Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions. (Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images)
There will be a few excellent quarterbacks entering the 2021 NFL Draft. Here are the five NFL teams most likely to draft one this time next spring.
As it is with every NFL Draft, a handful of teams were able to address their quarterbacking issues by drafting a potential franchise star in the first round. Four quarterbacks were taken last Thursday night in the 2020 NFL Draft. Joe Burrow went to the Cincinnati Bengals, Tua Tagovailoa joined the Miami Dolphins, Justin Herbert is a Los Angeles Charger and Jordan Love is a Green Bay Packer.
Burrow, Tagovailoa and Herbert will push for starts as rookies with the respective teams, while Love bides his time playing behind a future Pro Football Hall of Famer in Aaron Rodgers. Either way, all four of those franchises have appropriately addressed their quarterbacking concerns for the future. But what about teams who didn’t really do that this offseason? Who are they?
No, we’re not going to have a quarterbacking frenzy quite like we did in March. However, there will be a handful of teams entering the 2021 NFL Draft next year who will need to seriously consider their future at the quarterback position. Some of those teams need a guy like Burrow, Tagovailoa or Herbert who can play meaningful snaps as rookies, while others will look for a project like Love.
We’re a year out, but here are five teams who could be looking for a franchise quarterback in 2021.
5
Detroit Lions
NFC North
Many people thought the Detroit Lions could look for a successor to Matthew Stafford at No. 3 in the 2020 NFL Draft. Tagovailoa was the guy most closely associated with the Lions in the top three. However, Detroit is in win-now mode under the current regime, so they opted to draft the best defensive back in the draft in Ohio State Buckeyes cornerback Jeffrey Okudah at No. 3.
Should the Lions be respectable this year, which they might have been a season ago had Stafford not gotten hurt mid-season, head coach Matt Patricia and general manager Bob Quinn might get to keep their jobs. If it’s another disastrous year in the Motor City, both key members of the Lions’ brass will be gone. This would line up perfectly for the Lions to move off Stafford entering 2021.
While Stafford is under contract through his age-34 season in 2022, Detroit has a potential out after next season. If he’s too banged up for their liking or Detroit truly wants to hit the reset button, they will be in a great position to do so. The Lions could be bad enough again to draft Stafford’s successor, regardless of if there is a regime change upstairs or not.
Moving off Stafford could be incredibly difficult for the Lions to do. While he hasn’t won a division or a playoff game in 11 years as the starting quarterback, he’s been a model of consistency since being taken No. 1 overall out of Georgia in 2009. If healthy entering 2021, the Lions may continue to roll with him, unless they have the No. 1 overall pick again, which, could you really blame them?