If you watched the opening weekend of the NFL, you likely fell into one group of fans. You watched your favorite team hoping for a win, you were constantly updating your fantasy team’s performance on your phone, or you were compulsively checking wagers you had placed on game results.
And, no matter which of those categories you slotted into, there’s a good chance you were massively underwhelmed by the performance of quarterbacks across the league in the first week of the regular season.
Entering Monday night’s game, only 11 quarterbacks in the league completed better than 70 percent of their pass attempts. And 15 of the 30 quarterbacks who started before Monday were held under 200 passing yards—a group that includes No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams.
Williams made history on Sunday afternoon, becoming the first No. 1 overall pick quarterback to win his NFL debut since David Carr in 2002. But he did it on the back of a defense that accounted for all of the Bears’ touchdowns; Williams threw for only 93 yards.
You might have expected young quarterbacks like Williams, Jayden Daniels, and Bo Nix—the three first-round picks from the 2024 draft to be named their team’s starter—to have a learning curve in their first week. They were among the 15 quarterbacks to throw for under 200 yards on Sunday.
But you probably didn’t expect to see names like Dak Prescott, Joe Burrow, Kyler Murray, Kirk Cousins, and Justin Herbert in the same club.
And certainly, not many expected Aaron Rodgers’ triumphant debut on Monday Night Football to end with him throwing as many interceptions as touchdowns and joining the under-200 club (he threw for 167 yards before he was pulled late in the fourth quarter).
There was a lot of sloppy quarterback play that disappointed fans. Daniel Jones and the Giants heard boos before, during and after the game. Jones was one of seven quarterbacks to throw multiple interceptions in Week 1. One of those seven, Jalen Hurts, was still able to escape with a victory. The other six weren’t as fortunate.
However, there were a few situations that caused more concern than others.
Cousins, coming off a season lost to an Achilles injury, looked rusty. He completed only 16 passes—not including the two he completed to Vikings’ defenders—for 155 yards in the Falcons’ loss to Minnesota. Compounding the fan angst in Atlanta is Michael Penix, their first-round pick, was on the bench while Cousins and his four-year, $180 million contract looked pedestrian.
On the other side of the field from Williams’ debut in Chicago, Will Levis had a brutal day. Staked to a 17-0 lead in the first half, Levis lost a fumble and threw two interceptions, the second of which was returned for a go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. That second interception was a terrible decision by Levis, and he knew it. He was seen on his knees with his hands on his head as the Bears’ defenders paraded down the sideline to paydirt.
So why are so many quarterbacks struggling early in the season?
Young quarterbacks are going to struggle. It’s easy for fans to forget that every NFL roster—even the bad ones—are full of players who were at least all-conference players in college, if not All-Americans. The NFL is the best of the best. The speed of the game is faster, the schemes are more sophisticated, and the players are simply stronger at the NFL level than any rookie faced in college.
Preseason games can help, but not many players who are expected to be starters play much (in some cases, at all) during the preseason. Looking good in limited reps and against players fighting for a roster spot is much, much easier than going against a starting defensive unit. And when the reps aren’t there because the organization chooses to keep their players healthy, it still takes time to develop consistent chemistry with teammates in games.
The other hard reality is that there are some mediocre players in bad situations in the NFL. The concept of tanking isn’t popular with fans, but it’s at least acknowledged as a real strategy to turn a franchise around. The Bears fell to the bottom of the league two years ago and traded the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft to Carolina for a package that ultimately landed them the No. 1 pick in 2024—and Caleb Williams. The player Carolina picks in 2023: Bryce Young, who has looked over his head in the NFL thus far in his young career.
Historical data and trends tell us things will get better for a lot of these players. Rookies will learn and get more comfortable. Veterans will settle in. That continuity will happen. Playcalling will improve. And numbers will go up.
But Week 1 left a lot of fans wanting more from their favorite quarterbacks.
