Something to prove behind center
be patient. If Flacco struggles, Jackson, who threw 57 touchdown passes over the past two seasons in college at Louisville and won a Heisman Trophy, could start looking really good much sooner.
Helping the Bills stop a seemingly endless playoff drought wasn’t enough to keep Taylor on the job in Buffalo. The Cleveland Browns traded for Taylor on the eve of free agency, and that’s normally a sure sign a team is heavily invested in a player. Then the Browns went quarterback with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, selecting Baker Mayfield. Keeping Mayfield on the bench depends mostly on how long Taylor plays well.
Coming off the bench and leading Minnesota to the NFC Championship game is one thing. Playing quarterback under the watchful eye of Hall of Famer John Elway in Denver is quite a different challenge. Keenum comes in as the starter after the best season of his career. He’ll need to pick up where he left off to stop the Broncos’ quarterback carousel, with backup Paxton Lynch — the 26th pick overall in 2016 — sitting on the bench and, thus far, showing little when he has played.
With Alex Smith traded to Washington, all the pressure now is on Mahomes in Kansas City after he was the target of all those longing looks to the bench by fans during his rookie season. He looked good winning his first NFL start in last year’s regular-season finale. That won’t help with expectations remaining high for the Chiefs, who won the AFC West before blowing a wild-card game to the Titans at Arrowhead Stadium in the playoffs.