Position Group Breakdown 2021: Quarterbacks
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May 13, 2021
by Steve Thomas
Welcome to the start of our annual Position Group Breakdown series. This is our effort to preview each position group on the team after draft in order to analyze what we can expect during the upcoming season. We’ve done this series on The Hog Sty Podcast for many years, but we only starting doing a companion written series last year. We are going start with the quarterbacks.
Departures
Arrivals
Returning players
Steven Montez
Since Washington let Alex Smith go and chose not to draft a quarterback this year, new arrival Ryan Fitzpatrick (6’2” / 228) is going to be the day 1 starter. Fitzpatrick was a 2006 seventh round pick by the St. Louis Rams out of Harvard. He’s obviously been all over the NFL during his career, leaving the Rams after the 2006 season for Cincinnati (2007 – 2008), then Buffalo (2009 – 2012), Tennessee (2013), Houston (2014), the New York Jets (2015 – 2016), Tampa Bay (2017 – 2018), and Miami (2019 – 2020). In total, he’s played in 165 games, starting 146, with 3,069 completions in 5,054 attempts for 34,977 yards, 60.7% completion percentage, 6.9 yards per attempt, 223 touchdowns, and 169 interceptions. He has a career 82.3 quarterback rating, a 4.4% touchdown percentage and a 3.3% interception percentage. In his two most recent seasons with the Dolphins, he played in 24 games, with 20 starts, and completed 494 passes in 769 attempts for 5,620 yards, 64.2% completion percentage, 33 touchdowns, 21 interceptions, and an 89.0 quarterback rating. He started Miami’s first 6 games last season before being benched in favor of Tua Tagovailoa for week 7. The Dolphins benched Tagovailoa in the fourth quarter in week 11 in favor of Fitzpatrick, and he then started week 12 after Tagovailoa suffered a thumb injury in practice. Fitzpatrick once again replaced Tagovailoa because of poor performance in the fourth quarter of week 16. In 2020, Fitzpatrick played in 9 games, starting 7 and made 183 completions in 267 attempts for 2,091 yards, 68.5% completion percentage, 13 touchdowns, 8 interceptions, and a 95.6 quarterback rating.
Allen (6’3” / 210) was signed by the Carolina Panthers in 2018 as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Houston. In his career, including last season, he has played in 19 games, starting 17, in 2018 and 2019, completing 383 passing in 607 attempts for 4,198 yards, a 63.1% completion percentage, 23 touchdowns, 17 interceptions, and an 84.4 quarterback rating. He spent a portion of the 2018 season on the practice squad, but was off the roster entirely for more than 7 weeks. Allen was then brought back to the active roster in December to backup Heinicke, who started in relief of the injured Cam Newton. He then started most of the 2019 season as a result of more injuries to Newton. In 2020, Allen played and started 4 games for Washington, going 60 for 87 for 610 yards, a 69.0% completion percentage, 152.5 yards per game, a 69.0% completion percentage, 4 touchdowns, 1 interception, and a 99.3 quarterback rating. He went down for the season with an ankle injury in week 4.
Heinicke (6’1” / 210) was originally signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent from Old Dominion in 2015. He spent two years in Minnesota, serving as the third string quarterback in 2015, but did not see any game action, then landed on the non-football related injury list in 2016. He was activated in November but did not play. The Vikings waived him with an injury designation just before the start of the 2017 season as a result of a concussion. Heinicke spent a brief period with the Patriots then was signed to the Houston Texans’ practice squad in November, 2017. He was activated for week 16 but suffered a concussion after his first pass attempt. Heinicke moved to Carolina for the 2018 season, but went back to injured reserve in week 17 because of an elbow injury. Heinicke was out of football in 2019, then spent the XFL’s ill-fated 2020 season as a backup for the St. Louis BattleHawks. He was out of football once again and working on a master’s degree when he was signed by Washington last December. In total, Heinicke has played in 7 games between 2015 and 2020, with 1 start, and has completed 48 of 77 pass attempts for 467 yards, 6.1 yards per attempt, 62.3% completion percentage, 2 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, and a 71.7 quarterback rating. Last season, Heinicke played in one regular season game for Washington, in which he went 12 for 19 for 137 yards, 7.21 yards per attempt, and 1 touchdown. Heinicke also started Washington’s playoff game against Tampa Bay, completing 26 passes in 44 attempts for 306 yards, 59% completion percentage, 7.0 yards per attempt, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception.
Steven Montez (6’4” / 231) was signed by Washington as an undrafted free agent last offseason. He spent most of the season on the practice squad but was signed to the active roster in week 17 and for the playoff game, but did not see any game action. He played 45 games in college at the University of Colorado, with 824 completions in 1,321 attempts for 9,710 yards, a 62.4% completion percentage, 63 touchdowns, and 33 interceptions.
In terms of cap space used, this group of four occupies a total of just $13.7M, with Fitzpatrick accounting for the bulk of it at $10.5M. Allen’s cap hit is just $850K, with Heinicke at $1.5M and Montez at $780K. Allen, Fitzpatrick, and Montez are all only signed through 2021, but it is incorrect to believe that Washington does not still have some control. Heinicke is on a two year contract through 2022 and is the only one on the roster beyond this season, but both Allen and Montez will be restricted free agents under team control after this coming season. Only Fitzpatrick will be an unrestricted free agent.
There’s no question that Fitzpatrick is going to be the 2021 starter, at least at the beginning of the year. The only true battle is for the backup slot. Ron Rivera clearly likes both Allen and Heinicke, so it’s hard to hazard a guess as to which player is going end up as the #2. The principal downsides to Heinicke are (1) a lack of NFL playing time, and (2) injuries. Heinicke’s injury history is very significant considering that he’s only played in 8 games, so the team should rightfully be wary of his availability and ability to stay healthy in the event Fitzpatrick goes down. Allen has an injury history himself – he’s missed time in each of his 3 seasons – so he’s not much of an advantage over Heinicke in that regard. Allen clearly has the upper hand in terms of his experience, but Heinicke’s performance in last season’s playoff game was impressive. This will be an entertaining battle to watch in training camp. It seems unlikely that Washington is going to keep 4 quarterbacks; 2 on the active roster and 1 on the practice squad is probably more reasonable. Allen, Heinicke, and Montez could each be put on the practice squad if the team so desired, although Allen would probably stand a good chance of being signed by another team, so Washington may not want to do that and risk losing him. By virtue of his inexperience, Montez is probably most at risk if the team just keeps three quarterbacks between the active roster and the practice squad, but this is one of the few years where the depth chart is totally unsettled beyond Fitzpatrick. Gamblers may give Allen the best odds to earn the #2 slot, but it’s essentially a mystery.
The elephant in the room is Aaron Rodgers, who is in the middle of a Desperate Housewives of Green Bay-style drama with the Packers. I’ve already written a column on my thoughts about a possible trade (click here to read), so I won’t restate it all again here, but the bottom line is this: hypothetical Rodgers without having to trade a large amount of assets and without a $37M cap hit and/or a number of contract years left = good; a realistic Rodgers trade = bad. Rivera did make an honest effort to bring Matthew Stafford to Washington, but he didn’t go crazy to do it, reportedly offering only the team’s 2021 first round pick, and third round pick, and an unnamed starting player. I doubt Rivera would give significantly more than that for Rodgers, if he makes an offer at all, which most likely isn’t going to get it done.
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section.