The five most interesting quarterbacks to watch this offseason: Malik Willis tops the list
Five quarterbacks who could be on the move
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11 min read
The quarterback carousel is always one of the most intriguing facets of the NFL offseason. The incoming crop of quarterbacks usually dominate the headlines, as we saw Cam Ward be selected by the Tennessee Titans at No. 1 overall last year, the New York Giants traded back into the first round for Jaxson Dart and then second-round pick Tyler Shough was a good find for the New Orleans Saints. But what about the veterans?
Last offseason, we saw the Seattle Seahawks trade Geno Smith away and turn to Sam Darnold. That worked out pretty well. The New York Jets signed Justin Fields. That did not work out like Aaron Glenn wanted it to. Plus, the Indianapolis Colts signed Daniel Jones to battle Anthony Richardson, and the Giants decided to construct the most fascinating quarterback room in the league with Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston and the rookie Dart. Which veteran quarterbacks do teams have their eyes on this offseason?
Below, we will break down five of the most interesting quarterbacks to watch in the coming months.
1. Malik Willis, Green Bay Packers
Titans fans were excited when Tennessee landed a dual-threat quarterback by the name of Malik Willis out of Liberty in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft. However, Willis did not do enough to keep his job, as he was traded to the Packers for a measly seventh-round pick on roster cutdown day in 2024.
Willis immediately looked like a different player in Green Bay. After Jordan Love was injured in the season opener that year, Willis stepped in and led the Packers to a win over the Colts in Week 2. The following week Willis made the trip back to Nashville to start against his former team, and helped the Packers secure a 30-14 victory while throwing for 202 yards, one touchdown, and added 73 yards and another score on the ground.
Willis grabbed headlines in Week 17 this year, when he again stepped in for an injured Love and shined. Despite the 41-24 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Willis completed 18 of 21 passes for 288 yards, one touchdown, and led the Packers in rushing with 60 yards and two more touchdowns. According to CBS Sports Research, Willis became the first quarterback ever to complete 85% of his passes while averaging 13 yards per attempt with 60 yards rushing. His 13.7 yards per attempt were the most by a quarterback with 50 rushing yards in a game in the past 50 seasons, and he was the first quarterback since Michael Vick in 2002 to have zero incompletions, 100 passing yards, a passing touchdown and a rushing touchdown in a first half.
Willis is now a free agent, and deserves the chance to at least battle for a starting job. Where could that be? Keep an eye on the Miami Dolphins, who just hired former Packers vice president of player personnel Jon-Eric Sullivan to serve as their new general manager, and former Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley to be their new head coach.
2. Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals
With the Cardinals beginning a new era in 2026, it appears the franchise could part ways with their former No. 1 overall pick. Kyler Murray played in just five games this past season due to a foot injury, but it almost felt like a "soft benching" of sorts since Jacoby Brissett came in and was more efficient. Murray averaged 192.4 passing yards per game while Brissett averaged 280.5 in games he started.
Murray signed a five-year, $230.5 million extension in 2022. It technically runs through 2028, but the final year is a club option. Let's take a look at some hypotheticals when it comes to parting ways with Murray, courtesy of Spotrac. We won't include the pre-June 1 release since it seems a bit unlikely ($54+ million dead cap hit).
| Pre-June 1 trade | Post-June 1 release | Post-June 1 trade | |
|---|---|---|---|
2026 dead cap | $17,918,177 | $47,518,177 | $27,718,177 |
2026 savings | $34,742,500 | $5,142,500 | $24,942,500 |
2027 dead cap | N/A | $7,200,000 | $7,200,000 |
Murray made the Pro Bowl in both 2020 and 2021, but his production has dipped since then. He ranks 26th in win percentage and 29th in yards per attempt among the 33 quarterbacks with 25 or more starts since 2022, and has played 12 games just once in the last four seasons.
Arizona will probably move on from Murray, but it's interesting to speculate where he could land. Would a team like the Pittsburgh Steelers or Jets give Murray an opportunity to be the starter, or will he be pursued as a backup quarterback? The free agency pool isn't exactly robust with talent, and the incoming draft class doesn't appear to be loaded either. That's good for Murray.
3. Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins
Our thoughts are with those of TuAnon during this difficult time, as it appears the Tua Tagovailoa days are over in Miami. Or are they?
New Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan admitted he has some decisions to make at quarterback in his introductory press conference, but did not add much more than that.
"Quarterback is the most important position in professional sports. I also think it's the most dependent," Sullivan said, via NFL.com. "We will evaluate the position like we evaluate every other position, and we will do what is best for this football team.
"With Tua or anybody else, to sit up here today and tell you that I have a great understanding of what we're gonna do or which way we're gonna go, that would be a lie because there's just too much work to do."
Prior to the 2024 season, Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212.4 million extension. He's under contract through 2028, and it's not easy to part ways with him. Tagovailoa is the No. 6 highest-paid player in the NFL in terms of AAV at $53.1 million per year. Observe the potential dead cap hits, according to Spotrac:
| Pre-June 1 trade | Post-June 1 release | Post-June 1 trade | |
|---|---|---|---|
2026 dead cap | $45,200,000 | $67,400,000 | $13,400,000 |
2026 savings | $11,067,647 | $-11,132,353 | $42,867,647 |
2027 dead cap | N/A | $31,800,000 | $31,800,000 |
In 2023, Tagovailoa became the first Dolphins quarterback to lead the NFL in passing since Dan Marino with 4,624 yards, and added a career-high 29 touchdowns. He captained the No. 1 offense in the NFL, which averaged a whopping 401.3 total yards per game, while Miami went 11-6. However, this past season, Tagovailoa threw a career-high 15 interceptions in just 14 games played. He clearly regressed, and is 7-18 in his career vs. teams with winning records, while 37-14 vs. all other teams.
You have to wonder what kind of trade value Tagovailoa has -- even if the Dolphins eat money to move the former No. 5 overall pick. Maybe he just stays put as one of the most expensive backup quarterbacks in NFL history.
4. Daniel Jones, Indianapolis Colts
Daniel Jones looked like he was going to take the Colts to the Super Bowl and pick up MVP honors along the way during the first half of the season. The former No. 6 overall pick of the Giants helped Indy get off to a surprising 8-2 start before things began to deteriorate. After losing two straight games following the bye week, Jones tore his Achilles in a Week 14 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Colts ended their season on a seven-game losing streak, and missed the playoffs.
Despite how the season ended, Jones set career highs in completion percentage (68%), passing yards per game (238.5) and yards per attempt (8.1). He's now looking for a multiyear extension, and would probably like to remain with the Colts. However, will Jones even be ready for the season opener? And what would a contract extension look like?
How much guaranteed money will the Colts be comfortable giving Jones, and how much is he looking for? How willing would he be to test the open market? If you're wondering what a Jones extension looks like, Spotrac says he could sign a four-year, $174,394,208 deal that carries an AAV of $43.6 million. Going off of last year's QB numbers, that hypothetical contract would make Jones the No. 16 highest-paid quarterback in the NFL.
5. Kirk Cousins, Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons recently restructured Kirk Cousins' contract, which prepares the organization to part ways with the 37-year-old quarterback. He believes he's still a starter, but how many teams would agree? To Cousins' credit, he helped Atlanta end the 2025 season on a four-game win streak. He averaged 219 passing yards per game during that run, and threw seven touchdowns compared to two interceptions.
Cousins makes the cut on this list because his future seems wide open. Could he retire? Maybe there actually is a team out there that would consider him as a starter. If not, would he accept a backup job, and where would that be? Then there's Cousins' former team, the Minnesota Vikings.
The Vikings just fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, and while Minnesota's decision came down to multiple factors, it's tough for Vikings fans to ignore the fact that Sam Darnold is preparing to play in a Super Bowl this week. The franchise opted to ride with their first-round investment in J.J. McCarthy instead of re-signing Darnold, and right now, that looks like a bad decision.
In his first full season as a starter, McCarthy averaged 163.2 passing yards per game, and threw 11 touchdowns compared to 12 interceptions. He also finished last in the NFL in completion percentage (57.6%) and passer rating (72.6) among quarterbacks with at least 10 starts. I'm not saying the Vikings should abandon all hope when it comes to McCarthy, but they have to bring in someone else to at least compete with him. Could that be Cousins?
Honorable mentions
The Ravens are beginning a new era that does not include John Harbaugh. Is there a possibility that new era may not include Lamar Jackson either? The two-time NFL MVP has a $74.5 million cap hit in 2026, so he's going to get an extension this offseason. Team owner Steve Bisciotti even spoke about the looming contract last month.
"I want [Jackson] to be my quarterback," Bisciotti said. "... The urgency of that matters to me because we've got free agents, and I don't want to go into free agency with that hanging over our head. And I made that clear to Lamar and I think he was very appreciative of my stance and hopefully willing to work with [Ravens GM] Eric [DeCosta] and not get this thing dragged out into April like the last time. It was very hard for [DeCosta] to build a roster when that thing is not settled."
If things do not go smoothly in negotiations, it's possible Jackson could request a trade and the Ravens move on. That doesn't feel very likely.
That's Pro Bowler Shedeur Sanders to you. The son of NFL legend Deion Sanders fell to the fifth round of last year's draft for reasons that clearly had nothing to do with football. After being the emergency third quarterback for a chunk of the season, Sanders finally found his way to the field and went 3-4 as the starter while completing 56.6% of his passes for 1,400 yards, seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions, and took 23 sacks in eight total games played.
Sanders' first season was a mixed bag at best. He offered more as a "playmaker" than Dillon Gabriel, became the first Browns quarterback since 1995 to win his first career start and threw for 364 yards, three touchdowns and an interception in a December loss to the Titans. However, Sanders had the second-worst completion percentage since his NFL debut in Week 11, and threw an NFL-high 10 interceptions in that time frame as well. So will the Browns allow Sanders to enter 2026 as the starter? What about the Deshaun Watson situation?
The $230 million man should be back on the active roster after missing all of 2025 due to an Achilles injury. Watson's contract is not easy to move off of, as the Browns would have $80.7 million in dead cap this year and $50.4 million in dead cap next year if Cleveland released him with a post-June 1 designation. Will he be back in the starting lineup?
The other thing to keep in mind is that the Browns are bringing in a new coach in Todd Monken. Will he want to bypass both Sanders and Watson and hop on the quarterback carousel immediately? If that's the case, could Sanders fetch a price above the fifth-round pick where he was drafted in a potential trade?
Going off of Monken's first meeting with Sanders, it seems like he's excited about the young signal-caller.
it all worked out@Bullseye_Event | #DawgPound pic.twitter.com/5UC9kjyZnv
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) January 30, 2026
Browns general manager Andrew Berry said last month that they saw progress with Sanders, but will be exploring all of their options.
"We're going to do our work on the quarterback market," Berry said, via ESPN. "It's too important of a position, and it's something that has to be solidified. I can't sit here and tell you today whether the starter in 2026 is internal or external, but it's something that we're going to work through over the next several weeks, and quite honestly, the new head coach will also have a lot of input into that as well."
There are fans out there that have Aaron Rodgers fatigue and expect him to retire. However, NFL Media reported that Rodgers is open to possibly returning to Pittsburgh for the 2026 season -- and you have to wonder how the hiring of Mike McCarthy could affect his decision as well. Some Steelers fans are ready for the organizational reset that Pittsburgh has put off for years, and that organizational reset does not include re-signing a 42-year-old quarterback. If Rodgers did decide to return to the Steelers, he and McCarthy could become the first head coach/starting QB duo to win a Super Bowl together and then start a game together on a different team. That would be pretty interesting.
In his one season with the Steelers, Rodgers went 10-6 as the starter and threw for 3,322 yards, 24 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He currently ranks No. 5 on the NFL's all-time passing list with 66,274 yards and No. 4 in passing touchdowns with 527. Rodgers is a 10-time Pro Bowler, won NFL MVP four times, and of course won Super Bowl XLV with Green Bay.
