A good NFL quarterback isn’t *that* hard to find

Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images

This week, the best quarterbacks in the league were undervalued, and some of the most vaunted sucked out loud.

The NFL and NFL-adjacent people are so bad at evaluating quarterbacks, it’s scary.

It feels perfect to bring this up now, considering the weekend we just had. Colin Kaepernick held a workout and proved he’s still the same really good player he was when he was forced out of the league — all while golden children and heirs apparent stunk up my TV so bad I wanted to change the channel on multiple games. Of course, the opposite is true too, and you might see a theme here while we break down the best and worst quarterbacks of the weekend.

Lamar Jackson posted a QB rating of 139.2, his fifth game this season finishing with a rating over 100. This from a guy who some honestly, fervently believed was going to have to move to wide receiver in the NFL in order to be effective.

How the hell has Dak Prescott’s season been so quiet? I understand we all have this unspoken oath not to compliment anything the Cowboys do, but like ... damn he’s been phenomenal. On Sunday, Prescott became the first Cowboys quarterback to throw for over 3,000 yards in the first 10 games of a season. At this pace, he will finish with over 5,100 yards and 34 touchdowns. Prescott wasn’t taken until the fourth round of the 2016 draft. It’s early to say it, but we can go there: He might be the best QB of that class, period.

Then there’s Jacksonville. This one is a little more complicated. On the one hand I get it; the Jags paid a lot of money to Nick Foles, and the old NFL adage is that guys shouldn’t lose their jobs due to injury. On the other hand, no team deserves more of a pass in breaking unwritten rules than the Jaguars. They hadn’t seen inspiring quarterback play through two presidents, maybe longer depending on how highly you value David Garrard. Then finally someone exciting comes along in Gardner Minshew and gives fans hope. Sure, he struggled a little recently, but Minshew was whisked away just so Foles could return and get blown out by the Colts.

Meanwhile in Carolina, the Panthers learned that maybe, just maybe, Kyle Allen isn’t the second coming of Tom Brady. On Sunday, he threw four interceptions against one of the league’s worst pass defenses, helping the Panthers to a 29-3 loss against the hapless Falcons. Remember when Allen was so transcendent Cam Newton was out the door? Yeah, that was 10 days ago ... lol. So dumb.

Mitchell Trubisky ain’t it — at least not this season. The Bears have a good enough defense that they could probably make waves right now if they had someone who didn’t need 43 throws to get 190 yards.

And a reminder:

The point of all this is to note just how dumb the NFL has gotten when it comes to the quarterback position. There’s such a thing as overthinking the obvious, and passers have been turned into pretzels with tenuous hyperbole, overexaggerated criticism, and bizarre, tangential justifications for potential failure like hand size or “ability to process information.”

My tip to the NFL teams out there trying to find a quarterback in 2020 and beyond: If you have a guy and he doesn’t suck, don’t part ways with him. If you don’t have a guy, find one in college who is good and can win games, and then draft him. Done. The rest is all noise.

My second tip to NFL teams in need of a quarterback: If you’re hovering around the .500 mark thanks to your defense and running back, but keep getting let down by the guy throwing the football, sign Kaepernick, you dumbos. I know someone out there might convince you he’d be a “distraction,” but I promise you watching Kyle Allen throw four interceptions, or Trubisky average 4.4 YPA is way more distracting that anything Kap could do. Hear me, Panthers? Listening, Bears?

Anyway, let’s jump around the league before I get death threats.

The customer is always right.

This chant should be legally binding. I don’t know how we’d enforce it, but I’m sure there’s some way we could claim the Washington NFL team by eminent domain. I want to give this team back to the fans. By all accounts, the franchise is worth $3.4 billion. That means if we just tacked 86 cents on everyone’s taxes a month, we could all claim ownership of the team.

I’m not a legal expert but I am 100 percent sure this will work. I mean, it can’t be worse than the alternative, which is seeing $10 home tickets not ever sell out in Washington.

Rules don’t make sense anymore.

That was not called a penalty, even after a challenge. Then:

I know people are saying the 49ers’ non-call is payback for a blown call earlier, but I think we should just accept that NFL refs try to have make goods. They should have to turn to the camera and make the physical embodiment of the shrug emoji when they know a call is coming down that everyone hates and it will make no sense. That way, at least we could be a little more understanding.

I’d like to file a missing person’s report on Jared Goff.

What has happened to our beautiful, sweet, football boy? The last time I really paid attention to him, Goff was this 4,000-yard, MVP-maybe player who took the Rams to the Super Bowl.

Now he’s basically Sam Darnold, but with a better haircut, an intact spleen, and a greater chance I’d mistake him for Ryan Gosling while squinting. Don’t believe me?

Oh, you probably wanted a stat comparison ...

Darnold: 148/234 (63.2%), 1,600 yds, 11 TD, 10 INT, 81.1 rating
Goff: 225/373 (60.3%), 2,783 yds, 11 TD, 10 INT, 82.1 rating

Anthony Miller with the sneak of the week.

I totally respect the “sneaking one more cookie from the jar” kind of hustle on this play. Who cares if you’re in a stadium full of people? You only need to fool a few zebras to make this all pay off.

The NFL’s most emotional hip.

The Bears didn’t take this hip news well.

Shameless self-promotion for my memes.

For the love of God, don’t get rid of Cam Newton, Panthers.