The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Big QB questions after 10 weeks
Browns, Eagles must determine if they have the right starters; Panthers, Seahawks, Bucs, Rams need veterans to step up.
In many ways, quarterback changes defined this NFL offseason. Four starting QBs were traded. Five were drafted in the first round. Of the 32 opening week starters, 11 were in their first seasons with their new teams, while three more were new to their full-time starting roles.
There have been no shortage of QB storylines during the first 10 weeks of the season, either. Let’s take a look at five big quarterback questions as the season passes the halfway point, starting with a reunion in Carolina:
Can Cam Newton’s return get the Panthers to the playoffs?
Newton announced his return to the Panthers with rushing and passing touchdowns in a limited role during this past Sunday’s win over the Cardinals. He yelled “I’m back!” after the first one and despite his removing his helmet and drawing a 15-yard taunting penalty, Carolina fans are no doubt excited for what could come next.
If the Panthers can stay healthy the rest of the season, they have a decent chance to make the playoffs. That’s less because of the offense’s potential with Newton, who is expected to start today’s game against Washington, and more because of Carolina’s strong defense and the opportunity in the NFC playoff race. There are six NFC teams that currently have winning records, and seven playoff spots. And one of those teams with a winning record, the 5-4 Saints, have struggled since losing starting quarterback Jameis
Winston to a season-ending injury.
At 5-5, the Panthers currently possess the seventh and final playoff spot. Newton was limited in his debut because he only had a couple of days to learn the playbook, but with his dual-threat ability and running back Christian McCaffrey joining him in the backfield, the offense has a chance to be more productive than it was under Sam Darnold, who will be out a month because of a knee injury. It certainly seems as though the Panthers are ready to give up on Darnold, who they traded for this offseason.
Is Jalen Hurts the long-term answer for the Eagles?
Even though Hurts has played better of late, the likely answer to this one is no. You can tell from the actions of Eagles’ management. They were involved in trade talks for beleaguered Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson. They’ve added picks in next year’s draft and would have three selections in the top 15 if the season ended last week, meaning they’d be in great position to choose a quarterback in the first round.
Hurts is completing only 62% of his passes, for 216 yards per game, and Philadelphia is 4-6. If he can play more games like last Sunday’s 30-13 win over the Broncos, in which he threw for two touchdowns and rushed for 53 yards, perhaps the calculation changes. But more signs point toward the Eagles looking for a franchise QB next offseason.
Will the Browns give Baker Mayfield a long-term contract?
It appears doubtful, at this point. Mayfield hasn’t shown the Browns he is worth the $40 million a year that is being paid to good starting quarterbacks on their second contracts. Mayfield’s reputation is as a complementary QB who has to be surrounded by great skill-position players to make the playoffs. That’s what happened last year.
But this year, with running backs Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt each missing time, and with Odell Beckham being released after he and Mayfield could never get on the same page, the Browns are struggling. Mayfield has battled injuries and is only averaging 221 passing yards. At 5-5, Cleveland is on the outside the current AFC playoff field.
Mayfield is under contract next season for nearly $19 million after Cleveland picked up the fifth-year option on his rookie deal. The Browns can take this year by year. If they want to keep him another year after that, they have the option of placing the franchise tag on him. But a long-term deal, at least for now, doesn’t seem likely.
Should there be concerns over the recent play of Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford?
Absolutely not. While both quarterbacks are coming off back-to-back rough outings, one only needs to look at Patrick Mahomes’ performance in last Sunday night’s win over the Raiders to see how a top quarterback can bounce back. While Mahomes didn’t look like himself over the Chiefs’ first nine games, he rebounded to the tune of 406 yards and five touchdowns.
Even after a frustrating game in Tampa Bay’s loss to Washington — which was preceded by a loss to New Orleans in which the Saints picked him off twice — Brady still leads the NFL with 27 touchdown passes. Many were doubting him this time last season, when the Bucs were up and down, and he wound up winning the Super Bowl. He and coach Bruce Arians will get the Bucs’ offense right.
Stafford doesn’t have the same track record as Brady or Mahomes, and the Rams have lost back-to-back games to the Titans and Niners by a combined score of 59-26. But particularly against San Francisco, there were reasons for Stafford’s struggles. The Rams dropped six passes, and while the team won’t admit it, it looked as though Stafford’s accuracy was affected by the ankle injury he suffered the week before. He will be fine after the Rams’ bye week.
Now that Russell Wilson is back healthy, can he get the Seahawks to the playoffs?
Wilson is capable, but it won’t be easy. He struggled mightily in Seattle’s 17-0 loss last Sunday in Green Bay, getting shut out for the first time in his career. He was sacked three times and intercepted twice. The Packers played mostly Cover-2 and limited Wilson’s ability to get the ball to Tyler Lockett and D.K. Metcalf.
The reason for hope is the Seahawks’ second-half schedule. Seattle has winnable games against Washington, Houston, Chicago and Detroit. If the Seahawks win those, and split their four remaining NFC West matchups, they can make the NFC playoffs with nine wins.
Wilson worked 19 hours a day to rehab the middle finger injury in his right hand. He should be better in the
coming weeks.
ake a step back from the picked-over store shelves, the stalled container ships and the empty auto showrooms, and you’ll find a root cause of the shortages of just about everything.
Even as the pandemic has dragged on, U.S. households flush with cash from stimulus checks, booming stock markets and enlarged home equity have felt like spending freely again — a lot. And since consumer demand drives much of the U.S. and global economies, high demand has brought goods shortages to the U.S. and much of the world.
Add the fact that companies are ordering — and hoarding — more goods and parts than they need so they don’t run out, and you end up with an almost unquenchable demand that is magnifying the supply shortages.
That’s where a big problem comes in: Suppliers were caught so flat-footed by how fast pent-up spending surged out of the recession that they won’t likely be able to catch up as long as demand remains so robust. That’s especially so because Americans, still hunkered down at home more than they did before the pandemic, continue to spend more on goods — electronics, furniture, appliances, sporting goods — than on services like hotels, meals out and movie tickets. All that demand for goods, in turn, is helping to accelerate U.S. inflation.
Unless spending snaps sharply back to services — or something else leads people to stop buying so much — it could take deep into 2022 or even 2023 before global supply chains regain some semblance of normalcy.
“Demand is completely skewed,” said Bindiya Vakil, CEO of Resilinc, a consulting firm that helps companies manage supply chains. “This has now become more and more painful by the day.”
One reason people may eventually stop spending so much is that everything simply costs more now. Consumer prices in the U.S. skyrocketed 6.2% over the past year as food, gasoline, autos and housing catapulted inflation to its highest pace since 1990. The laws of gravity suggest that the cumulative effect of so much inflation will eventually exert a brake on spending.
For now, though, manufacturers foresee no end to heavy demand — and no end to
beleaguered supply chains or spiking inflation pressures. A chronic lack of computer chips has forced Ford Motor Co., for instance, to revamp its system of ordering parts that require long periods from order to delivery to try to address shortages.
“It’s highlighted that the “just-in-time” operating model that’s been prevalent in autos may not be the right operating model,” Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s chief operations and product officer, told analysts.
Smaller companies, too, have felt compelled to build up as many supplies as they can so they can still make products. Moriarty’s Gem Art near Chicago, a family business for 40 years, has been stocking up on gold, silver and platinum to make necklaces and rings, desperate not to run out of supplies as holiday orders pick up.
“We’re ordering a lot more than what we actually have orders for — just in case,” said Jeff Moriarty, the marketing manager.
Even a normal post-holiday shopping lull, though it might help, isn’t expected to be enough to unclog ports, speed shipping traffic or let factories replenish inventories.
“The baseline expectation for improvement is around the middle of 2022,” said Oren Klachkin, lead U.S. economist for Oxford Economics. “But I think the risks of that happening later are fairly high.”
Though Americans have increasingly ventured out in recent months, the balance between spending on goods and services remains skewed. The pent-up demand that followed the economic recovery is still tilted toward goods like furniture and cars and less toward haircuts, concerts and restaurant meals. Though services spending has grown in recent months, it isn’t nearly enough to close the gap.
Since April 2020, consumer spending on goods has jumped 32%. It’s now 15% above where it was in February 2020, just before the pandemic paralyzed the economy. Goods account for roughly 40% of consumer spending now, up from 36% before the pandemic.
U.S. factories have tried mightily to keep up with demand. Production rose nearly 5% over the past year, according to the Federal Reserve, despite periodic ups and downs, including disruptions to auto production caused by chip shortages.
Imports have narrowed the gap between what America’s consumers want and what its factories can produce. From January through September this year, the U.S. imported 23% more than in the same period in 2020. In September, thanks to surging imports, the U.S. posted a record deficit in goods trade: Imports topped exports by $98.2 billion.
Voracious demand for goods has accelerated as more people have become vaccinated in wealthier countries. Yet in poorer countries, especially in Southeast Asia, the spread of the delta variant forced new factory shutdowns in recent months and crimped supply chains again. Only recently did it start to recover.
At the same time, many U.S. workers have decided to quit jobs that had required frequent public contact. This created shortages of workers to unload ships, transport goods or staff retail shops.
Ports clogged up. Last month, 65 ships waited off the California coast to be unloaded at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — two weeks’ worth of work. The average wait: 12 days. That has since worsened to 78 ships, with an average wait of nearly 17 days, despite around-the-clock port operations beginning in October.
Before the pandemic, ships had set arrival times and went straight to a berth for unloading, said Gene Seroka, the L.A. port’s executive director. Now, with Asian factory output at record highs, the port is moving record levels of goods. Yet it’s not enough to meet the demand.
Seroka doesn’t foresee shipments easing even next year. Retailers have told him they plan to use the slower months of January and February — if they actually are slower — to replenish inventory. As with ports, rail lines are moving more goods. Through early November, freight shipped by America’s railroads was up 7.5% from a year ago. Truck shipments were up 1.7% in September. Yet there aren’t enough drivers or trucks to move all the freight.
In China, too, manufacturers are struggling with shipping delays, container shortages and cost increases. Shantou Limei International Ltd., which makes children’s toys in the city of Shantou, expects sales to fall 30% this year because of delays and costlier shipping.
“The most serious problem for us is being unable to deliver goods on time because of the difficulties in securing freight containers,” said Frank Xie, company general manager. “A lot of things have gone beyond our controls and expectation.”
Philip Richardson, an American who makes loudspeakers in Panyu, near Hong Kong, said orders are up 400%. A key reason is more demand from Americans and Europeans, who’ve gone on a home electronics spree. The price to ship goods to U.S. customers on a 40-foot cargo container, meantime, more than tripled in July.
“The customer has to bear it or cut back on orders,” Richardson said.