Vet QB situation gets murkier … Its not secret around the NFL that at least a half dozen teams – Carolina, Denver, Washington, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, for example, come rather quickly to mind – have a primary need at QB heading into the new NFL year which starts in two weeks. It also appears that just about all of those teams would prefer to add a quality veteran at the position. And with rumors swirling not so long ago that stars like Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray could very well be available this winter that there would in fact be some veteran options out there. However, the buzz around the combine this week is that when push comes to shove, it’s highly likely that any of those guys is going anywhere anytime soon.
The next level of options pretty much came down to Jimmy Garoppolo of the 49ers; however it was announced earlier this week that Garoppolo was going to have surgery on his throwing shoulder. Reportedly it is not a major issue, but even so Garoppolo wasn’t going to be able to even start to throw again until early in July which means he likely he wouldn’t be fully available until after the start of training camp. And that’s hardly good news for a guy who has been a solid pro when he plays, but has had major durability issues throughout his career. The word is that there will still likely be a market for Garoppolo, but more as a post-draft stop-gap option for teams that don’t get a QB in the draft, rather than as a pre-draft option that teams might consider to be a potential long-term answer at the position.
Of course, there will be other veteran options like Carson Wentz and Mitch Trubisky, but again they fall in the stop-gap category rather than the long-term answer grouping. And that is very likely going to put more importance on this year’s draft at the position even though nobody thinks it’s a particularly talented class.
Meanwhile, the one veteran QB domino that still needs to fall is Houston’s Deshaun Watson. Again, the buzz around the combine is that there are multiple teams (see above) are prepared to at least make a run at Watson. It also appears that most would be willing to sign him even without a resolution to the multiple civil suits out there against him as long as there are no criminal charges. There are in fact as many as 8-9 women that have made criminal complaints against Watson that the Houston police are reportedly investigating. The expectation is that local police and prosecutors will decide by around April 1st whether to proceed with any of those referrals at which time we should have a little more clarity whether Watson will, or will not, be in the mix for 2022.
