There’s always a bit of down time between the start of the Super hype and the end of the conference championship games. Now most seasons it seems as though the focus is on the upcoming draft, but this year it seems as the majority of people are talking about free agency. Well maybe free agency is to broad of a term. The free agent that is being talked about is Tom Brady.
After 20 seasons as quarterback of the New England Patriots Brady is entering free agency for the first time and the consensus seems to be the he won’t be returning to New England.
The Patriots do have two quarterbacks on their roster. Veteran Cody Kessler was the third string quarterback and didn’t take a snap all season. Rookie Jarrett Stidham served as Brady’s back up and appeared in three games during the season. Stidham threw 4 passes cmpleting 2 of them for 14 yards and threw 1 interceptions. Do you see either one of these quarterbacks as the starter for New England at the start of the 2020 season?
Now there are quite a few names out on the free agent market that the Patriots could try and sign to be their starting quarterback, but if they’re going through all that trouble why not just bring back the quarterback that knows the system.
The Patriots do own the 23rd pick in the 1st round of the draft; so it’s possible that they could select a quarterback with that pick. There are some mock drafts that have the Patriots taking Jordan Love out of Utah State. The question of course is; can Love be a step in and start type of quarterback.
Love played in 38 games at Utah State. He threw for 8600 yards, 60 touchdowns and 29 interceptions. Love completed 61.2% of his passes. He also scored 9 rushing touchdowns in his three years at Utah State.
Like everyone else I’m interested to see where the Patriots go, but I’m under the impression when it’s all said and done Brady will be back as their starting quarterback when the 2020 season kicks off.
Who do you think will be the Patriots starting quarterback next season?
Of course the longer this drags on the more fun it will get. I’m sure there’s going to be someone who throws out names like Drew Brees and Philip Rivers as successors to Brady, but I don’t think either of them will end of in New England. Now it’s possible that Eli Manning could have one last hoorah as quarterback of the Patriots, but there are some younger options on the free agent market. Jameis Winston led the NFL in passing yards with 5109 of course he did also throw a league high 30 interceptions, but he is just 26 years old. Marcus Mariota lost his starting job in the middle of the season and the Tennessee Titans made a nice run with Ryan Tannehill at quarterback. Interestingly both Mariota and Tannehill are free agents, but does either fit into the Patriots plan. Teddy Bridgewater has been waiting two years for a starting job and got to show he could sit play last season when he filled in for an injured Brees. Kyle Allen showed some good and some bad while filling in for Cam Newton and at 24 years old he’s young enough to adjust to a new system. Now I didn’t forget about Dak Prescott, but I’m under the impression that if the Dallas Cowboys can’t re-sign him they’ll franchise tag him; so while he is technically a free agent changing teams will probably be very difficult for him.
The Cincinnati Bengals ended up with the #1 pick in the draft. It appears as the Bengals will select quarterback Joe Burrows which makes good sense for them. Oddly there was quite a bit of talk about how the Bengals should and might trade the pick. Now the Bengals have come out and said they intend to hold onto the draft pick, but as always if there was an offer that blew then away they’d make a deal.
Now the Bengals do still have Andy Dalton under contract for next season and it will be interesting if Cincinnati can find a trading partner for Dalton or if they’ll just end up releasing him.
Burrow will step into a situation where he’ll have some weapons to work with on offense. Joe Mixon rushed for 1137 yards and 5 touchdowns and Giovani Bernard is the perfect compliment to Mixon in the backfield. Tyler Boyd had 90 receptions and his first 1000 yard season with 5 touchdowns. John Ross is still struggling to find himself as an NFL receiver; so maybe Burrow can get the potential that people have seen in him out. Ross had 28 receptions in 8 games last season, but did average 18.1 yards per reception.
The Bengals will have to make a couple of decisions this off season. A.J. Green is a free agent and didn’t play last season. It’s been reported that Green will be healthy when training camp comes around, but he’ll be 32 years old and you have to wonder if he fits in with the rebuilding Bengals.
For the first time in his career Tyler Eifert played in all 16 games. He caught 43 passes the second highest total in his career for a season. He also had 436 yards receiving and 3 touchdowns. Eifert had a very reasonable salary of $4 million dollars last season and if his salary comes in right around this number again he could be back with the Bengals.
Do you see Green and Eifert being back with the Bengals last season? Or do you have just one of them coming back? If so which one do you have returning? Let me know what you think.
Also do you think that the Bengals will improve on their 2-14 record with Burrow as their quarterback?
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