NFL's great quarterback transition is happening, and the most flexible teams will thrive

[Mosby]

The NFL’s quarterbacking landscape shifted this week, a sudden lurch in the direction it had been firmly headed. Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning will be spectators Sunday afternoon, either injured or benched. Their absence will further highlight the league’s bulge of young quarterbacks. Owing to both early-season attrition and preference, 17 Week 3 starting quarterbacks — more than half of the league — will have entered the NFL in the past four years, nine of them either rookies or in their second year.

The arrival of so many young quarterbacks reflects the way franchises have evolved in building around passers. Of those 17 starters with less than four years of experience, only four are definitively stopgaps with little likelihood of becoming a franchise quarterback. Not all of them will work out, but a good chunk of the NFL has identified its desired quarterback of the future. The teams that succeed will be the ones that most wisely build around them.

Sunday’s marquee game will provide a model for that task. The meeting between Patrick Mahomes’s Kansas City Chiefs and Lamar Jackson’s Baltimore Ravens will showcase not only two of the NFL’s incandescent young quarterbacks but also two franchises who understand the importance of catering their operations to them. They have both shown it’s not enough to develop a talented quarterback. The point is to also develop the right system and personnel around the talented quarterback.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/09/19/nfls-great-quarterback-transition-is-happening-most-flexible-teams-will-thrive/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall.

But Patrick Mahomes may be the most amazing quarterback of all time. I hope he has the career he deserves.

[Auggie]

2. "The point is to also develop the right system and personnel around the talented quarterback"

This is new?