The Nfl Has A Quarterback Problem. The Ravens Just Became Exhibit A

The precise organizational term for the current state of the Baltimore Ravens is: screwed. It's a fate that likely awaits every other team that doesn't already have a quarterback succession plan in place, right this very moment. But Baltimore is uniquely beset by injury.

The Ravens lost all-everything quarterback Lamar Jackson on the very first play of Sunday's game against the Buffalo Bills to a thumb injury that could cost him the remainder of the season. Making matters infinitely worse, Baltimore subsequently lost backup Tyler Huntley to a toe injury that could cost him time. And time is not a luxury Baltimore has right now; the Ravens are scheduled to play the Jaguars on Thursday night. 

Oh, and just to add to the joy, undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano, who leaped from emergency No. 3 quarterback into the lineup on Sunday, is himself dealing with an ankle injury. It rains, it pours, and sometimes, it Biblically floods. 

As for Baltimore's quarterback options now, well … how's your arm feeling? Can you get to Charm City by Thursday? 

The Ravens are in the teeth of the most vexing conundrum in the NFL right now: how to even survive, much less thrive, when your quarterback goes down. It's the most important position in team sports, by a wide margin, and consequently the most challenging one to fill. More complex offenses, more ferocious defenses, more pressure and more expectation all combine to forge a few elite quarterbacks, and shatter the rest. 

You don't need any kind of advanced metrics to know what your eyes tell you: There are more teams in the NFL than there are good quarterbacks to lead them. The numbers back this up: ESPN's Total QBR stat, in this instance, is a useful benchmark. QBR doesn't simply total up yardage and touchdown passes; it incorporates a range of game situations and quarterback attributes, making it a solid starting point for discussions of elite, serviceable and unusable quarterbacks. 

In the Total QBR system, a ranking of about 50 is average, and 25 is replacement-level. Players around the 50-point mark include Michael Penix Jr. (56.2), Sam Darnold (49.4) and Aaron Rodgers (49.2). So far, so good, right? At the low end of the 30 quarterbacks who have played enough to statistically qualify for the QBR leaderboard, you'll find Jameis Winston (41.4), Deshaun Watson (40.9), Daniel Jones (39.4) and Justin Herbert (32.6) — again, no real surprises there. 

But when you look at the overall performance of all players who have taken snaps or thrown passes this season, that's when you really get a sense of how bad quarterback play can be. Fagnano posted a QBR of 7.4 in his emergency stint on Sunday. Tanner McKee is at 30.7 after starting, and losing, three games for Philadelphia. And Cooper Rush posted an almost incomprehensibly bad QBR of 4.7 — again, 25 is replacement-level — in his two losing starts for Atlanta earlier this season. The Falcons might have been better off just direct-snapping to Bijan Robinson every play, and the Ravens might need to consider the same route with Derrick Henry. 

We can also determine the teams at most risk of a falloff due to quarterback injury by using a less scientific but more financially-motivated metric. Yahoo Sports' Ben Fawkes has created a list of NFL starting quarterbacks' value in terms of point spreads vs. their backups — in other words, the amount of value that a single starting quarterback brings to a team's odds — and, again, the results won't surprise you.

Per Fawkes' metric, the quarterback most important to his team's point spreads is — shocker — the Bills' Josh Allen, who's responsible alone for 7.23 points against the spread. Put another way, if Allen were injured and backup Kyle Allen needed to come in, any scenario where Buffalo was favored by fewer than +7.5 would immediately flip the Bills from huge favorite to pick-em status. That's pretty damn significant! Wrap Josh Allen in bubble wrap, Buffalo! 

The next most important quarterbacks: Patrick Mahomes (backup: Justin Fields), Matthew Stafford (backup: Ty Simpson), and Drake Maye (backup: Tommy DeVito). Jackson comes in at fifth, responsible for 5.89 points against the spread, but that's with Huntley as his backup. Now? The gap might be double digits.

So you can see the problem here. There already aren't enough quality quarterbacks in the NFL, and the teams that have more than one in-house — looking at you, San Francisco — aren't parting with them for anything less than obscene ransoms. 

Look upon the list of backups this year in the NFL, and despair. All due respect to Trey Lance, Quinn Ewers, Sam Howell, Davis Mills and the rest of the "hey, I remember that guy" guys holding tablets on sidelines across the league, but there's just not much there there. 

The one hope that teams have is the Sam Darnold Scenario. Darnold, of course, sputtered from starter to backup, buried on San Francisco's depth chart until Minnesota resurrected his career and Seattle cemented his legacy with a Super Bowl title. 

We have two extremely small sample size cases already this season: J.J. McCarthy, who seems rejuvenated with the Giants after flaming out in Minnesota, and Gardner Minshew, who checked in from 2019 to lead the Cardinals to a win over Dallas on Sunday. (McCarthy's QBR this year is 60.5 and Minshew's is 71.3, in case you were wondering.)  

Beyond that, teams have to either mortgage their future with draft capital — say, overpaying for Kirk Cousins, if the Raiders were even interested in trading him — or grit their teeth and weather the storm until the offseason. When demand for quarterbacks far outstrips the supply, it's only a matter of time before someone — today, the Ravens; tomorrow, who knows? — ends up with nothing. That's the reality in a league now centered on, and entirely dependent on, elite quarterbacks.