We’ve recently taken a look at the coaches on the hot seat for 2025. This week, a reader asked the same question as it relates to quarterbacks.
Plenty of them are feeling the heat, or should be, this season. Let’s take a look at each spot, based on the loose arrangement of the conferences and divisions that has been tattooed onto my brain.
Justin Fields, Jets: His contract has $10 million in guarantees that spill into 2026. That’s not enough to guarantee him two years as the starter. He needs to do enough in 2025 to earn 2026 — and beyond.
Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins: His contract guarantees his pay through 2026. If the Dolphins fall flat and change coaches, the next coach likely will want a fresh start at quarterback. While the cap charges will complicate a split before 2027, every high-end quarterback contract eventually leads to a big cap charge when the relationship ends. The next coach (and the next G.M., if owner Stephen Ross cleans house) may want to rip the Band-Aid off in one motion.
Aaron Rodgers, Steelers: He says he’s pretty sure this is his last year. If he doesn’t play well enough for the Steelers in 2025 and if he wants to keep playing in 2026, the Steelers may give him the same cold shoulder that Russell Wilson got after 2024.
All Browns quarterbacks: With Jacksonville’s first-round pick in their back pocket, the Browns could be in position to get a future franchise quarterback in next year’s draft. That raises the stakes for every quarterback currently on the Cleveland roster. Because there’s a chance none of them will be the starter in 2026.
Daniel Jones and Anthony Richardson, Colts: It already feels like Jones will be the Week 1 starter. He’ll then have a chance to lock the revolving door the Colts have had since Andrew Luck retired. If he doesn’t, the Colts will be looking elsewhere in 2026. As to Richardson, his best play is to play better than he ever has, if and when he gets the chance.
Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars: Every new coach wants his own quarterback, except when the coach inherits a true franchise quarterback. But Tony Dungy landing with Peyton Manning doesn’t happen very often. And it’s not clear whether Lawrence is a short-list franchise quarterback. He was on track to be one as of 2022. The past two years haven’t been good enough, long-term contract notwithstanding. What do coach Liam Coen and G.M. James Gladstone want? If Lawrence doesn’t play better in 2025 than he did in 2024, Lawrence and everyone else may find out in 2026.
Geno Smith, Raiders: He’s being mentioned simply to say he’s not on the hot seat. He has $18.5 million in guarantees for 2026, and his close ties to Pete Carroll will keep Smith around for at least two years. (Unless, of course, a certain minority owner decides otherwise.)
Dak Prescott, Cowboys: He’s probably not on the hot seat, because his $60 million per year contract would wreak havoc on the salary cap if the Cowboys were to cut or trade him (yes, he has a no-trade clause, but he can waive it) in 2026. The complication for the Cowboys is that his $45 million salary for 2027 becomes fully guaranteed on the fifth day of the 2026 league year. They’re basically stuck — all because they waited too long to give him his second contract, and then waited too long to give him his third contract.
Russell Wilson, Giants: If he’s the Week 1 starter (if Jaxson Dart lives up to his first-round draft stock, Wilson shouldn’t be), the clock will be ticking. Immediately. In 2004, the Giants benched Kurt Warner after nine games for Eli Manning, even though the Giants were 5-4 at the time. When Dart is ready, Dart will play. Even if Wilson makes it through 2025 without getting benched, he’ll have to do plenty to keep Dart on the sideline for 2026.
Jordan Love, Packers: He’s not on the hot seat per se, but he needs to play better in 2025 than he did in 2024. If not, he will be on the hot seat in 2026. The wild card in Green Bay is new CEO Ed Policy, who operates as the de facto owner of the team.
J.J. McCarthy, Vikings: He’s getting his shot to play, after a knee injury wiped out his rookie season. Anything other than an outright disaster will ensure his status for 2026. At worst, he’d have to compete with a more established veteran next year.
Tyler Shough, Saints: He’ll need to do enough in 2025 to earn the chance to do well enough in 2026 to get the Saints to not pursue the grandson of Archie Manning in 2027. (And, yes, I think Arch Manning will spend two years as a college starter before entering the draft.)
Bryce Young, Panthers: In year three, he needs to continue the growth he showed late in the 2024 season, in order to secure a fourth season, the fifth-year option, and ideally (for him) a second contract.
Kyler Murray, Cardinals: His contract gives him two more years of financial security. But this is the team that drafted Murray a year after using the 10th overall pick on Josh Rosen (not Lamar Jackson). So who knows what the Cardinals will do if Murray doesn’t propel the team into contention this year?
Sam Darnold, Seahawks: He has a one-year deal, as a practical matter. And the Seahawks seem to really like rookie Jalen Milroe. Darnold will need to play very well to secure his status for 2026.
Matthew Stafford, Rams: It’s not the “hot seat” as much as it’s a mutual understanding that player and team are taking things one year at a time. After the season, both sides will have to recommit. Whether the Rams will want to do that depends on how Stafford plays in 2025, and on their other options for staffing the position in 2026.
That’s a lot of names. But it’s no surprise. There aren’t many true, unquestioned, year-after-year franchise quarterbacks. And the teams that don’t have one are always hoping to find one.
It has created more quarterback movement in recent years than ever before. Plenty of the names listed above will be on the move in 2026.
The NFL released its schedule for the 2025 season before Aaron Rodgers signed with the Steelers, but the choice for Pittsburgh’s Week 1 opponent seemed to account for the likelihood that Rodgers would be joining the AFC North team.
Rodgers spent the last two seasons with the Jets and the Steelers will be visiting MetLife Stadium to play his former team in the season opener. The Jets have hired a new coach and General Manager since Rodgers took his last snap with the club, but cornerback Sauce Gardner is still on the roster and he said on The Pat McAfee Show that he’s “looking forward to the challenge” of facing a player he learned a lot about the last two years.
Gardner knows that Rodgers learned a lot about him as well, so he said he’s been working to come up with some new tricks ahead of the September matchup.
“He might think he knows all the tendencies that I have, but this offseason has really been me trying not to give nothing away,” Gardner said. “I’ve been trying to work on literally everything because I already know I’m about to go against a wizard Week 1. I already know what time it is.”
The Jets’ coaching change means that Gardner’s tweaks won’t be the only changes Rodgers will have to adapt to if he’s going to start his Steelers tenure with a victory, but the corner’s play will be a big part of the plans for the AFC East team so the matchup will be one to watch in Week 1.
Coming off a disappointing 2024 season, Sauce Gardner added weight and muscle this offseason.
He is hoping for a better season in 2025, along with a better contract.
The Jets opened negotiations with the two-time All-Pro earlier this offseason, and Gardner is encouraged by talks.
“It’s been pretty productive,” Gardner said on The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday. “We have our goals in terms of numbers and stuff, and the Jets are aware of that. And I’m aware of the rest of my peers like Jaycee [Horn], [Derek] Stingley, Pat [Surtain] got paid, obviously before me, but those are all guys that are well deserving of the money that they got. It’s definitely something my team and the Jets are talking about.”
Gardner, who turns 25 next month, surely expects more than the three-year, $90 million extension Stingley signed with the Texans. Horn’s annual average ranks second to Stingley after he signed a four year, $100 million contract extension with the Panthers in March.
Gardner became eligible for an extension after last season. He is due to make $1.1 million base salary this season, with a $10.643 million cap hit.
He made All-Pro and the Pro Bowl in each of his first two seasons.
Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner is coming off a disappointing 2024 season and he discussed one of the changes he’s made ahead of what he hopes will be a more productive 2025 campaign on Wednesday.
Gardner made a visit to The Pat McAfee Show and said that he has added weight and muscle to his frame. Gardner is listed at 190 pounds, but said he’s 10 pounds heavier right now and he shared the benefits that he’s seen from the added size.
“I’m not gonna lie, this offseason has been by far my best. . . . I feel great,” Gardner said. “I’m sitting about 200 pounds right now and I don’t think I’ve ever really played that heavy. But it’s like the more weight I’ve put on, the more muscle, the more explosive and the faster I become with that muscle that I’ve put on.”
Gardner is looking for a contract extension and reiterated that talks with the Jets are moving in the right direction. If a deal doesn’t come together and Gardner’s new look leads to better play on the field, that deal could turn out to be an even bigger one when it finally comes together.
Jets running back Breece Hall was the subject of some trade chatter this offseason, but the Jets told him and the rest of the football world that they weren’t considering moving him this spring.
That means Hall will be part of head coach Aaron Glenn’s first season with the team this fall and his presence hasn’t done much to boost outside opinions of how the team will fare this fall. The Jets have some of the longest Super Bowl odds in the league after going 5-12 to continue a playoff drought that began in 2011, but Hall believes the team can surprise those who think that Glenn, new General Manager Darren Mougey, new offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand and the rest of the incoming brain trust can’t win quickly.
“I think people think the new coaching staff and new G.M. means a rebuild, but we have a lot of really good players on the roster, so we’re trying to win now,” Hall said, via the team’s website. “And I think a lot of people from the outside are going to take that for granted and not realize that we actually have a team.”
Rebuilding indicates that there was something there before and the Jets have gone long enough without success to make that a shaky word choice, but the Jets will take any terminology they can get if it means they surpass expectations in 2025.
