The 2024 NFL Draft, like most of its predecessors, was defined by its quarterbacks. Six of the top 12 selections were quarterbacks, including the top three picks.
The selections will define the future of their franchises. Each team believes — or at least hopes — their selection will be an above-average or better starting quarterback.
But finding that quarterback is extremely difficult. As The Washington Post wrote: “no one knows for sure which prospect will bust and which will go to the Hall of Fame. Many analysts call the process a ‘crapshoot.’”
Whether quarterbacks succeed or not depends on their innate talent and work ethic, but also their teams’ situations. Modern quarterback analysis no longer limits itself to seeing if players fail — it also examines if they were failed by the infrastructure around them.
“I think most guys exist somewhere in the middle where they need a little bit of help,” said Robert Mays, the host of The Athletic Football Show. “There are players, that if they hadn’t gotten an influx of talent at some point during that rookie contract, who knows what would have happened.”
The Chicago Bears took Caleb Williams at No. 1 overall. The Washington Commanders took Jayden Daniels at No. 2. The New England Patriots took Drake Maye at No. 3. The Atlanta Falcons took Michael Penix Jr. at No. 8. The Minnesota Vikings took J.J. McCarthy at No. 10. The Denver Broncos took Bo Nix at No. 12.
Most of them will likely play early in their careers. The lone exception is Atlanta, who picked Michael Penix but signed Kirk Cousins to a lucrative contract in March.
Those five teams have wildly different supporting casts but each wants to land the biggest advantage in football: a talented starting quarterback on a rookie contract.
Why is that so important? The realities and economics of the sport explain. The quarterback is the most important player on the team. He touches the ball on almost every single offensive play in a league that emphasizes offense and passing. In accordance with that value, the top 15 average annual salaries in the NFL are all quarterbacks.
Those contracts occupy a large part of the NFL’s salary cap, a strict limit on how much teams can spend on players. But rookie salaries — which cover the first four to five years of a player’s career — are artificially deflated based on drafting order.
Joe Burrow and C.J Stroud — two similarly talented players — exemplify this dynamic and how it affects their teams salary cap situations. Burrow, who was drafted in 2020, signed a contract extension in 2023. From 2024-26, he will have an average annual salary of slightly over $41 million according to Spotrac.
Stroud, who was drafted in 2023 and is still on his rookie contract, will average under $9 million per year in that span.
Maximizing that financial flexibility means maximizing the quarterback. That comes by surrounding them with the right offensive support. The three main categories of offensive support are the offensive playcaller, offensive line and pass catchers.
To Mays, the playcaller is most important.
“You can control the structure of the offense,” he said. “You can tailor it to your quarterback strengths. You can make sure that you’re consistently putting him in positions to succeed.”
Kevin O’Connell and Sean Payton, the head coaches for the Vikings and Broncos respectively, could give their young quarterbacks an early advantage because of their playcalling expertise.
O’Connell learned under two of the NFL’s best in Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay while Payton, formerly the head coach in New Orleans, made the Saints consistently one of the league’s best offenses.
Examining the offensive line, Mays said he valued a “solid” offensive line. He placed more importance on not having weak links along the five-man unit.
That’s not the case for pass catchers — wide receivers and tight ends.
“You need top level receivers for a young quarterback,” he said. “ … You need someone [where] the passing game goes through them. They are the number one option.”
He highlighted a litany of examples: Burrow and Jamarr Chase, Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs and more.
“If you have that streamlined option, it is such a huge help as you’re a young quarterback trying to learn how to see the game, how to feel the game,” Mays said.
Of the five teams who will likely have their rookies play this year, only two had multiple players who averaged over 50 receiving yards per game last season: Chicago and Minnesota. The Bears already had DJ Moore but added Keenan Allen via trade and receiver Rome Odunze, the No. 9 pick in the NFL draft, to bolster their attack.
The Vikings return Justin Jefferson, who Mays called the best receiver in the league, and Jordan Addison, who was third among rookie receivers last year in yards.
Washington’s Terry McLaurin may not have the stats of Jefferson or Moore, but Mays believes that’s more a product of his dismal situations.
“I think you can build your passing game through Terry McLaurin … we’ve never seen him with half decent quarterback play,” Mays said. “He’s one of those guys to me where if you get him with the right quarterback, I think you could see what he’s really capable of.”
Williams, Daniels, Maye, McCarthy and Nix all have control over how their professional careers unfold. But they are not the sole arbiters of their fates. That responsibility also falls to the teams that drafted them, ones who are now tasked with building up these young players and turning them into the kinds of players who justify their early selections in the draft.
