We’re halfway through the 2025 NFL season, and there’s been a decent amount of surprise performances from quarterbacks. Some of those surprises have been good, but most of them have been bad.
Now that the trade deadline is over, we know what quarterback rooms will look like for the rest of the season, and teams know what talent (or lack thereof) they have with their starter and what they have with their depth. We also have a pretty good idea of what everyone’s job security is at this point. Most guys are in a good spot, but the ones that aren’t? Buddy, it’s tough.
You have to start with the quarterbacks who are safe. Fortunately, there are a whole bunch of those guys. Some of it is because of how good they are, and some of it is because they are young.
Could no-call-no-show for a month straight, and it’d be fine.
Safe no matter what.
Justin Herbert
The rest of the names on this list aren’t in any particular order, except for Justin Herbert. Jim Harbaugh loves him. If Herbert ever got kidnapped, there’s a 100% chance the 61-year-old Harbaugh would live out the plot of Taken to get him back.
Jalen Hurts
Jalen Hurts is the reigning Super Bowl MVP, and he’s a winner. Tanner McKee might be the best backup quarterback in the NFL, but he’s not a threat to Hurts’ job… despite what lunatics on Twitter say.
Patrick Mahomes
Did you know that Patrick Mahomes still has six more years left on his contract? That’s pretty crazy.
Josh Allen
Get a load of these idiots (Potty mouth alert):
Bills fans’ reactions to drafting Josh Allen 😭 pic.twitter.com/RGXu8oNoe5
— Football’s Greatest Moments (@FBGreatMoments) October 24, 2025
Lamar Jackson
We just had to watch a Lamar Jackson-less Ravens for three weeks, and it was just about as bad as you could imagine.
Jordan Love
Jordan Love is the Packers’ starting quarterback. If you’re the Packers’ starting quarterback, you’re locked in for 15 years. Love is in year three of his assignment.
Baker Mayfield
Baker Mayfield is the most fun quarterback to watch in the NFL this season. He has the Buccaneers at 6-2, and he's done it without his best playmakers for most of the season.
Jared Goff
When the Lions traded for Jared Goff in 2021, it was the start of a new era of Detroit football. It took a couple of years, but now they are a real winning football team… and Goff is the face of that.
You’ll have a job until you don’t want one:
You choose when you’re done
Matthew Stafford
Remember in the preseason when Matthew Stafford was supposed to be dealing with a back injury and people thought he wasn’t going to play? Well, it’s 10 weeks later, and he’s having one of the best seasons of his career. The only person who’s going to tell Stafford that he’s not the starter is Stafford himself.
Money’s got you locked in:
You’re starting because the team invested in you
Dak Prescott
There are three Dak Prescotts: Good, bad, and hurt. When he’s good, he’s amazing and is one of the best passers in the NFL. When he’s bad, he closes his eyes and pretends the defense doesn’t exist. When he’s hurt, his leg falls off, and he’s out for the season.
Regardless, the Cowboys are paying him $60 million per year, and that’s the kind of money that gives you job security. He could lay an egg for eight straight games with Jerry Jones creating his own quarterback controversy, but we all know that Dak will march right back out there as the starter in the ninth game.
Trevor Lawrence
It feels like everyone really wants Trevor Lawrence to be an elite quarterback… he’s just not. If you go to his Pro Football Reference page, it says his nickname is “The Prince Who Was Promised.” You have to assume that nickname came about in the pre-draft stuff before he was picked first overall in the 2021 draft.
He has those moments that make you say, ‘Okay, I get why the Jags tanked in 2020. Trevor rocks.’ But the vast majority of the time, it’s nothing special… and in 2024, the Jaguars paid him $55 million per year.
Jacksonville’s had virtually zero quarterback stability in the past decade and a half, so it makes sense that they locked in the guy they believe in. Will he eventually solve all their problems? Probably not. Is his job safe? Absolutely, yes.
Daniel Jones
Daniel Jones has played at an incredibly high level for eight of the Colts’ nine games this season. Unfortunately, that Week 9 game was the bad one, and D.J. looked a whole lot like he did when he played for the Giants. It’s horrifying to know that version of him is lying dormant in there somewhere.
When the Colts traded their 2026 and 2027 first-round draft picks to the Jets for cornerback Sauce Gardner, it was essentially them saying, ‘We’re not going after a quarterback next season. Danny Dimes is our guy.’
So it’s not necessarily that the Colts have paid him a huge amount of money, but it’s about the non-verbal commitment they’ve made to him.
Sam Darnold:
Sam Darnold gets his own tier.
Sam Darnold
It’s Sam Darnold. He played out of his mind last season with the Vikings, and he’s playing even more out of his mind this season with the Seahawks. It’s pretty cool to see, especially since his first five seasons were just about as terrible as you could possibly imagine.
His contract with the Seahawks was structured so they could pull the rip cord if things went south, but this season has been anything but that.
Anyone is better than the last guy:
You’re keeping the job because the last relationship was terrible.
Aaron Rodgers
At this point last season, Russell Wilson was getting ready to make his third start for the 6-2 Steelers, who were scoring 23.4 points per game. Now, Aaron Rodgers is getting ready to make his ninth start for the 5-3 Steelers, who are scoring 27 points per game.
That offense is running much smoother than it did last year, and their 41 (almost 42) year old quarterback is the least of their worries.
Temp:
Someone has to start. You'd better make the most of it.
Mac Jones
Brock Purdy’s been dealing with a turf toe thing for the entire season. He got it in Week 1, tried to play again in Week 4, but he reinjured/reaggravated it. Now the 49ers are taking their time and making sure he comes back healthy; he’s missed the past five games.
That means Mac Jones has started seven games this season. He’s been playing pretty good ball in most of those games, and he’s got a 5-2 record as a starter. That’s a pretty good record, especially since that team has been running on the backs of replacement-level players for most of the season. When Brock Purdy gets healthy, Kyle Shanahan and the gang are going to be in a bit of a pickle.
In the NFC West, the 49ers are 6-3, behind the Rams and Seahawks, who are 6-2. They don’t have a whole lot of wiggle room. If Purdy comes back and loses a couple of games, the coaching staff would absolutely be right to give the reins back to Mac Jones… which is a problem because they just signed Purdy to a five-year, $265 million deal.
Joe Flacco
The Bengals beat the Steelers on Thursday night in Week 7, and on Sunday in Week 8, they lost to the Jets. That means for 10 days, there was a real thought: maybe Flacco can hold this thing together, and Joe Burrow can come back for a stretch run.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen anymore. The Bengals have the worst defense in the NFL (by kind of a lot), and it’d be criminal if Burrow rushed his Turf Toe recovery just to play in a broken season.
A healthy Flacco is the Bengals' starter for the rest of the season.
Marcus Mariota
Jayden Daniels dislocated his elbow, and the Commanders didn’t make a move for a new backup quarterback at the trade deadline. That means the quarterback room in Washington is Marcus Mariota and Josh Johnson… So it’s really just Marcus Mariota.
There’s a chance that they decide to see what they can do with Johnson at some point, but it’s going to be Mariota’s team for the foreseeable future.
You can’t fire a guy this young
You can’t fire a guy when he’s still getting trained.
Drake Maye
It’s looking like Drake Maye might be the best quarterback from the 2024 draft class.
Jaxson Dart
The Giants got some new life when they started Jaxson Dart… which isn’t saying much because Russell Wilson started the first three games.
Bo Nix
Bo Nix is playing winning football, but he’s not playing nearly as well as he did in his rookie season.
Caleb Williams
By no means is Caleb Williams perfect, but he’s playing much better football this season under Ben Johnson than he did last season under Shane Waldron.
Cam Ward
You’re not going to bench the first overall pick in the draft for *checks notes* Brandon Allen.
J.J. McCarthy
It’s still unclear what actually happened with J.J. McCarthy missing six games, when it was initially reported that he was only going to miss four games because of the ankle injury.
What we do know is that Carson Wentz was playing in the Week 8 game with a dislocated shoulder and a jacked-up labrum. It wasn’t until the last drive of the game that Max Brosmer came in for relief.
If they were cool with Wentz playing as poorly as he did and getting bashed into the ground for the whole game, that means they hate Brosmer.
Maybe McCarthy is actually good, maybe he’s not… It doesn’t matter. He’s their starter now.
Michael Penix
The Falcons cannot go back to Kirk Cousins. It would be the funniest thing in the world if they did, but they just can’t.
Yeah, we actually can fire you if you’re young
Actually, you can fire a guy when they’re getting trained.
Bryce Young
To be clear, the Panthers can bench Bryce Young, but they won’t. They’re on a four-game winning streak with him as a starter. If he hits one of those streaks of games where he plays like a tiny little buffoon, it wouldn’t be outlandish for Dave Canales to bench him… It’d be dumb, but not outlandish.
Tyler Shough
Who knows what's going on in New Orleans? Tyler Shough had his first start last Sunday, and the Saints lost the game 34-10. They’ll probably keep rolling with him for a few weeks, but if nothing changes, I wouldn’t be surprised if Spencer Rattler got another chance.
What everyone really wants is for Kellen Moore to get weird with it and have one of those games where Taysom Hill gets the start. That’d be great.
Safe because he was good two years ago:
Remember the good times? Let’s chase that feeling.
C.J. Stroud
C.J. Stroud’s not going to play in Week 10 because he’s out with a concussion, but that team is his. They’re constantly trying to chase the magic that they had back in 2023 when Stroud was the Offensive Rookie of the Year.
It was a lot of fun watching him that season, so hopefully it happens, but they’ll need to rebuild their offensive line (again) to get there. He’s going to be their guy until he’s not.
You’re only here because we hate the guy behind you
Please don’t make us go to the other guy. He sucks.
Jacoby Brissett
There’s a very good chance that we’ve seen the last of Kyler Murray in a Cardinals’ uniform. He messed up his foot in Week 5, and Jacoby Brissett has been their starter since.
How bad was his foot? It didn’t sound like it was that bad. Aside from the first week after the injury, when he was DNP on the practice report for a couple of days, he’s been a limited participant.
But the offense started grooving with Brissett. You couldn’t say the same thing when Murray was their guy.
Then, the Cardinals put Murray on IR. If Brissett can keep doing what he’s doing (playing in rhythm and getting the ball to playmakers), it’s hard to imagine Kyler Murray getting the starting job again.
Tua Tagovailoa
Has Tua Tagovailoa been playing benchable football? Absolutely… But Zach Wilson is the backup. Tua is bad, but he’s watchable. Wilson will make you turn the TV off.
On a PIP
If it doesn’t get better by the end of the month, you’re toast.
Dillon Gabriel
The Browns are going to try to force the Dillon Gabriel experience on everyone for as long as they can. The very predictable problem is that he really stinks.
When the Browns traded Joe Flacco to the Bengals, it left only Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders as the two healthy guys in their QB room. There’s no possible way that they can just keep throwing Gabriel out there for their next nine games; they’ll have to throw Sanders out there, and buddy… It really feels like they do not want to do that.
Geno Smith
Geno Smith bought himself some time with how he did in Week 9. He was 29-of-39 for 284 yards, four touchdowns, and one interception. A big part of that was Brock Bowers, who was finally healthy.
The only two games that Bowers has been healthy in have been Weeks 1 and 9. In those games, Smith has averaged 323 passing yards, 2.5 touchdowns, and 1 interception per game. In the six games without a healthy Bowers, he was averaging 175.8 passing yards, one touchdown, and 1.5 interceptions per game.
Maybe he’s working his way out of his PIP, maybe not. If he starts to slide back to his non-Bowers ways, Super Bowl-winning quarterback Kenny Pickett is waiting in the wings to take over.
Justin Fields
The Jets are dead. They’ve already benched Justin Fields once for Tyrod Taylor, and it’s just a matter of time until they do it again. I don’t know if that’ll be a permanent benching or if they’ll switch back and forth between the two, but it’ll happen.
Whatever the case, losing games is the best possible thing for them right now, so maybe being dead is a good thing.