There is no tougher position in sports than playing quarterback in the NFL. That’s not meant to disrespect other athletes, but the failure rate of quarterbacks is much higher than the success rate.
It’s a difficult job, so some teams remain stuck in mediocrity—or purgatory. The Washington Commanders remain in QB purgatory but once again have hope. Washington has a new GM in Adam Peters and the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft.
The Commanders can choose between Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, and Jayden Daniels. Of course, Williams will likely go No. 1 overall to the Chicago Bears, meaning it’s expected to be Daniels or Maye for Washington.
Unless it’s Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, we’re kidding — we think.
Choosing a quarterback is hard, and developing one is even more difficult. At the NFL’s Annual League Meetings on Monday, Peters discussed how difficult the process is for evaluating and developing a quarterback.
“It’s the hardest thing to do in sports, I think, is evaluate and develop a quarterback,” Peters said. “But what you want to do is make sure you do as much as you can to let them develop. So, we’ve built, DQ (Dan Quinn) did an incredible job in terms of building a great ecoystem for quarterbacks in our building. You have (OC) Kliff (Kingsbury), then you have (assistant head coach/pass game coordinator) Brian Johnson, then you have (QB coach) Tavita (Pritchard), and we have (assistant QB coach) David Blough, too. So, there’s four people right there that will be able to focus on the quarterback room. So, there’s four people right there. Four quarterbacks, right? One-to-one teacher-student ratio, that’s pretty good. But, I think that’s intentional the way we did that. You give yourself the best chance to develop whoever’s in that room as fast as you can.”
Adam Peters to @JPFinlayNBCS on “right way” to develop a QB:
“It’s the hardest thing to do in sports I think, is evaluate & develop a quarterback”
More Peters:
“With the guys we have in the room right now I don’t think we have to rush anybody”@nbcwashington #HTTC #Commanders pic.twitter.com/2mxDqV3hEK— NBC4 Sports (@NBC4Sports) March 25, 2024
Peters doesn’t often say a lot, but he provided some good information here. We’ve noted how the Commanders built a very QB-friendly staff with four offensive assistants who all started at quarterback in a Power 5 conference. Kingsbury and Blough also played in the NFL, while Kingsbury has been a college and NFL head coach, and Johnson was Philadelphia’s offensive coordinator last season.
Washington hasn’t always done things right, and there’s no guarantee the Commanders will get it right this time, but, for once, you can feel good about their process. There’s an actual plan in place to develop a young quarterback, and that alone should offer fans hope.