Four Teams Will Enter the Season With Four Quarterbacks

A lot of neat, interesting stuff, um, and I want to kind of pick apart some of it.

The one thing now, and you and I counted before the show, 5 teams, if you count the Browns, who IR'd, uh, Dylan Gabriel, that kept 4 quarterbacks.

And I think it's, it's wild because we saw the fullback effectively disappear from NFL rosters for a couple of reasons, but one of the main ones was that they just didn't fit onto a lot of special teams anymore, and so it wasn't worth carrying, and only about 10 teams, I think, carried an official fullback on the roster.

But yet, you can justify.

The, the weight of a 4th quarterback on the roster who does nothing, right?

I mean, uh, you know, I mean, 3 of these guys are really doing nothing, and I think like, I think a lot of people just to kind of build on your point there, I think a lot of people don't realize like a 46 man game day roster is not, that's not a lot of players.

Like it is, it's, and, and that's why a lot of times people get upset and like, well, that 5th receiver.

Like when their team will cut some guy who looked good in the preseason who was a 5th receiver, it'd be like, well, what are they doing?

Like that guy showed promise.

Well, show me what special teams he plays on, because you, you get to a point with some of these guys where it's like if they, if, if you're the 40th guy on the roster, like you better be like running down on kickoffs or something, you know, because if you aren't, like they're not gonna be able to dress you.

And then if they can't dress you, is it worth keeping you?

So that's like the dynamic with quarterbacks is like.

Like you said, like quarterbacks generally don't do anything else.

Now, maybe, maybe, Connor, the Browns can find something fun and creative to do with talent Green because that run I saw him make the other night was like holy crap, like this big athletic guy moving through the, the defense.

But yeah, I mean, generally you don't keep 4 quarterbacks because it it makes your roster management that much more difficult.

Um, what do you think is behind it?

Is it just the pure, is this a value play?

Like, is this, so the, OK, so we got the Vikings, right?

The Browns, the Falcons, Falcons, the, hold on, it's on my Twitter Steelers, the Steelers, yep, and Who am I missing?

The Vikings, the Browns, the Steelers, and for some reason, the internet isn't working on my computer except for this stream yard.

So like, let's hope that it stays up.

Um, hang on one second.

Uh.

So that tail and green run was ridiculous, by the way, um, so I am missing the, all right, the Eagles.

OK, the Eagles, all right, so the Eagles to me would be the, would be the outlier here.

I look at the Vikings, the Browns, and the Falcons as like not having legitimate answers going forward, so they feel like they've got to give themselves the most answers possible, right?

So like for the Vikings, the Browns, and the Falcons, it's like.

We need to give ourselves multiple shots at this, multiple bites of the apple.

The Steelers, I think is relatively easy to explain.

You have Aaron Rodgers, who's a 1-year solution.

You have Mason Rudolph, who's there in case they lose Aaron Rodgers for 3 or 4 weeks, and then you have 2 developmental guys for next year.

Like I, I think that's logical, right?

Like in that, like, we want to keep working with Will Howard and Drew Aller.

Um, the one to me that's interesting is the Eagles.

Where I think they signed Andy Dalton with the idea maybe they could get something for Tanner McKee, and Tanner McKee had shown a lot of promise over his 1st 3 years in the league.

Unfortunately, I don't think he's put out a ton of good tape this preseason, which makes me wonder, OK, like his.

Has his value tapered off a little bit.

Um, and can they find a home for him?

And can they get a draft pick back for him?

And, you know, you draft Cole Payton, you want to hold on to Cole Payton, I get, or was he undrafted?

I can't remember if he was like, I think he was like a 6th or 7th rounder, right?

Anyway, like the, like you have your young developmental guy who's the eventual replacement for McKee in the pipeline and Cole Payton was a 5th round pick, yeah, but I mean, I, I think that the, the Eagles keep 4 in part because they wanted to, I think they keep 4 in part because they had probably planned on trading Tanner McKee by now.

Now, and Cole Peyton could probably play special teams.

No offense, he's another one.

Like he's an, he's, he's, he's tough.

Like he's built like a fullback, right?

Like you could probably find a home for him on special teams, but it, it is, it, it's so wild because Tanner McKee, I thought.

And, you know, I wrote this last year, what I thought would be a better option to back up Aaron Rodgers or for the Steelers to have gone out and gotten while they waited for Aaron Rodgers than Mason Rudolph.

But uh I think it's one of those examples where, like, maybe the team, obviously, I mean, they see something.

In the tape that we don't because there were starts that he just looked lights out.

I mean, he, he looked phenomenal, and he's got the size, um, but the, the, all at once, the quarterback position seems so Scarce beyond the top 15, but at the same time, all these, all these teams keeping a glut of guys, I think they're just hoping that like, something can happen out of them.

Now, one thing that I, I wanted to ask you about, do you think this is almost like the modern-day, It's another way, like, college football has, like, 800 analysts and, like, you know, do, like, is there an advantage to keeping 4 quarterbacks on the roster because it's a great, I can have these guys break down, you know, I can have I think it's more quality control stuff, you know, while they're here.

I, I think it's more hopeful asset management, I would say, in that, like, you feel like if you've developed a quarterback for a while, yeah, that.

Well, eventually we should be able to get something for him.

So they've spent time developing Will Howard in Pittsburgh.

They've spent time developing Tanner McKee in Philadelphia.

Um, you know, Max Brosmer is somebody in, in, in, in Minnesota that like Kevin O'Connell has personally taken on as his own project, right?

Um, you know, like you've got two quarterbacks that you drafted last year in Shado Sanders and Dylan Gabriel, and so.

I think as much as anything, it's like this hopeful asset management that like, and that somebody is going to need a quarterback, right?

Somebody is going to need some help at quarterback.

And like, you look at like, OK, Miami.

You know, Miami, you know, they, they wind up giving up a sixth-round pick to go and get, Um, to go and get Kyle McCord, and they trade off Quinn Ewers to Jacksonville for a sixth-round pick.

So it's like, I, I think that that's the sort of asset management that like GMs are looking at now and that, you know, maybe these guys don't make it through the whole year, but like you want to hang on to the guy now because you've sunk time into developing him, and maybe you see it as worth the roster spot in that over the next month or two, you might be able to get.

A, a, a draft pick, and if not, like, Look, once the injuries start to hit and pile up, and like you, there's some realities start to crop up on your roster, you might be forced to make a difficult decision.

We have 4, also, by the way, it also might be easier.

To sneak somebody through the practice squad at a different juncture, right, you know, too.

So once all the, yeah, once all the rosters are full and settled, then you can try to, uh, make that move without the guy getting claimed.