Where Ewers Realistically Rank Among NFL Backup QBs

After showing promise in his three starts at the end of the 2025 season, there was a segment of Miami Dolphins fans who wanted Quinn Ewers to be given a legitimate chance of taking over as their starting quarterback with Tua Tagovailoa no longer around.

That portion of Dolphins fans pretty didn't take very kindly then to a Sports Illustrated story last week that ranked the backup QBs around the league.

In that ranking, national writer Gilbert Manzano placed Ewers 31st among backup quarterbacks, behind every other No. 2 QB in the league except for Cade Klubnik of the New York Jets. And Klubnik, it bears mentioning, is a rookie fourth-round pick.

"With Tua Tagovailoa struggling again amid a losing season in 2025, the Dolphins made sure to give their rookie quarterback an early audition for 2026," Manzano wrote. "It seems Ewers didn’t do much in his three starts to impress the organization because the team went out and signed Malik Willis to be the new starter. However, it didn’t help Ewers’s case that the team added a new GM (Jon-Eric Sullivan) and coach (Jeff Hafley) this offseason."

The top backup in the NFL, according to Manzano, is veteran Joe Flacco, now with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Tagovailoa came in at number 3, with the caveat that he actually might wind up being the starter for the Atlanta Falcons if he can beat out incumbent Michael Penix Jr.

Tua's Dolphins backup from 2022, Teddy Bridgewater, came in at number 21 as Jared Goff's backup with the Detroit Lions.

EWERS' LATE-SEASON PERFORMANCE

Based on his words, Manzano's gripe with Ewers appeared to be that he didn't show enough to convince the new Dolphins regime to hand him over the starting job, which has us shaking our head because going out and bringing in Willis with them from the Packers was more a sign of Sullivan and Hafley's belief in him than it was a lack of faith in Ewers.

Let's also consider that Ewers was a rookie seventh-round pick when he replaced Tagovailoa in the starting lineup following the Week 15 Monday night loss that officially eliminated the Dolphins from playoff contention.

In his three starts — against the Cincinnati Bengals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots — Ewers had an up-and-down performance for sure, but he certainly didn't look out of place and that the game was too big for him.

In fact, he showed enough that the notion he could compete for the starting job in 2026 wasn't totally outrageous until Willis came aboard and the Dolphins committed $45 million of guaranteed money over the next two years.

THE QBs AHEAD OF EWERS

For the record, the quarterbacks ranked immediately ahead of Ewers among backups where Joe Milton III of the Dallas Cowboys at 30, followed by Kyle Allen of the Buffalo Bills, Tommy DeVito of the New England Patriots, Mason Rudolph of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Jake Browning of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Nick Mullens of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Kenny Pickett of the Carolina Panthers and rookie first-round pick Ty Simpson of the Los Angeles Rams.

We would make the argument here that we'd trust Ewers to run the Dolphins offense a lot more than a few of those quarterbacks.

For all his physical traits, starting with a bazooka for an arm, Milton has been wildly inconsistent in his brief NFL appearances; Allen has an 82.1 passer rating over eight years; Browning was good for the Bengals a couple of years ago but struggled so much last year that they gave up on him and went out to get Flacco; Pickett is now on his fourth team since being a first-round flop with the Steelers in 2022; and DeVito has been mediocre in the NFL outside of having a cool nickname, "Tommy Cutlets."

So, no, Ewers has no business being ranked as low as 31.

Is he a top 10 backup? It's probably too premature to rank him that high.

But based on what he did show in his three starts last year and some of the other backups around the league, he says here he should be closer to the middle of the pack than the bottom.

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