The Best Backup Quarterback Is ...
There have been some drearier-than-usual backup QB battles and storylines around the NFL this preseason. What can we learn from them?
Hendon Hooker took the shotgun snap, rolled left, strayed into the path of a blocked defender, collided with his teammate, spun awkwardly into the arms of a second defender and got tossed to the turf for an eight-yard loss.
It was one of the most un-instinctive plays I have ever seen on an NFL field. Hooker looked like an absent-minded professor walking into the lecture hall without his pants, or a student driver confusing the brakes for the accelerator at a busy intersection, or a cartoon baby crawling across girders at a skyscraper construction site. Hooker appeared to be so preoccupied with doing the right thing – and so frightfully aware that he was running out of chances – that he had lost the ability to do anything.
I’ve seen quarterbacks go Full Hendon before. (We won’t be going “Full Hooker” today at Too Deep Zone.) Bobby Hoying did it late in his brief Eagles career. Rick Mirer did it, just as the Seahawks finally gave up on him. Surely there have been countless other examples. Full Hendon is something ineffable: not a mistake so much as a chain reaction of malfunctions that ends with the quarterback’s brain finally going blue-screen-of-death and bricking under the stress of professional self-preservation.
Hooker was a late bloomer in a flashy Tennessee system with outstanding playmakers (Jalin Hyatt, Cedric Tillman) at his disposal. He was 25 years old when drafted. There were caution flags all over his scouting report, but I liked him about as much as Brad Holmes did. The Lions deemed Hooker good enough to hire but not to marry, selecting him in the third round of the 2023 draft.
The Lions initially appeared to be a soft landing spot for Hooker. They were a team on the rise with a great offensive line and a veteran quarterback with a shaky reputation. But Jared Goff enjoyed a career resurgence and earned a contract extension as the Lions leapt into the Super Bowl conversation. The Lions suddenly needed ready-to-play stability at backup quarterback, not a developmental challenger for Goff. Enter Teddy Bridgewater. Hooker became a third-stringer.
It takes confidence bordering on arrogance to be a franchise quarterback. It takes patience and professionalism to be a backup. It takes self-awareness to survive as a third-stringer. Third-string quarterbacks run the scout team with the practice squadders. They’re jobbers for the first-string defense. From the end of training camp to the start of the next year’s OTAs, they rarely get a practice rep they can call their own. Third-stringers can learn a lot, but they are rarely taught anything.
A Case Keenum-type on the third string is an extra coach. An undrafted rando is a gopher/caddie for the starter. A former quasi-prospect with wheels like Hooker is a fake Lamar Jackson/Josh Allen for defenders to chase. Developmentally, he’s a banana on the window sill. He’s not getting better with age.
I don’t know if Hooker would have fared better if he were given more opportunities. What’s undeniable is that he now looks downright afraid to throw the football. Too much film, too many instructions, too few chances to put theories into action: Hooker is the desk-jockey officer suddenly leading a battalion in an old war movie, the one who freezes up while a Dan Campbell-like sergeant grunts with disgust.
Hooker won’t make the Lions roster. Kyle Allen may have triple-bogeyed every opportunity to win the backup job, but Hooker drove his golf cart into a lake.
Hooker will latch on somewhere, but he’ll only become a viable starter again on the Geno Smith geological timeline. At best, he’ll adjust to life as a third stringer. It’s steady work if you have the stomach for it.
Zach Wilson took his first snap of the game against the Lions, pump-faked to a receiver motioning into a slot screen, pump-faked again to a tight end running up the seam, backtracked indecisively in the pocket, and finally checked down to the slot screen guy, who broke a tackle to make something out of nothing.
Wilson underhanded a short rollout pass as if he were starting a 4-6-3 double play on his second attempt. He got hammered by a blitzer as he released the ball on the third attempt, uncorking a wounded thrush that fortuitously eluded two defenders as it plummeted to the turf.
Wilson “settled down” after that first series. Beware of anyone who tells you a quarterback “settled down” in a preseason game. It usually means the quarterback stuck around long enough for the veteran backups and top rookies on defense to give way to the third and fourth-stringers. It can also mean that he racked up enough screen passes, routine bootleg tosses and preseason playground nonsense to cobble together decent stats and a scoring drive or two.
Such was the case with Wilson, who mixed wobblers and drive-killing sacks which were negated by penalties with brief bouts of competence. He threw for 151 yards and a touchdown against a Lions defense whose most accomplished veteran was Rock Ya-Sin.
You know Wilson’s story. A COVID-year mirage. A Jets delusion. The second-overall pick in the 2021 draft by virtue of positional scarcity and scouting overconfidence. The Jets kept anointing Wilson the starter and then benching him for everyone from Joe Flacco to Mike White to Chris Streveler. They signed Aaron Rodgers to replace Wilson, and the results were predictably Faustian.
Wilson ostensibly competed with Bo Nix and Jarrett Stidham for the Broncos starting job in the summer of 2024, but Sean Payton was just playing Three Card Monte. Wilson ended up as the third-stringer.
Those who accuse folks like me of following “the narrative” have no idea just how narrative-driven NFL decisions really are. Coaches, GMs and owners all believe their own campfire tales. They love the yarn about the former prospect who is rehabilitated by the royal touch of a great coach. Sometimes, the fairytale comes true: Sam Darnold rehabilitated by Kyle Shanahan, Baker Mayfield by Sean McVay. The selection and survival biases ensure that we (and the decision makers) forget the many times that it doesn’t: see Mitch Trubisky in Pittsburgh for a recent example.
Coaches know that third-stringers don’t get meaningful reps, but they believe in the alchemical properties of their systems and cultures. They also cannot imagine that they were all wrong in proclaiming that Wilson was a top prospect based on his performance against teams like Texas State team that were conducting “practice” over Zoom. It’s all a matter of casting the proper incantation.
Mike McDaniel thought/wished/hoped that Wilson had absorbed some Payton magic to go with the Rodgers necromancy he picked up with the Jets. Wilson wasn’t officially competing for a starting job in Miami. But McDaniel was seeking both a premium insurance policy to cover Tua Tagovailoa’s frequent injuries and a plausible Plan B for if/when the time came to use Tua as a scapegoat. Wilson is neither. He might be capable of flinging enough short passes to Tyreek Hill and Jaylin Waddle to engineer a win or two – the same can be said of most humans with at least one healthy arm – but McDaniel can’t bench Tua for Wilson without looking silly and sweaty. Oh, and Tyreek was sitting out walkthroughs at the last check.
At least Wilson’s backup role is secure: third-string rookie Quinn Ewers is a comic bumbler, and Wilson has performed better than, say, Kyle Allen.
Wilson will either Mitch Trubisky his way into a role as a backup for a never-injured superstar in the next year or two or quietly fall off the back of the league. His ability to ingratiate himself with Rodgers suggests that he may fall into the former category. In a few years, we’ll stop chuckling about Wilson and just accept him as one of those backups that always seems to land another job.
Ravens fans are worried about Cooper Rush.
Rush threw a pick-6 early in his extended appearance against the Cowboys last week. He then “settled down” (see the Zach Wilson segment) and led a few scoring drives, ending one with a short touchdown toss to Keith Kirkwood in the back of the end zone. Rush’s second interception bounced off the hands of running back Rasheen Ali on a routine checkdown during a two-minute drill. He ended with a 20-30-198-1-2 stat line in one half’s work.
Rush also threw an interception in his second attempt of the opener against the Colts. I’ve seen articles that suggest he has played well this preseason. It’s unclear if the authors were grading on a curve, basing their opinions on box scores or just shrugging and assuming no one has strong opinions about Cooper Rush. It doesn’t really matter.
Rush was once briefly the challenger in a quarterback controversy with Dak Prescott. It was a stupid controversy – basically a shitpost by some Eagles fan made manifest – but I remember talk-radio hosts asking me serious questions about Rush’s future after he led the Cowboys to four wins in relief of Prescott early in the 2022 season. I shouldn’t have to tell you how CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons performed in those field goal-filled wins. Anyway, Rush then threw three interceptions in a loss to the Eagles, and everyone awoke from their fever dream about the then-29 yard old career benchwarmer.
Rush led the Cowboys to a 4-4 record in relief of Prescott last year, playing well against quality opponents like the Commanders and Buccaneers and benefiting from the usual assists from the likes of Lamb and Parsons.
Rush is a top-tier backup quarterback, if such a creature can be said to exist. He has proven that he can lead a team over a period of weeks without making a bad situation worse. He’s one of the top 40 quarterbacks on a planet which, for better or worse, only holds the top dozen or so in any real esteem.
So why has Rush looked so iffy against for the Ravens in the preseason after looking relatively capable for the Cowboys in the regular season? For one thing, he was throwing to Ali and LaJohntay Wester, not Lamb, Brandin Cooks and Jake Ferguson. He was also playing against backups, but the net results were heavy on preseason sludge: receivers dropping easy catches, blockers getting steamrolled while Rush stood in the pocket. When backup quarterbacks look great in the preseason, it’s almost by accident.
Fans and reporters may have been evaluating Rush in the preseason, but John Harbaugh and Todd Monken were not. They know that if Lamar Jackson gets hurt, Rush will jog into the huddle calmly, call Monken’s play correctly and execute it recognizably. Rush can hand off to Derrick Henry, toss softballs to Zay Flowers and the tight ends and game-manage low-scoring victories. A team literally cannot ask for anything more from a backup quarterback. Many teams, including contenders like the Lions, may find themselves forced to settle for less.
Just after Rush’s second interception caromed off his running back’s hands, Cowboys backup Joe Milton took the field for his fifth offensive series. Milton was 2-of-8 for 14 yards so far in the game, plus a safety where he dawdled in his own end zone until blitzing cornerback Keyon Martin clobbered him.
Milton, given excellent field position and over a minute to work with before halftime, dropped and launched a deep shot well over the head of Jonathan Mingo. The only person with a chance to catch the overthrow was safety Reuben Lowery, who snagged it like a warning-track fly ball to center field.
Milton left Tennessee as weak-tea Hendon Hooker. Same system. Similar novel-length college career. Comparable traits and results. Milton, who backed Hooker up for one year, was bigger and faster but more erratic and raw than his predecessor. The Patriots drafted him in the sixth round, and he became a curiosity and afterthought in Drake Maye’s development.
Then came Milton’s 241-yard passing performance, with a scramble-and-bomb passing touchdown and a one-yard zone-read rushing touchdown, in a meaningless Week 18 game against Bills backups last year. Patriots fans, a vociferous and excitable lot, declared that their team now had two young franchise quarterbacks. Would needy teams sacrifice three first-round picks for mighty Milton, or was it more reasonable to settle for just two?
The Cowboys got swept up to some degree in the hype, trading a fifth-round pick for Milton to replace Trey Lance as the team’s hobby-horse quarterback project. They then let Rush walk, placing Milton on course to be the primary backup to the oft-injured Prescott.
“I really have to pinch myself that we got him after the last game that he had up there, starting there for New England,” Jerry Jones said of Milton on August 12th. Yes, August 12th, not April 12th; Jerrah was referring to Milton as a dream come true after after watching Milton stumble around the preseason opener until the Rams replaced their third-stringers with non-stringers.
So far this preseason, Milton has been absolutely unplayable. He’s catastrophically inaccurate, as well as indecisive. Like Rush and the others, he’s stuck playing backup-on-backup facsimile football. But no throw has looked routine enough for him through the first halves of two games.
The only other quarterback on the Cowboys roster is Will Grier, the Panthers’ third-round pick way back in 2019, who keeps bouncing around the NFL as a third-stringer but ending up back in Dallas. Grier threw four interceptions and took 6 sacks in 52 pass attempts as a rookie. He has not played a regular-season snap since. Lamb and Parsons could help most backup quarterbacks manufacture a victory or two in relief. Superman and Batman might not be able to save Milton or Grier.
The Cowboys will likely scour the waiver wire for a better backup. Who do they think will be out there? Rush, Trubisky, Gardner Minshew, Mason Rudolph: all spoken for. Andy Dalton is injured. Even Bridgewater is now employed elsewhere. The best quarterback likely to hit the waiver wire may be Lance. Talk about spinning your wheels.
Milton will probably hold down a roster spot because the Cowboys traded for him and Jerrah really thinks he can snooker the league by developing other teams’ castoffs. Milton may be a useful Jalen Hurts/Jayden Daniels cosplayer in practice.
As for Milton’s performance last year: meaningless Week 18 games are just preseason games that came unstuck in the timestream.
Backup quarterbacks stink. It’s part of the job description. Unless he’s a rookie “heir apparent” or there is some rare quasi-political Kirk Cousins situation at play, the backup is NOT better than the starter, no matter what the midday sportstalk host thinks. The backup is unlikely to be better than any but the bottom four or five starters in the NFL, the ones about to be downgraded to backups.
If a team must turn to the backup quarterback for any length of time, that team is probably screwed. If it isn’t screwed, it’s because of some combination of roster strength, coaching, circumstances and luck, not because the backup was some stealth superstar. The absolute best backups, the Nick Foles-types, are just experienced and/or talented enough to be survivable.
I used to rank backup quarterbacks during the preseason. It was always a tongue-in-cheek exercise, and I may do it again next year. But I didn’t see the point in cycling through the familiar names this year. Rudolph. Trubisky. Dalton. Rush. Kyle Trask. Aidan O’Connell. Davis Mills. Jake Browning. Tyler Heinicke. Who cares? Who can really tell them apart? And how many of them will wind up on the waiver wire next week, once teams realize that the guy they’ve been working with for months may be worse than whatever is behind Door Number Two?
The best backup quarterback is the one you never need. The toolsy ones, experienced ones and gutsy ones are all the same, so long as they are wearing baseball caps and headsets. Beyond that, all bets are off. And if there’s a Tony Romo or Brock Purdy hiding somewhere among all the Hooker, Wilson, Rush and Milton-types, we won’t recognize him until he’s already halfway to stardom.
Too Deep Housecleaning
I was going to write a short piece about Joe Flacco and Daniel Jones winning the starting jobs for the Browns and Colts. But what more is there to say that hasn’t been said?
Flacco’s only real competition was Kenny Pickett, who got injured at the start of camp and disappeared into the void. The Jones decision was a foregone conclusion when his very arrival didn’t immediately activate the X-gene that would turn Anthony Richardson into Josh Allen. Shane Steichen and Chris Ballard are unlikely to survive the season in Indy, and Jimmy Haslam sounds ready for scapegoat season in Cleveland. There’s never been any suspense in either quarterback competition, and the rubbernecking potential has also been exhausted.
Matt Lombardo and I talked about both quarterback competitions in the Between the Hashmarks podcast on Tuesday. I don’t really try to hide my exasperation about how the Browns and Colts competitions were framed and reported.
Next week, Too Deep Zone will publish some “Closing Arguments” for all 32 teams, as well as a very special installment of Signature Moments. We’ll also cover roster cuts and any Micah-level news. And there may be a mailbag in our future. But I’m done-done-done with preseason and training camp observations and scuttlebutt. It’s time for real football!
And since I wrote “Milton” so much in this essay and need an image for socials:
