Ben SolakNov 11, 2025, 06:40 AM ETCloseBen Solak joined ESPN in 2024 as a national NFL analyst. He previously covered the NFL at The Ringer, Bleeding Green Nation and The Draft Network.
play2:02‘This looks atrocious’: Stephen A. criticizes the Broncos’ offenseStephen A. Smith is not impressed with the Denver Broncos’ offense, saying the team is not as good as its record.
play1:23Woody: The Bills’ Super Bowl window is closedDamien Woody and Rex Ryan explain why the Bills’ loss to the Dolphins is indicative of larger problems within the team.
play0:51Dan Orlovsky: Firing Brian Daboll a mistake by GiantsDan Orlovsky explains why Brian Daboll and Jaxson Dart should have been allowed to stay together on the Giants.
play1:41Why Stephen A. has more faith in Rams then SeahawksStephen A. Smith explains why Matthew Stafford gives the Rams the edge over the Seahawks in the NFC West.
play2:01Eisen: The Lions laid it on thick on Commanders with Dan Campbell as playcallerRich Eisen discusses Dan Campbell taking over playcalling for the Lions in their win against the Commanders.
Eisen stunned by the Giants’ firing of Brian Daboll (2:02)Rich Eisen reacts to the news of the Giants firing coach Brian Daboll. (2:02)
‘This looks atrocious’: Stephen A. criticizes the Broncos’ offenseStephen A. Smith is not impressed with the Denver Broncos’ offense, saying the team is not as good as its record.
Stephen A. Smith is not impressed with the Denver Broncos’ offense, saying the team is not as good as its record.
Woody: The Bills’ Super Bowl window is closedDamien Woody and Rex Ryan explain why the Bills’ loss to the Dolphins is indicative of larger problems within the team.
Damien Woody and Rex Ryan explain why the Bills’ loss to the Dolphins is indicative of larger problems within the team.
Dan Orlovsky: Firing Brian Daboll a mistake by GiantsDan Orlovsky explains why Brian Daboll and Jaxson Dart should have been allowed to stay together on the Giants.
Dan Orlovsky explains why Brian Daboll and Jaxson Dart should have been allowed to stay together on the Giants.
Why Stephen A. has more faith in Rams then SeahawksStephen A. Smith explains why Matthew Stafford gives the Rams the edge over the Seahawks in the NFC West.
Stephen A. Smith explains why Matthew Stafford gives the Rams the edge over the Seahawks in the NFC West.
Eisen: The Lions laid it on thick on Commanders with Dan Campbell as playcallerRich Eisen discusses Dan Campbell taking over playcalling for the Lions in their win against the Commanders.
Rich Eisen discusses Dan Campbell taking over playcalling for the Lions in their win against the Commanders.
The Big Thing: The 2024 quarterback class is what we thought it was
Second Take: Hire Brian Daboll as an offensive coordinator
Daboll’s Giants are 2-8 for the third consecutive season and end 20-40-1 under his tenure — a win percentage of 32.7%. That simply won’t cut the mustard, and I have no interest in making excuses for it. But the most interesting headline to come out of Daboll’s firing is that general manager Joe Schoen, who was hired with Daboll, is not only keeping his job — he’ll be leading the search for Daboll’s replacement.
More on that dynamic, and the rest of the NFL’s eventful Week 10, below. Every Tuesday, I’ll spin the previous week of NFL action forward, looking at what the biggest storylines mean and what comes next. We’ll seek measured reactions to everyone’s overreactions, celebrate the exciting stuff that nobody is appreciating and highlight what you might have missed Sunday and Monday. There will be film. There will be stats (a whole section of them). And there will be fun.
Jump to a section: Big Thing: 2024 QB class separation Why didn’t these moves happen at deadline? Second Take: Brian Daboll out in New York Mailbag: Answering questions from … you Next Ben Stats: Wild Week 10 stats Monday Night Monotony: Packers at crossroads
Every week, this column will kick off with one wide look at a key game, player or trend from the previous slate of NFL action. What does it mean for the rest of the season? This week, we’re looking at the 2024 quarterback draft class a season and a half in.
Behind the cemented top three, there’s still plenty of buzz. Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy has an outside shot to unseat Maye as QB3, and if he doesn’t, he’ll still certainly go early in the first round. But to whom, and at which pick?
McCarthy isn’t the only quarterback sneaking into the first-round conversation, either. As Adam Schefter wrote in his draft notebook just days before the draft:
“One NFL general manager said he believes “there is an undercurrent of support for Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix,” even though his team doesn’t have a first-round grade on either. This particular general manager said he believes both Penix and Nix are Day 2 picks. Some teams disagree, and there now is speculation Penix could go as high as No. 8 to the Falcons.”
The speculation proved accurate. The Falcons shocked the NFL community when they made Penix QB4 off the board over McCarthy, drafting him with the eighth pick despite the four-year, $180 million dollar contract they’d just given Kirk Cousins. Draft pundits and fans barely had time to get off the mat before the second punch landed: After McCarthy went to the Vikings with the 10th pick, the Broncos drafted Nix — the sixth quarterback of the first round! — with the 12th selection.
Nix became the earliest-drafted QB6 in any NFL draft. The previous record was held by Richie Petitbon, the 21st pick in the 1959 draft. In the common draft era (since 1967), the earliest-drafted QB6 was 27th in 1983 — a gunslinger out of Pitt named Dan Marino.
Nix wasn’t the only quarterback to plant a new flag. McCarthy became the earliest-drafted QB5 in NFL history; Penix, the earliest-drafted QB4. For the second time ever, six quarterbacks went off the board in the first round; for the first time, all six were in the top half of the first round.
This is what the draft is for, of course: rampant, unchecked belief. The shining promise of a new day.
But outlooks don’t stay sunny forever. The Tuesday after Week 10 a year and a half later? That’s for cold reality and difficult truths.
Penix, Nix and McCarthy are all struggling in their sophomore seasons. For McCarthy, the difficulties are more excusable. In only his fourth career start, McCarthy once again looked comfortable on script but quickly spiraled out of control as the training wheels left the offense. On the season, McCarthy averages 0.18 EPA per dropback on the first two drives of games — drives that we can confidently say are scripted — and minus-0.03 on all other drives. His success rate drops from 47% to 35%.
We have a larger body of work on Penix. He started his 11th game Sunday morning in Berlin, and it was one of the worst of his career. Penix had a 3.49-second time to throw and completed only 42.9% of his passes — both career-worst marks. Typically, a quarterback holding the ball for that long rips off a few scrambles, but Penix never crossed the line of scrimmage against Indianapolis and remains one of the least-impactful scramblers in a league increasingly embracing the quarterback run.
It’s OK to not be a scrambler … but not with the 32.0% inaccurate throw rate Penix had against the Colts. That’s too many plays that are dead in the water. Among 43 quarterbacks with 200 dropbacks since the start of last season, Penix is 41st in completion percentage and 42nd in off-target rate. The ball simply isn’t catchable often enough.
Of course, Penix is attempting more difficult passes than many quarterbacks. In the same time frame, he’s second in air yards per attempt (8.9). But deep passes don’t always imply tight windows. In his career, Penix is throwing into tight windows on 14.2% of his pass attempts, and his targets have an average separation of 3.3 yards. The league-average marks are 14.8% and 3.5 yards, respectively.
Much of the offense has disintegrated around Penix. The running game, which was supposed to be the engine of this team, has sputtered in recent weeks — though it woke up against the Colts. Injuries to the Falcons’ offensive line have muddied Penix’s pockets, and Atlanta’s receiver depth has been tested. The offensive design, which has received much heat for its overreliance on shotgun and pistol alignments and lack of play-action passing, continues to confound many — myself included.
Penix’s runway still has some room on it; again, we’ve seen only 11 career starts, and there are serious complaints with the offense around him that justify some patience. With Nix, we’ve seen 28 starts — a much larger sample.
But it seems like Nix is playing much worse football than he was last season despite the fact that his numbers are roughly comparable. Yards per dropback has fallen only from 6.16 to 5.94; success rate has fallen only from 44.1% to 42.9%. EPA per dropback is up! It was 0.10 as a rookie, and it’s 0.11 this season.
But Nix’s numbers last season were also fooling us a bit. As I wrote after Week 11 in 2024, Nix’s stats were highly inflated by his performance in blowouts — snaps in which the Broncos either had a win probability above 95% or below 5%. In an effort to build Nix’s confidence after a shaky September, Sean Payton was giving his young quarterback reps in nearly meaningless game states.
Of course, we know we can’t call these snaps totally meaningless. Nix and the Broncos were well below 5% win probability for stretches against the Giants, and thanks to his efforts, they ended up winning.
But once again, we see a large difference in Nix’s production in a neutral game state as opposed to a lopsided one. Nix has 56 dropbacks in blowout states this season. Some came against the Giants, but plenty more came from wins against Dallas, Cincinnati and Tennessee. Nix has a dropback success rate of 48.8% and a first-down/touchdown rate of 41.5% on those dropbacks. In neutral states, those numbers drop to 43.1% and 29%, respectively.
‘This looks atrocious’: Stephen A. criticizes the Broncos’ offense