The past year in the NFC North has been a wild ride at the quarterback position.
The Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings all made major decisions at the position.
Let’s review:
– March 16, 2020: The Vikings agree to a two-year contract extension with Kirk Cousins.
– March 18, 2020: The Bears trade for Nick Foles.
– April 23, 2020: The Packers trade up in the first round to draft Jordan Love.
– May 2, 2020: The Bears decline the fifth-year option on Mitchell Trubisky.
– January 31, 2021: The Lions trade Matthew Stafford to the Rams for Jared Goff.
– March 16, 2021: The Bears sign Andy Dalton.
That’s a lot of moving parts at the game’s most important position.
Another major event at quarterback in the NFC North: On February 6, Aaron Rodgers won his third NFL MVP after throwing for a career-high 48 touchdown passes during a resurgent 2020 season.
The Packers, enjoying a supreme advantage at the quarterback position, won 13 games and captured the NFC North title while winning five of six games inside the division.
So, where is the position headed inside the division? Good question.
Cousins will be the starter in Minnesota for at least one more season, but his cap hit balloons to $45 million in 2022, and the Vikings can save $35 million by releasing him after this year. So change could be on the horizon if the Vikings miss the playoffs again in 2021.
The Bears are moving on from Trubisky, the second overall pick in the 2017 draft, and starting over with Dalton, who was the backup quarterback in Dallas last season. Chicago tried to make a splash but barely made a ripple. Dalton could be a mid-tier starter but nothing more. His career passer rating is 87.5. And he’s under contract for just one year, so this is nothing if not a stop-gap solution.
The Lions are in a weird spot. They swapped Stafford for Goff, a clear downgrade in talent, but the franchise was spinning its wheels with Stafford under center. Goff is likely to be the starter in 2021 and maybe even in 2022, based on his contract. The Lions could still be a team that targets a quarterback early in the draft. Once again, this is a franchise in transition.
The Packers have the NFL’s MVP, but the presence of the team’s 2020 first-round pick clouds the position’s future outlook. Green Bay could restructure or extend Rodgers’ deal, which runs through 2023, and provide a strong financial commitment to him long-term. Or they could leave his contract alone and keep the door open for transitioning to Love at some point, possibly even after the 2021 season. Rodgers turns 38 in December, but his 2020 season suggests he could still play at a high level for several more seasons.
A lot went down over the last year in the NFC North. The Vikings extended a quarterback that has led teams to a 51-51-2 record as a starter. The Bears made a series of desperate additions. The Lions traded away the most productive passer in franchise history and added a declining quarterback that was benched late last season. The Packers shocked the football world by trading up to draft the potential successor for the league’s eventual MVP.
What could the next 365 days at the quarterback position in the NFC North have to offer?