The quarterback market couldn't even wait for the legal tampering period to open in NFL free agency. On Sunday, we saw three moves involving players who weren't subject to that window.
Baker Mayfield re-signed with the Bucs. Mac Jones was traded to the Jaguars. And while you were probably sleeping, Russell Wilson announced he was joining the Steelers after being released by the Broncos. That's three quarterbacks who are going in three different directions involved in three very different sorts of deals.
Which deal will look best a year from now? Let's take a closer look at Sunday's QB moves to get a sense of how they'll land on the field this fall. I'll start with the move I liked the most, which is heavily influenced by how much it cost:
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Jones | Mayfield | Wilson
Russell Wilson to sign one-year deal with the Steelers
Part of the job for any NFL team is to land players who are more productive than their salary. That idea of surplus value underpins why draft picks are so valuable: When a team lands a starter in the draft, it's almost invariably paying that player less than the market would command for a veteran at the same position. Stacking a few of those victories across a roster frees up a franchise to handle the inevitable injuries or roster-building mistakes that are inevitable.
The Chiefs drafted running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, traded for receiver Kadarius Toney and lost guard Joe Thuney to an injury in the playoffs, but when they have a superhero at quarterback taking home less money than Daniel Jones, they can get by in spite of those mistakes.
I don't believe the Steelers are naive enough to believe they're about to land the Russell Wilson from 2019. His star has faded, and after kicking Nathaniel Hackett out of town in 2022 with the hopes Sean Payton could fix him, the Broncos decided coaching wasn't the issue. I can't fault them for taking a big swing on Wilson with their trade two years ago, but the move clearly didn't work. It will go down as a disastrous deal for the Broncos, who will be feeling the salary cap repercussions from the extension they handed Wilson over the next two years.
The Steelers, though, are not buying into Wilson at the peak of his value. With the Broncos on the hook for Wilson's $17 million base salary and $22 million option bonus in 2024, offset language means the Broncos would be on the hook for anything up to that $39 million mark. There's no reason for Pittsburgh to pay Wilson more than that figure unless there was a market for him in that range, and he was never going to make that much on the 2024 market.
Instead, the Steelers are expected to pay Wilson about $1.2 million, with the Broncos picking up the rest of the tab. At that price, it would be a shock if he wasn't able to deliver at least some surplus value for the Steelers. Unless he goes on the field and actively sinks Pittsburgh's chances with sub-replacement play, he's a great bet to outplay his one-year deal.
Even if Wilson is a solid backup who takes only a handful of snaps behind Kenny Pickett, the going price for those guys on the open market is well beyond that figure. Mitch Trubisky, who hasn't been good at any of his pro stops, just signed for $2.6 million per season in Buffalo. Sam Darnold made $4.5 million with the 49ers in 2023. Andy Dalton is making $5 million a year with the Panthers. Taylor Heinicke took home more than $6 million with the Falcons last season. Wilson is better than any of those quarterbacks and is going to be much cheaper. If that's all this deal becomes, it's still an easy win for the Steelers.
There's more upside than the veteran backup world here, too. Wilson ranked 21st in QBR last season, which wasn't what the Broncos were hoping to find, but would still comfortably represent an upgrade on what the Steelers had under center. He was one spot behind Joe Burrow. He was three spots behind Mayfield, who just got $40 million in guarantees. (More on him in a moment.) Wilson was five spots and just under six points of QBR behind Derek Carr, who signed a deal last March that guaranteed him $70 million for his first two seasons in New Orleans. I'd rather have Carr than Wilson, and you could talk me into Mayfield being the better option. Still, should you be confident enough about that viewpoint to pay Carr or Mayfield $35 million-plus more than Wilson in 2024?
Given the various places Wilson could have gone, there's a good fit here between player and team for a number of reasons. One is stylistic. New Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith wasn't able to coax consistency out of Desmond Ridder, Marcus Mariota and Heinicke during his time in Atlanta from 2021 to 2023, but his offenses in Tennessee before that thrived off heavy doses of under-center play-action. Smith often wanted the ball on dig routes over the middle of the field, which isn't Wilson's strength, but Wilson can hit those throws. He ranked 11th in QBR on play-action under center last season, going 51-of-74 for 500 yards with seven touchdowns and a lone pick. He averaged just 6.8 yards per attempt, which was 2 yards below the league average, but he has the arm to make those throws if the windows come open.
If Smith builds the offense more in line with what the Steelers have done in recent seasons, that should also play to Wilson's strengths. In the final days of Ben Roethlisberger and into the Pickett era, Pittsburgh mostly threw short passes to the middle of the field versus two-deep coverage and passes deep down either sideline to try to attack single-high coverages. Last season, 49.2% of its pass attempts were outside the numbers, the highest rate for any team.
That's where Wilson wants to go with the football. His 76.8 QBR outside the numbers was the eighth-best mark a year ago, with him throwing 17 touchdown passes against three picks. He didn't have the time to throw many lobs in an offense that was clearly built predicated on trying to get the ball out of his hands quickly, but he still showed off a few of those rainbow deep throws as the season went along. He has always been comfortable trusting his receivers on 50-50 balls, and in George Pickens, Diontae Johnson and Pat Freiermuth, he has players who can win on those throws.
Adam Schefter joins "SportsCenter" to discuss the fallout from the Jaguars-Patriots trade, including what it could mean for New England's future at QB.
Wilson also aligns with Pittsburgh's vaunted philosophy for winning football games. Over the past two seasons, the Steelers have famously made a habit of pulling out victories they seemingly didn't deserve. Mike Tomlin's team has gone 19-15 when its point differential suggests it should be something closer to 15-19. The Steelers have gone 15-7 in games decided by seven points or fewer, including a 9-2 record a year ago. They were outgained on seemingly a weekly basis in 2023, but it didn't matter.
How have they fostered the cult of Tomlin Magic and survived in the post-Roethlisberger era? By not losing the turnover battle. It's that simple. As frustrating as Pickett was during his first two seasons, the 2022 first-rounder did a great job of protecting the ball during the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023. Over the past two seasons, the Steelers are 19-5 when they win or tie the turnover battle in their games. When they lose it, they've gone 0-11, losing by an average of nearly 13 points per game.
Every team plays better when it wins the turnover battle, but the Steelers are a juggernaut when they win or tie and helpless when they turn the ball over. And for whatever Wilson did or did not show in Denver, he did a great job of protecting the football. He posted a 26-to-8 touchdown-to-interception ratio and turned the ball over no more than once in 12 of his 15 starts. He took 45 sacks, which ended too many Broncos drives, but the Steelers can stay competitive by punting and playing the field position game with their defense and special teams. That version of Wilson can win games.
The other positive factor here for the Steelers is they have very little riding on their investment. Wilson wore out his welcome in Seattle and quickly became an albatross in Denver, with Payton taking away Wilson's office in the building and establishing that he wouldn't get special treatment. I don't think that would fly with the Steelers, but if Wilson does lose the locker room or the coaching staff or fails to impress in camp, Pittsburgh is on the hook for limited cash. It would incur the opportunity cost of not making a more significant addition this offseason than Wilson, but it wouldn't be financially locked into the Wilson business in the way the Seahawks and Broncos were.
I'm not sure Wilson will walk right into the job. He has outplayed Pickett over the past two years, but the Steelers are more financially and emotionally invested in Pickett than their new quarterback. Pittsburgh has already paid Pickett more than $9.4 million and has $4.6 million guaranteed left over the next couple of seasons. The Steelers will also need to decide on Pickett's fifth-year option after 2024, so unless they've fully given up on the 25-year-old, Tomlin & Co. will want to get another look at him at some point in 2024.
In a market in which the Steelers didn't have the cap space for Kirk Cousins or the draft position to land a top quarterback, Wilson is a logical swing. Trading for Justin Fields or reuniting Smith with Ryan Tannehill would have been alternatives, but Wilson was a better quarterback than either player last season, and that was before considering salary and the cost of potentially trading a draft pick. They're not getting peak Russ, but they aren't paying peak Russ prices, either.
Baker Mayfield stays with the Buccaneers on $100 million deal
The best-case scenario for Wilson in Pittsburgh is probably about what Mayfield did in Tampa Bay last season. Signed to a one-year, $4 million deal to compete with Kyle Trask for the starting job, Mayfield was named the starter in late August and never looked back. Mayfield took over for Tom Brady and actually improved on the legendary quarterback's record, as the Bucs made a modest improvement from 8-9 to 9-8. Things looked rocky in November, when Tampa fell to 4-7, but Mayfield and the Bucs won five of their final six games to claim the NFC South in the final week of the regular season.
The end of the regular season wasn't pretty. With a chance to lock up the division in Week 17, Mayfield was awful in the first half against the Saints before producing a pair of garbage-time scores. Given a second chance to win the South on the road against the lowly Panthers the following week, the offense produced just 228 yards and failed to score a touchdown, with the defense leading the way in a 9-0 victory.
What happened next all but assured Mayfield would return to Tampa, though. Hosting the Eagles as home underdogs in the wild-card round, Mayfield picked apart the woeful Philly defense, going 22-of-36 for 337 yards with three touchdowns in his second playoff victory. Mayfield then went toe-to-toe with Jared Goff and the Lions, throwing for 349 yards and three touchdowns before his second pick of the game sealed things for Detroit.
On Sunday, Mayfield's return was confirmed. He signed a three-year, $100 million deal that could play out one of a few different ways. He's guaranteed a minimum of $40 million up front, with $30 million guaranteed in 2024 and $10 million already guaranteed for 2025. He has another $10 million guaranteed for injury that would become fully guaranteed if he's on the roster next year and another $10 million in 2025 that's not guaranteed until Week 1. He then has $40 million unguaranteed in 2026.
This is either a one-year, $40 million pact, a two-year, $60 million deal or a three-year, $100-million contract, with incentives that could push it up by an additional $15 million. In terms of low-end starting quarterback deals, it's closer to the Daniel Jones side of things than Geno Smith. It's more than the quarterback franchise tag of $38.1 million, although the Bucs are paying that $2 million to get the right to both structure the deal in a cap-friendly way and retain two future options on Mayfield if he plays well in 2024. They also were instead able to use the franchise tag on safety Antoine Winfield Jr.
Jones' situation is the one that comes to mind here, and it leads me to be nervous about how the Mayfield deal will turn out for the Bucs. It's important to reward players who help your team to playoff victories. It's also fair to point out that not every success story is created equal and shouldn't be treated as such when we evaluate what those players will do next.
There was little resistance this time a year ago when the Giants gave Jones a four-year, $160 million deal with $82 million guaranteed between 2023 and 2024. After the new regime of Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll declined Jones' fifth-year option, he delivered his first healthy and productive season as a pro, posting a career-low interception rate and running for 708 yards. He then picked apart the Vikings in a wild-card victory, handing the Giants their first playoff win in more than a decade.
Even at the time, though, there were plenty of holes in that story. Jones was dinking-and-dunking all season, throwing his average pass just 6.0 yards in the air, the lowest rate in football, which helped keep his interception chances low. The Giants were the 6-seed in a weak conference and went 5-2-1 in games decided by seven points or fewer before a meaningless Week 18 loss to the Eagles. Jones then won a playoff game against a Minnesota team that ranked as one of the worst division champions in league history. Fans were optimistic after adding Darren Waller during the offseason, but things fell apart for Jones in 2023 even before he tore his ACL in November.
Mayfield's division title was a nine-win performance in an NFC South that featured two of the five worst teams in the league by DVOA in the Falcons and Panthers. The Bucs were 4-2 in the division and 5-6 outside; they faced the ninth-easiest schedule in football by DVOA. Their playoff victory was against an Eagles team that had been in freefall for two months, including losses to the Cardinals and Giants in the prior two weeks. Mayfield's offense finished 20th in DVOA, one spot behind Wilson's Broncos.
I'm more optimistic about Mayfield now than I was about Jones a year ago. His 2023 performance is more sustainable than Jones' 2022, and while Jones had never played as well as he did in 2022, Mayfield has been able to put together stretches like this before. Mayfield doesn't have Jones' history of missing time with injuries, although he's played while clearly banged-up, most notably through a shoulder injury that bothered him throughout the 2021 season in Cleveland.
On the other hand, Jones was throwing to replacement-level receivers. Mayfield got to play the full season throwing to Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. The Bucs had no running game for the second consecutive season, but those guys would make any quarterback look better. Perhaps the big thing is the guarantee; the Giants locked themselves into two years of Jones at $40 million per season, while the Bucs are really committed to only one more year of Mayfield at that price.
Mayfield deserves to be rewarded for what he did in 2023, but it also seems naive to forget about how he got to Tampa Bay. He struggled mightily with that shoulder injury in 2021 in Cleveland and ranked 27th in DVOA, seemingly falling out of favor with coach Kevin Stefanski after a career year under the former Vikings coordinator in 2020.
After getting healthy during the offseason, Mayfield was salary-dumped onto the Panthers and then proceeded to have his worst season as a pro, finishing last in DVOA by more than eight points behind Carson Wentz. Mayfield was unplayably bad in Carolina, where the likes of Sam Darnold grossly outperformed the new addition. He was cut and then joined the Rams, and while he showed his adaptability and attitude by leading Los Angeles to a win over Las Vegas behind a third-string offensive line just days after joining the team, he posted a 37.6 QBR over that stretch with the Rams.
One year after being the league's worst quarterback and signing a one-year deal, did Mayfield really do enough to justify a raise to 10 times his prior guarantee? I'm skeptical. He has a habit of playing his best football when people lose faith in him or count him out and a similar habit of disappointing when there are lofty expectations on his head. Was there a market for him at this price range? Perhaps. The Falcons and Raiders need a quarterback, and they might prefer Mayfield to trading a draft pick for Justin Fields.
It's easy to say this as someone who isn't running the Buccaneers, but the Bucs were able to basically hit the quarterback scrap heap and find a division-winning quarterback for $4 million last season. Are their chances really better by paying that quarterback $30 million in 2024 or by going back to free agency and trying to find a similarly cost-effective solution while using the extra $25 million or so elsewhere on their roster? Is he really that much better than Wilson? Gardner Minshew? Jacoby Brissett? Joe Flacco? All of those guys are going to sign for a fraction of Mayfield's salary, and Tampa Bay would have had the trump card of a starting job to offer when those quarterbacks are all likely to end up in backup or bridge roles.
We'll get to see, but the situation will be different. Mayfield spent 2023 working with coordinator Dave Canales, who seemed to coax more consistent play out of his quarterback. Canales was hired as the head coach in Carolina, meaning Mayfield will now be working with Liam Coen, who briefly spent time with Mayfield in Los Angeles at the end of the 2022 campaign. Mayfield has had seven different offensive coordinators during his time in the NFL, including Coen in two different places.
And now, the cap-strapped Bucs will need to make cutbacks elsewhere. They already have more than $21 million in dead cap on their ledger for 2024, and after re-signing Mayfield and Evans, they still need to work on bringing back linebacker Lavonte David before getting new deals done with Winfield and left tackle Tristan Wirfs. They'll have holes to fill in their defensive line rotation, at linebacker (where Devin White is unlikely to return) and in the secondary, especially if Winfield gets traded. The Buccaneers will otherwise run it back, and given the competition in the NFC South, that might not be the worst idea.
It's a real accomplishment for Mayfield, who looked like he might be sliding out of football on a Wentz-style path in 2022. To turn things around so quickly and earn a life-changing guarantee is a testament to his toughness and adaptability. By about Week 3 a year ago, though, the Jones extension looked like a disaster and an obvious mistake from the Giants. I don't think the Mayfield deal is guaranteed to end up that way, but there's more risk of that scenario than I would like if I were running Tampa Bay's front office.
Patriots trade Mac Jones to the Jaguars for a sixth-round pick
The Jones era in New England got off to a bang and ended in a whimper. After being drafted in the first round in 2021 and helping the Patriots to a playoff berth as a rookie, Jones seemed to fall apart physically and emotionally over the ensuing two seasons. A high ankle sprain and clearly limited coaching shattered his confidence in 2022, and despite the arrival of coordinator Bill O'Brien last offseason, he never recovered. Outside of a bizarrely great game against the Bills in October, he was abysmal and lost his job multiple times to Bailey Zappe. After a brutal interception and a strip-sack in the first half of a game against the Giants in November, he was benched for good.
It seemed possible the Patriots could keep Jones as a backup to the quarterback they're expected to draft with the No. 3 pick in April, but the post-Bill Belichick regime decided to cut ties with their former quarterback of the future. On Sunday, Jones was shipped to the Jaguars for a sixth-round pick, a cost-saving move for a team that already has plenty of cap space to work with this offseason.
By trading Jones, the Patriots got themselves off the hook for the remaining $2.9 million that is guaranteed to him in the final year of his rookie deal. He has a $25.7 million fifth-year option available for 2025, but there was never any chance of the Pats or another team picking up that option this spring. In all likelihood, if he would have stayed on the Patriots roster, he would have sat on the bench for most of 2024 before hitting free agency in 2025.
Instead, he now joins the Jaguars, who ... already have an entrenched starter in Trevor Lawrence. The Jags fell apart down the stretch after Lawrence suffered ankle, brain and shoulder injuries, though. C.J. Beathard was mostly passable as a fill-in replacement for Lawrence, but Doug Pederson & Co. clearly wanted to bring in somebody who could do more than Beathard as the No. 2 option.
Jones isn't going to push Lawrence for the starting job, but if he gets to play in Jacksonville, the offense might be better aligned with he did best at Alabama. Pederson is more comfortable with the run-pass option game than Belichick was, and Jones was an excellent RPO decision-maker during his time in college. In the past decade, Pederson coaxed an MVP-caliber season out of Carson Wentz and major improvements from Lawrence and Nick Foles. He can create an offense that would work for Jones if Lawrence missed extended time because of an injury.
There's little chance the Jags will get much out of the deal beyond that year of backup quarterback play. Jones isn't likely to generate a significant compensatory pick, and the Jags would need to mostly avoid free agency to even land that Day 3 pick. They should try to talk to Jones about a modest extension that would keep the 25-year-old in town for another season, if only because what he needs now is steady coaching and time to get his confidence back after everything that went down in New England over the past two seasons.
Was I surprised no team outbid the Jaguars for Jones? A little, yes. If there was any team I thought could be in the market for Jones, it had to be the 49ers. Remember: As our Adam Schefter reported back in 2021, the 49ers traded up to the No. 3 overall pick with the idea of drafting Jones, only to then decide on grabbing Trey Lance instead. Jones eventually fell to No. 15, and neither the Lance nor Jones selections ended up working out for their respective organizations.
Of course, the 49ers didn't have Brock Purdy in 2021, and the arrival of the former Mr. Irrelevant has plugged the long-term quarterback hole for the 49ers. Given that Lance is in Dallas, Sam Darnold is a free agent and there's not much else behind Purdy on the depth chart, I'm a little surprised they didn't try to make a better offer to get Jones on the roster as their backup.
Ask Kyle Shanahan about this and he'll probably tell you there's no need to worry about hypotheticals when the world could end in a week, but there are questions to be raised here. Could the 49ers have seen Jones' NFL play and decided they shouldn't have been so enamored with Jones in the first place? Possibly. Would they rather just wait a year and sign him as a free agent as opposed to trading a late-round pick for one season of him? That makes some sense.
Would they not want to trade for Jones because it would unsettle Purdy? My very smart friend Domonique Foxworth made this argument when we talked about the trade on his podcast Sunday evening, but I don't see it. Anything's possible at quarterback, but Purdy has gone 17-4 as a starter and led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in his first full season at the helm. Jones couldn't stay on the field ahead of Zappe in New England. I have no doubt Jones would play better in San Francisco than he did with the Pats, but I don't believe there would be the same clamoring for Jones that there would be for other backups around the NFL, if only because his recent tape has been so dreadful.
Instead, the 49ers will look elsewhere for a backup to Purdy, and Jones will return to the area where he was born and raised to restart his career. As is the case with Wilson and Mayfield, appropriate expectations are key. Jags fans probably are hoping they don't ever see Jones take a regular-season snap with the team, and that's the best-case scenario for the organization if it means Lawrence stays healthy in 2024. If Jones does get called upon, though, seeing a quarterback who doesn't look overmatched would be a step forward in advance of what will likely be another new franchise in 2025.