeing with the 50-year-old Steelers leader, because he has more than earned whatever benefit of the doubt he needs over the past 15-plus seasons. I might take issue with some of his game management decisions at times, but just because I don't think he's necessarily the most analytics-focused coach in the league doesn't mean he can't be aggressive at times or make wise choices. You don't go 15 years without a losing record by not being a smart operator.
With that being said, I'm not sure I understand how and why Tomlin made the choices he has made over the past two weeks at quarterback. After Trubisky struggled for the third straight week in a 29-17 loss to the Browns in Week 3, Tomlin publicly refused to even consider the possibility of changing his quarterback in advance of Sunday's game against the Jets. After suggestions earlier in September that the Steelers might keep Pickett on the bench for the entire season, it seemed as if Tomlin wasn't close to making any sort of change.
And then, down 10-6 at halftime Sunday, he suddenly changed his mind. Trubisky came out, Pickett went in. With Tomlin saying he felt like the team "needed a spark," Pickett might have burned too hot. The rookie went 10-of-13 for 120 yards and scored two rushing touchdowns in his debut, but he threw three interceptions, including a pick on a Hail Mary to end the contest.
It's fair enough for Tomlin to say the team needed a spark. I just have one follow-up question: What changed? The Steelers won the opener against Cincinnati, but it required five takeaways, a blocked extra point and an injured long-snapper. Trubisky wasn't a meaningful part of the offense. In Week 2, they scored 14 points on nine drives in a loss to the Patriots. Four days later, Trubisky & Co. scored 17 points on 10 meaningful drives in their loss to the Browns. Didn't they need a spark then, too? Wasn't it clear they would need a spark against the Jets before the game began?
Trubisky, 28, wasn't great in the first half against the Jets, but it also wasn't as if he was any different than the guy we saw checking down over the first three weeks of the season. He went 7-of-13 for 84 yards with an interception stemming from a Diontae Johnson drop. He was sacked three times, and he exhibited a habit of drifting out of the pocket at the end of his dropbacks, but those are issues we saw before the Jets game, too.
If there ever was an ideal time for the Steelers to transition from Trubisky to Pickett, it would have been shortly after the loss to the Browns, which took place on a Thursday night. They were facing a mini-bye, which would have given them 10 days to prepare Pickett. The Jets matchup -- a home game against a team that ranked dead last in passing DVOA -- was arguably the most favorable spot on Pittsburgh's schedule for a young quarterback.
Instead, Pickett came in Sunday without recent first-team reps, without a game plan installed to take advantage of his strengths and without being put in position to prepare mentally for the game as a starter. He looked good when he was running quick game and throwing up 50-50 balls for his talented group of receivers, but when he wasn't comfortable or had to work through his progressions to try to find someone later in the play, it usually ended badly.
One of the best arguments for not making the change to Pickett in Week 4 was the Steelers' immediate schedule afterward. They are about to face a brutal slate of opposing defenses, with matchups against the Bills, Buccaneers, Dolphins and Eagles before their Week 9 bye, and the Saints immediately thereafter. In an ideal world, they might have waited all the way until December, when they get the Falcons, Panthers and Raiders.
By making the move anyway during Week 4, Tomlin has realized the worst of both worlds. He didn't get the benefits of having Pickett fully prepared and now likely has the No. 20 overall pick in line to start against that devastating string of opponents. If Tomlin goes back to Trubisky, Steelers fans -- and Trubisky himself -- will know the veteran is a short-timer, which won't do wonders for Trubisky's confidence. It also wouldn't feel great for Pickett to get his opportunity and immediately find himself back on the bench after a three-interception half.
The future is Pickett, and a couple of years from now, it probably won't matter much whether he showed up in Week 3 or Week 4 as a rookie. If the Steelers want to win in 2022, though, I'm not sure either Pickett or Trubisky would be the ideal option. They need someone who protects the football, avoids takeaways and lets the defense win games, which is what Cooper Rush has done during his 3-0 stretch filling in for an injured Dak Prescott in Dallas. The 2019 Steelers didn't have much at quarterback with an injured Ben Roethlisberger, Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges, but when they won the turnover battle, they went 8-3. They were 0-5 otherwise.
It's entirely possible Pickett is named the starter for Week 5, looks more assured after a week of practice as the man under center and hits the ground running from there. Roethlisberger threw two picks in his 2004 debut filling in for Tommy Maddox and then won each of his first 15 regular-season starts. If the Steelers go on a winning streak, this loss won't feel like a big deal.
As the Steelers try to maintain Tomlin's streak of seasons at or above .500 and compete in the AFC North, though, they don't have much of a margin for error. Waiting until halftime to insert Pickett felt like an unforced one.
Carolina Panthers
If the Panthers had a rookie first-round quarterback waiting in the wings, I'm not so sure Baker Mayfield would have made it out of Week 4. Facing a Cardinals defense that ranked 31st in DVOA, he averaged 5.5 yards per attempt, had three passes batted down at the line of scrimmage and turned the ball over three times in a 26-16 loss. (One of those came on a handoff to Rashard Higgins, who looked to be more guilty for the turnover.) He was vociferously booed in the fourth quarter at home, and the highlight of his day appeared to be silencing the boos with a garbage-time touchdown drive.
The Panthers didn't convert a single third down until that fourth-quarter drive, and their 25.5% conversion rate on third downs is the worst mark in football through four games. In watching their failures on third downs Sunday, many come down to Mayfield. He was stuffed on a third-and-1 sneak to start the game. He missed an open Tommy Tremble for one first down with a throw to the wrong shoulder, then did the same thing on a corner route to an open DJ Moore, whose attempt to catch the wayward pass led to it being intercepted. On a mirrored route concept in the fourth quarter where it was clear Shi Smith ran his route to the correct depth, he sailed what should have been another easy completion.
Despite throwing his average pass below the league average of 7.4 air yards per throw, Mayfield's off-target pass rate is 10th worst in the league. ESPN has a stat called adjusted completion percentage, which weighs completion percentage by air yards and removes drops and throwaways. His 58.5% adjusted completion percentage ranks 31st out of 32 starters, ahead of only Chicago's Justin Fields.
Fields can at least call on his rushing ability to boost his overall product. Mayfield's QBR after four weeks is a scarcely believable 15.3. ESPN has QBR going back through the 2007 season, and the only quarterbacks to get off to a worse four-game start than Mayfield in 2022 are JaMarcus Russell, Tyler Thigpen, Jimmy Clausen and Blaine Gabbert, the latter of whom managed it twice. Those players were each less experienced and in worse situations to succeed than Mayfield, who has been able to throw to Moore and Christian McCaffrey this season.
You could argue Carolina's usage of McCaffrey suggests the brain trust of Matt Rhule and new offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo bear some of the blame for Mayfield's struggles, too. McCaffrey had been turned into a between-the-tackles grinder through the first three weeks while failing to catch a single pass on a route more than 5 yards downfield.
Sunday brought that stretch to a close, as McCaffrey outjumped overmatched Cardinals linebacker Zaven Collins for a touchdown on one of Mayfield's two third-down attempts. Owing in part to a negative game script and a reported quad injury, McCaffrey had more targets (nine) than carries (eight). It was the first real signs of the hybrid role we saw the star back fill during his 2018-19 peak. It'll take me a week or two before I believe in this staff to use McCaffrey in his best possible role consistently.
McAdoo might want to at least threaten the run, because the only thing that has kept Mayfield afloat has been play-action. The Panthers are still giving him play-action rates above league average, but at 29.1%, he's still within four percentage points of the average mark. His QBR on those dropbacks is a respectable 57.0. When he doesn't use a play-fake, his QBR is 6.7. That's the third-worst figure of the past 15 years for any quarterback through the first four weeks of the season. Only Gabbert and Russell were worse.
Inside the pocket, Mayfield's 6-foot-1 size makes it easier for defenders to bat down his passes, which led to an interception and a fourth-down failure against the Cardinals. The solution in the past has been to get him out of the pocket, but even that's not going very well anymore. He has a 5.6 QBR on throws outside the pocket in 2022, the fifth-worst mark in football. Even that is buoyed by a 75-yard touchdown pass to Robbie Anderson on a blown coverage; Mayfield is otherwise 6-of-15 for 69 yards on those throws. The 75-yarder counts, but it's likely not indicative of what will happen for Mayfield in the weeks to come.
Of course, that assumes Mayfield has weeks to come in the starting role. Sam Darnold is eligible to come off injured reserve this week after suffering a left high ankle sprain in August, and while it was announced Monday he's not ready to return, even the limited play from Darnold in 2021 was better than what we've seen from Mayfield. With McCaffrey on the field last season, Darnold posted a 63.3 QBR. Mayfield has a 14.7 QBR with the star tailback.
Rookie third-round pick Matt Corral would also be in the mix if he hadn't suffered a season-ending left Lisfranc injury over the summer. What has happened in 2022 strengthens Corral's chances of starting in 2023. Mayfield and Darnold are both free agents, and unless one of them turns things around dramatically by the end of the season, it's unlikely either returns. The Panthers should make another significant acquisition at quarterback before their 2023 camp, either to push Corral or to play ahead of him, but I don't think he'll be competing with his current teammates.
Then again, Rhule and McAdoo might not be in position to coach Corral by 2023. Rhule's future seemed to depend on the Panthers taking a step forward this season, and at 1-3, any progress made seems to have been incremental at most. His Panthers are now 1-26 when the opposing team scores at least 17 points, the worst mark in football over that time frame. The rest of the league has won about 38% of the time when the opposing team scores at least 17 points.
Even if Rhule ends up leaving Carolina, Mayfield's inconsistency, lack of prototypical size and personality won't help his chances elsewhere. Unless he turns things around before Darnold is ready to play again, this might be his last chance at a steady starting opportunity in the NFL.
Washington Commanders
Whatever honeymoon there might have been between Commanders fans and new quarterback Carson Wentz appears to be expiring. During the first two weeks, a frantic pace and plenty of possessions led them to produce impressive raw numbers in games against the Jaguars and Lions. Wentz, Curtis Samuel and Antonio Gibson all looked revitalized.
Over the past two weeks, the pace has slowed, in part because the Commanders haven't been able to sustain drives. Against the Eagles in Week 3, they didn't have a single drive with more than two first downs before the fourth quarter. On Sunday, against the Cowboys, Wentz & Co. had only one drive with more than two first downs in 13 tries.
Teams can succeed playing that way if quarterbacks are hitting huge chunk plays for touchdowns, but that is not the case for Wentz right now. Over the past two weeks, he is 50-of-85 (58.8%) for an anemic 381 yards, an average of fewer than 4.5 yards per attempt. His average completion over that period has traveled 4.2 yards in the air, 31st in the NFL.
Some of that naturally owes to the fact Wentz has needed to get the ball out for survival. Against the Eagles, he was sacked a whopping nine times and knocked down 17 times on 52 dropbacks. Some of those sacks were attributable to his offensive line, which struggled to match power and stop bull rushes against Philadelphia's excellent front four, but he is also part of the problem. His well-known issues with holding the ball too long and taking unnecessary hits feed into the line's problems.
When he has been pressured this season, Wentz has been a disaster. His 4.6 QBR under pressure ranks 26th, as he has gone 14-of-37 for just 135 yards. He has taken a league-high 17 sacks in those situations, and Wentz's minus-11.8 completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) ranks 25th.
Wentz was sacked only twice during the loss to Dallas, which was a step in the right direction. On the other hand, keeping him from avoiding those sacks limited the Commanders to quick game and short passes. On throws traveling 10 or more yards in the air, he was just 3-of-12 for 55 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions.
Oh, the interceptions! Right. That was the other issue for Wentz during the down points of his career, and he had two of them Sunday. One was poor placement on a bomb just before halftime, when he put a pass where only cornerback Trevon Diggs could catch it. The other was a hallmark for Wentz going back to his rookie season with the Eagles, with him trying to throw a dig over the middle of the field, only for it to be undercut by rookie defender DaRon Bland. Wentz now has five interceptions and three fumbles across four games, which isn't a winning formula for Washington, even if he does occasionally float a beautiful pass into the end zone for a score.
Successful NFL quarterbacks avoid sacks and takeaways, stay on schedule and hit big plays. Teams can get by without doing one of those three as long as they do the other two. Right now, Wentz isn't doing any. I don't think the team has soured on him yet, but he can't continue playing this way for an entire season without running the risk of losing his job.
Washington paid a surprisingly large draft pick haul to acquire Wentz from the Colts, but that's a sunk cost by now. He can be cut after this season without any dead money on the Commanders' cap, saving them more than $26 million in cap and cash next year. We just saw the Colts anoint Wentz as their savior and then trade him after a season because they didn't want to be on the hook for the remainder of the his guarantees, which ran out after 2022.
The bigger issue might be figuring out whether there is someone ready to replace Wentz. Taylor Heinicke was inconsistent at best in replacing the injured Ryan Fitzpatrick a year ago, and it was clear that coach Ron Rivera wanted to upgrade on Heinicke at any cost this spring. I'm not sure he's on this roster as much more than a backup on game day if the starter gets injured.
The third-stringer is rookie fifth-round pick Sam Howell out of North Carolina. He impressed in stretches during the preseason, when he led the team in both passing yards (547) and rushing yards (94). Howell posted only an 85.8 passer rating during the preseason while playing inferior competition to the other passers, but the organization seems more interested in him than those numbers indicate.
If Wentz proves he's not the quarterback Rivera craved this offseason, the Commanders could see if Howell is worth starting in 2023. Unless Wentz totally craters further in the weeks to come, though, that move likely would not occur until the second half of the season
New Orleans Saints
I don't want to touch on the Saints too deeply, having just written about their struggles on offense last week, but Sunday was interestingly a step in the right direction. Despite playing without their No. 1 quarterback (Jameis Winston), running back (Alvin Kamara) and wide receiver (Michael Thomas), they had one of their best offensive games of the season. Andy Dalton went 20-of-28 for 236 yards with a touchdown in leading them to within a double doink of a 28-point day and a win in London against the Vikings.
Instead, the Saints settled for 25 points and a crushing loss, dropping new coach Dennis Allen's team to 1-3. They turned the ball over twice, but one of those giveaways was a muffed punt. Dalton's strip sack 63 seconds before halftime was their one offensive giveaway and turned to be the killer blow, as the Saints handed the Vikings a field goal and then lost by three points.
If New Orleans is going to find its way and compete in the South, the best path to winning is likely to follow what has worked in Dallas. Cooper Rush isn't as good as Dak Prescott, but in three games at the helm, the Cowboys' offense has turned the ball over just once, and that was on a Dalton Schultz fumble. In their wins over the Bengals, Giants and Commanders, the Cowboys have posted a turnover margin of plus-2. NFL teams that want to win games with middling quarterback play have to play great defense and win the turnover battle.
Of the three Saints who could theoretically start at quarterback next week, Dalton seems to be the one most likely to protect the football. Winston was excellent at avoiding giveaways during the 2021 season, but that's an outlier relative to his career. Taysom Hill has a career interception rate of 3% and fumbled eight times across his five-game stint as the starter in 2020. He was better at protecting the football a year ago.
Dalton can also struggle with interceptions, so he's not a foolproof selection. With Winston sidelined for now by transverse fractures in his back, though, the Saints' starting quarterback needs to rest. Things are quickly falling apart, but if Dalton can protect the football and lead them to victories against the Seahawks and Bengals at home, he might be able to make the job his, even once Winston is ready to return.
Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons aren't likely to bench Marcus Mariota soon, and after getting off to a 2-2 start, they shouldn't. Arthur Smith's offense has been a pleasant surprise, as even with Kyle Pitts off to a relatively anonymous start, the Falcons rank eighth in offensive expected points added (EPA) per play. To put that in context, they are essentially tied in EPA per play with the Bills and Eagles, who have two MVP candidates at quarterback.
Mariota has been effective as a downfield passer and occasionally as a runner, but he has struggled with turnovers. He had three interceptions and five fumbles across his first three games, including red zone giveaways in each of Atlanta's two losses to start the season. The only blemish for this offense had been seven giveaways, something Smith surely wanted to correct heading into a home game against the Browns.
All of this made me very interested by what happened during Sunday's victory. Mariota turned the ball over once, throwing an interception to Denzel Ward with 7:05 left in the third quarter on a tight throw over the middle of the field. Smith responded by taking the ball out of Mariota's hands. The Falcons' next 15 plays were all runs. Mariota threw just three passes the rest of the way, and one of those was a play in which he dropped the snap, scrambled for dear life after recovering it and then threw the football out of bounds.
I'm not sure correlation is necessarily causation. After all, the Falcons did run the ball on each of their four prior plays before the Mariota interception, so it looked like Smith was already trying to lean on his ground game. They were successful running, so Smith didn't have any reason to go back to Mariota throwing passes. And when Smith did call on Mariota to complete a pass later in the game, he hit a wide-open Olamide Zaccheaus on a deep over to pick up 42 yards.
At the same time, coaches normally don't freeze their quarterbacks out of the offense altogether after an interception. Mariota didn't even have a role as a runner, as he finished this game with two carries for 6 yards (removing kneel-downs). At some point this season, we're likely to see rookie third-rounder Desmond Ridder. I don't think that's coming soon, but Smith's reaction to Mariota's interception makes me wonder if it's closer than we think.
Houston Texans
The bloom might be off the rose for Davis Mills, whose impressive five-game stretch to end the 2021 season has not been followed by similarly impressive play in 2022. With the Texans starting 0-3-1, he has been one of the league's worst quarterbacks by most measures. He's below average by completion percentage, yards per attempt and CPOE. His minus-0.23 EPA per dropback is the fourth-worst figure in the league among passers with at least 100 attempts this season.
Teams have been able to just pick apart the second-year quarterback with blitzes so far. Last season, even during that great stretch, opposing defenses were able to flummox Mills with extra rushers. His 34.9 QBR against extra rushers ranked 27th, and the only quarterbacks worse against the blitz who also kept their jobs heading into 2022 were the top two picks from 2021.
The hope was that Mills would be better against extra pressure after an offseason to prepare with the starters, but things are worse. Now, his 17.3 QBR against the blitz ranks 30th out of 32 passers. After playing about one season's worth of football across three years at Stanford, his inexperience against NFL-caliber blitzes probably shouldn't be a surprise.
Mills has been even worse on third downs, which has prevented the Texans from staying on the field. There, he has gone 21-of-40 for just 209 yards, producing 5.2 yards per attempt and a CPOE of minus-14%. He has thrown two picks in those situations, including a brutally late interception to set up the game-winning field goal for the Bears a week ago.
Mills is still yet to finish a full season's worth of NFL starts, so I wouldn't suggest the Texans should be desperate to bench him for anybody else. They are in a rebuild, and they need to see as many reps from him as possible to figure out whether he will still be a part of that quarterback situation in 2023.
The other issue is Houston didn't invest much else at quarterback last offseason. Its primary backup is Kyle Allen, who was last seen backing up Heinicke in Washington. Allen has posted an 84.9 passer rating over the past four season, and that was with a coaching staff he already knew in a Turner offense he had been familiar with from his time in Carolina. Jeff Driskel is on the practice squad, and he did figure in as a runner in what looked to be a Driskel-led package during the first two weeks of the season for four offensive snaps.
In this case, Mills' job is safe, but that's mostly a product of the options around him rather than his own play. The Texans will likely be drafting a quarterback with one of their first-round picks in 2023, so he might only be keeping the seat warm during a lame-duck season, There were still hopes he could build off of his impressive run to end 2021, but instead he's looking like a placeholder for a team that might already want to simulate to the offseason.