In the 2024 offseason, NFL teams selected six quarterbacks in the first 12 picks of the draft, by far the most ever. As rookies, these passers had their ups and downs. One carried his team to the NFC championship game. One nearly set the record for sacks taken in a season. One never got a chance to play because of an injury.
Where do these players stand going into year two? Is this group still set to change the league—or were NFL teams overzealous when they drafted these guys back in April of last year? Welcome to Sophomore QB Week at The Ringer. This week, we’re breaking down the play and futures of Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy, and Bo Nix.
A recent Denver Broncos training camp practice had just ended. Down at the very far end of the practice field, where fans—mostly children—were lined up for autographs, a chant broke out.
We want Bo! We want Bo! We want Bo!
What started last summer as cautious optimism about Bo Nix has since become a full-on frenzy in Denver. This is a team with bona fide stars elsewhere on the roster like NFL Defensive Player of the Year Patrick Surtain II and wide receiver Courtland Sutton, but Nix is quickly becoming the team’s most popular player. Of course, quarterback hype is nothing new in Denver. There were plenty of people who legitimately talked themselves into Case Keenum back in 2018! But for the first time in more than a decade, since Peyton Manning’s tenure with the Broncos, fans are excited about a returning starting quarterback.
Now, Nix is starting his second season with Denver, a team that has wound up on just about every preseason list of AFC playoff contenders and that features a head coach, Sean Payton, who hasn’t been shy about saying that this group could even win a Super Bowl. That belief isn’t based solely on Nix—the Broncos have an elite defense and a quality offensive line that give this team a relatively high floor—yet the hopes that they can improve from the 10-win 7-seed that sneaked into the playoffs last year largely depend on Nix making a leap from a competent start to a quality one in his second year.
“I’m still not there yet, I still make mistakes, and until I go out there and play perfect games, I’m going to keep working at it,” Nix said earlier this month. “That’ll probably, obviously, be never, so I just have to keep battling. There’s always going to be a new look, always going to be a new technique or new feature of the game that I have to get better at.”
Nix is 25—two and half years older than Drake Maye, nearly two years older than Caleb Williams, and a year older than Jayden Daniels. (He’s also older than Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud, the top two quarterbacks taken in the 2023 draft, and he’s only a few months younger than Brock Purdy, who recently signed his second NFL contract.) Nix’s age is a product of a long college career, with 61 starts across his stints at Auburn and Oregon, and he entered the NFL with specific traits that Payton prioritizes—sack avoidance, accuracy, and timing.
Sophomore QB Week
“There were a lot of things that he had a good grip on before he got here, and then it's times 10 the things he needs to know after that,” Broncos quarterback coach Davis Webb told The Ringer recently. “But the way he worked last year, his ability to retain information with visual cues or a few word associations, it sticks with him, and he's able to play fast and efficient.”
That poise often showed up in his rookie year as he threw for 3,775 yards and 29 touchdowns, 10 of which came during Denver’s four-game win streak in late November and early December that kept them in playoff contention. He took 24 sacks in 17 games, which ranked 13th among qualified starters; his pressure-to-sack rate of 15.1 percent was seventh best—and was, by far, the best among the rookie quarterbacks. Payton wants a passer who can keep the offense on schedule, and Nix was largely able to do that. And while there were a handful of exciting, explosive moments for Nix as a rookie—like this 51-yard touchdown strike to Marvin Mims against Cincinnati or this deep pass out of his own end zone that went for a 93-yard touchdown to Mims against Cleveland—the biggest knock on Nix’s rookie year was how much of the passing game happened near the line of scrimmage. His average depth of target was just 7.3 yards, which ranked 26th among qualified passers, and his average yards per attempt (6.7) ranked 29th. This was because Nix often took the checkdown option when his first passing read wasn’t available, completing a lot of short, quick throws rather than taking a few more seconds to work through his second or third reads.
He was also an effective runner last season—and maybe was too quick to scramble at times—but he was not good at throwing while on the move. That’s something that we should expect to be a point of emphasis in year two. During open training camp practices and in Nix’s three preseason appearances, Payton has clearly emphasized using more designed bootleg passes to get Nix out of the pocket and throwing downfield.
Now that he’s in his second year in Payton’s system, the Broncos are hoping that Nix will have more answers to the problems defenses throw at him—and that he’ll be able to find them more quickly, which would open up more of the field in the passing game.
“I don’t think the challenges will change. I think I’m just different. So I think that’s the good part of this year. I don’t want to take it for granted that I am a year ahead because most guys are a lot of years ahead of me,” Nix said. “I know I have a long way to go, but I’m excited to go there.”
Schematic wrinkles are only part of what goes into a quarterback making that so-called second-year leap after going through all the firsts of a rookie year. “A lot of the time as a rookie, you just don’t want to look like an idiot. Now you can go out there and look a lot better than an idiot,” Nix said.
Throughout NFL history—but especially in recent years, when young quarterbacks have been expected to play, and play well, right away—there have been common threads among the guys who successfully make a jump from year one as a starter to year two. For Nix, making a second-year leap is about smaller turns of the dial. For some of his QB classmates, it means massive changes.
“The biggest thing … I believe in is it takes a village to develop a quarterback,” Webb said. “It's not a quarterback coach. It's not just the head coach. It's the GM and who we bring in. It's our ownership. It's the person itself. Who is in the room with the quarterback is underrated. And who does he have to throw to? How's he protected? Like, it's a domino effect of so many different things. Like, there's so many players that could probably still be playing today if they're in different situations. That's life. You catch the right wave, and things go well.”
As The Ringer embarks on Sophomore QB Week, let’s look at a few of the factors that might help a young quarterback catch that wave and how they might apply to Nix and his 2024 draft classmates.
Get the Right Head Coach
Sometimes, using a first-round pick on a quarterback can buy an embattled head coach (or general manager) more time to right a franchise. But more often, having a highly drafted young passer only adds fire to a seat that’s already getting warm—especally if that rookie quarterback struggles. Two of the 2024 first-round QBs are entering this season with a new head coach: Caleb Williams with Ben Johnson in Chicago and Drake Maye with Mike Vrabel in New England.
The blueprint to follow here is the way the Rams moved on from Jeff Fisher and hired Sean McVay in 2017 following a disastrous rookie season for no. 1 pick Jared Goff. Goff went 0-7 after taking over as the starter midseason in 2016. Of the 32 passer rating qualified rookie passers from 2015 to 2024, only Josh Rosen in 2019 and Bryce Young in 2023 had worse total expected points added on dropbacks across an entire season than Goff’s minus-100.6. And Goff’s completion percentage (54.6 percent) as a rookie was worse than only DeShone Kizer’s (53.6) and Josh Allen’s (53.4).
Enter McVay, whose heavy use of play-action passes and empty formations allowed Goff to thrive. Goff’s completion percentage jumped to 62.1 percent in year two, and he totaled 67 EPA on dropbacks, a swing of nearly 167 points in just one season. Of course, the McVay-Goff partnership didn’t last forever, but it showed how the right head coach—one with a clear offensive vision and understanding of a quarterback’s skills—can quickly salvage a player’s career.
Other recent first-rounders to have a second-year improvement under a new head coach are Trevor Lawrence in Jacksonville and Young in Carolina, both of whom went through a coaching change during their rookie years. Lawrence was bound to have a bump in year two strictly because he no longer had to play for Urban Meyer. But in his first season under Doug Pederson, Lawrence led the Jaguars to the AFC South title and a come-from-behind wild-card playoff win. By nearly every metric, year two was Lawrence’s best season—a reminder that quarterback development, even with stability at head coach, isn’t linear.
Young, meanwhile, was one of the worst rookie starters in modern NFL history in 2023. His first head coach, Frank Reich, was fired midway through his rookie year, and his second-year coach, Dave Canales, benched him in year two. Young eventually got his job back and played well enough down the stretch that he’s the unquestioned starter heading into year three. Stay tuned.
So will Johnson be the right head coach to help Williams undo the bad habits he showed as a rookie, and can he create an offense in Chicago that fits Williams’s unique abilities to create out of structure? Meanwhile, the question in New England is whether Vrabel and Josh McDaniels, who is back for a third stint as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator, can pull off a full franchise reset following the failed one-year tenure of Jerod Mayo and whether they can elevate Maye in year two.
Surround the Quarterback With Talent
Jalen Hurts wasn’t technically a sophomore quarterback during his breakout season in 2022, but he was in his second season as a full-time starter—so for the purposes of this exercise, there’s a lot to learn from this example. And there’s no bigger lesson from those 2022 Eagles than how important it is to get a young quarterback a true WR1.
As a first-year starter in 2021, Hurts wasn’t completely hurting for offensive help—he had first-round-pick rookie receiver DeVonta Smith, after all. But the Eagles lacked a true difference maker on offense, so during the 2022 draft, they traded for A.J. Brown, who immediately transformed the Eagles’ passing game. By adding Brown, the Eagles gave Hurts one of the best deep-ball receivers in the NFL, someone the young quarterback could trust to come down with contested catches and be versatile enough to line up all over the formation.
Did it also help did it also help that Hurts was playing behind arguably the NFL’s best offensive line, which had a future Hall of Fame center, and that the Eagles used Hurts’s unique running style and lower-body strength to perfect the tush push, the most unstoppable short-yardage play in the sport? Absolutely. But in terms of Hurts’s development as a passer, nothing was bigger than adding Brown.
But none of the teams with a second-year passer this year made a massive offseason move for a receiver. In New England, the Patriots’ continued inability to land a true WR1 remains a major concern. Maye was surrounded by one of the worst skill position groups in the league as a rookie, and it is hard to get too excited about free agent additions Stefon Diggs (who’s coming off an ACL injury) and Mack Hollins. The Bears used a first-round pick last year to take Rome Odunze in the same class as Williams, but now they need a second-year leap from the receiver as well as the quarterback. (This year the Bears used a second-round pick to draft receiver Luther Burden III, who, after dealing with a hamstring injury earlier in the offseason, has been one of the stars of the preseason for Chicago.)
In Denver, the Broncos extended Sutton to keep Nix’s WR1 around for the long term, but the biggest new boost comes in the free agent addition of tight end Evan Engram. In 2024 the Broncos’ four tight ends combined for just 51 catches and 483 receiving yards. Engram has never been an elite receiving tight end, but in 2023 in Jacksonville, he proved that he can be a high-target player (with 114 catches on 143 targets). And now, he’ll give Nix an option over the middle of the field and down the seams that was missing last season. “I’m his yes man,” Engram told me when I asked how he could help Nix’s development. “Whatever he needs, whatever he sees, he’s very open to conversation.”
Build a Better Offense
A new offense usually comes along with a new head coach. But we’ve seen second-year quarterbacks make a leap even when just the scheme—and not the staff—changes. No one did this better than the Ravens and Lamar Jackson from 2018 to 2019. Jackson was good as a rookie, going 6-1 after taking over from Joe Flacco, and the Ravens were immediately able to take advantage of his unique skills as a runner.
But in 2019, Baltimore designed an entire offense for Jackson that, while continuing to use him as a uniquely dangerous running threat, also allowed him to be a wildly efficient (and at times explosive) passer. They did this through a combination of RPOs and play-action passes, and Jackson furthered the cause with his willingness to hang in the pocket and push the ball downfield. He set the single-season rushing QB record AND threw for 36 touchdowns on his way to winning his first MVP award.
So how could this apply to the current group of sophomore quarterbacks? In Atlanta, head coach Raheem Morris and second-year offensive coordinator Zac Robinson are designing an offense for Michael Penix Jr. for the first time, and they’ll look to open up parts of the playbook that were unavailable when an especially immobile Kirk Cousins was the starter in 2024.
Penix started just three games for the Falcons last year and attempted just 105 passes. It’s a small sample, but there were already clues about how Robinson might call the offense differently for Penix—particularly when it comes to targeting receiver Drake London downfield. When catching passes from Penix, London had back-to-back 100-plus-yard receiving games in the final two weeks of the season, including 187 yards in the finale against Carolina. (He had just one 100-yard game with Cousins).
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There is a case to be made that each of the five 2024 first-round QBs who played as rookies could be better in year two. Daniels, in Washington, has the toughest path to a leap, if only because his rookie highs were so high. Maye’s rookie tape was very encouraging, and he’s the player in this class who stands to benefit most from a head coaching change—plus, having a rookie running back like TreVeyon Henderson might also help accelerate his progress. In Atlanta, this is Penix’s chance to firmly establish himself as the Falcons’ long-term answer at quarterback—even as Cousins remains on the roster. And no second-year passer has more room to improve than Williams—if he can play within Johnson’s scheme and fix the sack problems that derailed his rookie campaign.
As for Nix, he is building a relationship with Manning, who still lives in Denver and attended multiple training camp practices, and he spent time this offseason with Drew Brees, who knows more about how to play and win in a Payton offense than anyone. Nix said that he has been asking both of the retired quarterbacks about how to improve as a leader and about how to “handle the job” of being an NFL quarterback beyond what happens in the huddle. Perhaps that’s as much a part of making a jump in year two as anything else. And Nix also worked with Tom House, the throwing mechanics coach whom Brees considers to be a mentor. “At this point, it’s tough to make big strides, so we want to find all the little things that we can that may make a difference,” Nix said when camp opened in July.
Indeed, if Nix does make a second-year leap, it might not be one that’s all that dramatic. But maybe, with the infrastructure the Broncos have put around him, a few small steps forward are all he needs to land himself in the middle to upper tier of NFL passers.
