The 2026 NFL Draft should be strong at quarterback, regardless of what Arch Manning decides to do. So it's a good thing that many of the league's worst teams in 2025 have holes at the most important position on the field!
Three teams in particular feel primed for a run to the bottom of the standings, but just how far down could they sink? Could they be so bad that they have a winless season?
Well ... probably not, considering how rare that is, but if they make the wrong roster decisions or players they're counting on don't step up, they could certainly flirt with winlessness. Let's take a look at what these teams must do to avoid the notoriety of an 0-17 campaign.
New Orleans Saints
How to stop it: Don't stick with Spencer Rattler for long
No team is in worse shape at quarterback than the New Orleans Saints, who appear set to begin the year with Spencer Rattler under center. There's almost no chance that they end it with Rattler under center, though.
That's because 2025 second-round pick Tyler Shough is waiting in the wings. Shough is already 25 years old, so it's not clear if there's really much he can learn behind Rattler. The best thing the Saints could do would be to get Shough on the field as soon as possible.
The NFC South has felt like a flailing division for a while, with Tom Brady's brief Tampa tenure really boosting the stock of the division for a bit and hiding how bad the rest of it has been. But heading into 2025, the other three teams feel like they've finally made strides. Tampa has found something with former No. 1 pick Baker Mayfield under center. Carolina looks like it's committed to surrounding Bryce Young with the talent needed to succeed. Atlanta is a bit of a mystery as it embarks on its first season with Michael Penix Jr. as the full-time starting quarterback, but a lot of people around the league are high on Penix.
In other words, New Orleans can't just expect to eke out a couple of division wins on the back of a big Alvin Kamara game. The team will need one of its quarterbacks to prove he's an NFL-caliber player. Considering the Saints were 0-6 in Rattler's starts last season, I'd put my money on Shough being the guy who maybe helps the team get a win or two down the stretch, but that's only if his late-career college breakout was real and not just a mirage brought on by the fact he had so much collegiate experience at the time.
Cleveland Browns
How to stop it: Don't start Kenny Pickett or Dillon Gabriel
Cleveland opens the season with a nightmare stretch of games, facing the Bengals, Ravens, Packers, Lions and Vikings before finally maybe getting a break with a Week 6 road visit to the Steelers. But if Aaron Rodgers can have a bounce-back year in Pittsburgh, there's a shot that the Browns are sitting at 0-6 after that game as they return home to face the Dolphins.
That would be a good time to make a move at quarterback, considering there are four of them expected to land on the 53-man roster. And at 0-6, there'd be little reason to stick with Joe Flacco, even if he's the best quarterback on the roster.
Unfortunately for the Browns, the second-best quarterback on the roster is Shedeur Sanders, who is listed as the fourth-string quarterback at the moment. If they bench Flacco but then start working through the depth chart in order for his replacement, you get to watch Kenny Pickett and then Dillon Gabriel stack up more losses while Sanders just lingers there, waiting for his chance.
While Sanders could be just as big a bust as the other guys, Cleveland's best chance of getting wins after benching Flacco would be to just hand things over to a guy who might be raw still, but has a clear talent advantage over the two guys directly ahead of him on the depth chart. He might have a few shining moments that help the team steady its performance and get a couple of wins.
New York Jets
How to stop it: Justin Fields finally puts it all together
The Jets felt like the losers of the quarterback market this offseason as the team wound up bringing in Justin Fields, who will be on his third team in the last three years. The former first-round pick is an electric player, but his lack of consistency with his arm has really doomed his chance of becoming a long-term NFL starter.
This season will be his final real chance to show he belongs in this league. If he's able to show that he's made major strides when it comes to accuracy, he could still be a solid low- to mid-tier starting quarterback. If he struggles, he's going to wind up bouncing around as a career backup for teams that want an athletic backup behind their dual-threat starter as a way of providing continuity should the starter go down.
Likewise, any hopes that the Jets have of finishing out of the AFC East cellar will depend on the limited sample of Fields as a passer in 2024 being a real sign that he's started turning a corner, as he completed a career-high 65.8 percent of his attempts last year. It's difficult to know how much to read into that, though, as he threw over 100 fewer passes than his previous career low. If he reverts to the Bears version of himself, the Jets will be in big trouble.