The Early Offseason QB Notebook: What Is Malik Willis’s Real Value?
Welcome to The Ringer’s quarterback notebook. The NFL season is over, so there’s no more film to grind or quarterbacks to rank. But we’re just a few weeks away from the most fascinating offseason quarterback market in recent memory. Discussion about who might wind up where got underway this week at the draft combine in Indianapolis, so we have more than enough information (and speculation) to fill another QB notebook and set the table for what should be an eventful offseason. Let’s talk quarterbacks.
Everything is on the table in the offseason QB market.
Do you know a fun drinking game to play at the combine? That’s a trick question. The combine is one big drinking game. But if you want to reach wild levels of inebriation in Indy, take a drink every time you hear a GM or coach say, “Everything is on the table” regarding the team’s outlook at quarterback. The main participants in this offseason’s quarterback market used that phrase a ton this week—and to very little effect.
For example: What are the options at QB for the Steelers, the AFC North champions? “Right now, I’d say all options are on the table,” general manager Omar Khan said on Tuesday. And that’s the exact same thing he said last year, before the team eventually signed Aaron Rodgers in free agency. All signs point to Rodgers returning to Pittsburgh this season and playing for his former Packers coach Mike McCarthy—unless Rodgers decides to retire—but Khan says that either way, the Steelers are still looking for “that next guy, the next 10- to 15-year guy.” Pittsburgh currently has the no. 21 pick in the NFL draft, so it’s unlikely to find that guy there. And it wouldn’t make sense for the team to welcome Rodgers back only to pour significant resources into a possible long-term solution via free agency or the trade market. The Steelers do own five picks in the first three rounds, so a trade up is on the table, but it wouldn’t make much sense for them to do that when they have Rodgers on the roster. Khan says that anything is possible, but unless Rodgers opts for retirement, Pittsburgh’s plan for 2026 seems pretty clear.
Everything is also on the table in Miami, where Tua Tagovailoa’s days as the Dolphins quarterback are seemingly numbered. Or are they! “As it pertains to Tua, we’ve had conversations with Tua and his representation,” new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan, who comes from Green Bay’s front office, said on Tuesday. “Everything is on the table, including the potential of a trade. We don’t know which way that’s going to go. There’s a lot of different factors at play, a lot of conversations being had.” Most of those conversations center on how to get around Tagovailoa’s $99 million dead cap number. That’s what he would cost the Dolphins if he’s released this offseason. A trade would bring that down by about half, but here’s the list of teams that would be willing to give up draft assets to pay Tua $141 million over the next three seasons:
[List not found]
Sullivan says that other teams have shown interest in Tagovailoa, but that’s a dubious claim given the financial obligation required, even if the Dolphins are willing to pay some of his salary. This might turn out to be a Rams–Jared Goff situation in which Miami has to give up draft picks to get rid of his contract. That’s the only real path to off-loading him since cutting Tagovailoa would cost Miami about $45 million in cap space in each of the next two seasons. Everything may be on the table, per Sullivan, but the most appealing option may be for Tagovailoa to spend another season in Miami, after which a split would be much cleaner from a cap perspective.
Speaking of future dead cap messes, Baker Mayfield is looking for a long-term extension in Tampa Bay as he heads into the final year of his contract. Mayfield will likely be looking for a deal on par with what Tagovailoa and Goff signed in recent years. And while it sounds like GM Jason Licht wants his quarterback in Tampa for the foreseeable future, he also deployed that famous line this week: “Everything’s on the table right now.
“I don’t have a timeline for that but our plans revolve around Baker in the future,” Licht said, “so I don’t think anybody wants to see Baker leave the organization.”
With a $52.9 million cap hit for 2026 that will need to come down, Mayfield is negotiating from a place of strength. The Bucs can’t really afford to pay him that number, and a long-term deal would chop it down significantly. But Mayfield is unlikely to sign a below-market deal in what could be his last opportunity for a major NFL payday. If there’s a candidate to be this year’s Geno Smith—who was traded because he refused to budge on his salary demands—it’s Mayfield. It’s unlikely to happen, but don’t make me tap the sign. Everything is on the table this offseason, per multiple sources.
Why isn’t it a bigger deal that Kyler Murray is available?
Add Murray to the list of quarterbacks who are in an “everything’s on the table” situation. Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort dropped the line with regard to the highly paid quarterback during his combine presser this week. But it doesn’t seem realistic that Murray will return as the Cardinals’ starter, and Ossenfort isn’t talking like he will. He stated on Tuesday that the team needs to improve at the position, and he said that the Cardinals will “evaluate all our options [at quarterback]—whether it’s free agency, the draft, we’ll be prepared to do what’s best for the team.”
Sources in Murray’s camp told ESPN that he hadn’t had any communication with Arizona’s front office since the season ended. A trade out of Arizona seems like the most realistic outcome at this point, so I’ll ask again: Why isn’t this a bigger deal? Murray is a good quarterback who’s entering his age-29 season and has had two top-10 QBR seasons under his belt. He’s just two years older than Tyler Shough, who finished second in Rookie of the Year voting this season, and three years older than Bo Nix, who’s coming off his second pro season. Murray may not be a top-tier quarterback, but he’s as talented as—if not more talented than—any of the quarterbacks making up the middle tier. Because those guys tend to be judged based on team success and the Cardinals have been varying degrees of mediocre over the past few years, Murray’s stock has fallen. But I’d say that it’s fallen too far and that a smart team should buy the dip this offseason.
Arizona will want a first-round pick in return for Murray, but he’d still offer tremendous value for any team that trades for him. His new franchise would be on the hook for just $36.8 million in guaranteed money, and there are three years left on the deal Murray signed in 2022. His average annual salary over the remaining years is just over $46 million, which would rank 12th among quarterbacks, per Spotrac. That’s a decent price for a quarterback who has very clear strengths—as well as some obvious weaknesses.
The Call of Duty jokes and the film study clause that was ultimately taken out of Murray’s contract have created the perception that he’s just sort of vibing out there on the field, but that doesn’t really show up on tape. Murray is a smooth operator in the quick game, which is usually where processing makes a difference for a quarterback. That shouldn’t come as a surprise since he developed in an Air Raid offense both in college and early in his pro career under Kliff Kingsbury. All of those quick-game reps have paid off and have helped turn Murray into a good point guard–style distributor. Take this play from his Week 3 start against the 49ers last season. The Cardinals are running a common quick-game concept, and Murray gets to the fifth read in his progression with just a 2.3-second time to throw, per TruMedia.
Murray’s first look is Marvin Harrison Jr., but he moves on when he sees the receiver running at a slow pace. Next, he shuffles through a few more reads before hitting James Conner on a checkdown that goes for 10 yards. That’s what quick processing looks like. Working outside the numbers is another of Murray’s strengths. He’s a master of the back-shoulder fade and throws a corner route as well as any quarterback in the NFL.
Unfortunately, the confidence and placement we see from Murray when he’s working the perimeter don’t carry over to the middle of the field. At 5-foot-10, Murray seems to struggle to see over the middle, which leads to many instances when he turns down wide-open receivers who are running deep in-breaking routes.
It’s mostly a vision thing, but the quality of Murray’s passes also seems to fall off when he’s throwing over the middle. Murray tends to sail his passes high, which typically leads to interceptions against NFL secondaries. Then there are the durability concerns. Murray has started at least 16 games in only three of his seven career seasons, and he’s coming off a foot injury that took him out for two months in 2025.
Those are big red flags, but we’ve seen plenty of other quarterbacks with similar skill sets thrive in good situations. Murray was great in Arizona when the team had its shit together—and he’s a better passer now than he was at his statistical peak in 2021. Give him good interior pass protection and receivers who can win on the perimeter, and you’ll get top-10 production. Give him a jumbled mess of a roster, like Arizona has, and you’ll get uneven play. He’s a needle-moving quarterback when everything is right. Those can be hard to find in a QB-crazed league.
What is Malik Willis’s true value?
Given all the Murray skepticism, it’s at least a little surprising that Willis has emerged as the most coveted free agent quarterback on the market this offseason. It’s now considered a “foregone conclusion” that Willis will get a deal in the range of Sam Darnold’s three-year, $100 million contract, according to insider Jordan Schultz.
I had two initial reactions to that news:
- Good for you, Malik. I’ve always believed.
- Wait, really?
Willis’s stock was so low 18 months ago that the Packers gave up a seventh-round pick to get him in a preseason trade. He’s played just 307 snaps and taken 117 dropbacks in relief for Jordan Love since then, including 100 snaps and 47 dropbacks at various points in the 2025 season. That’s not even two full games’ worth of reps! The sample size is tiny, but the numbers he’s produced in his brief cameos have been genuinely outstanding. Since joining the Packers last August, Willis is averaging 0.41 EPA and 9.1 yards per dropback, per TruMedia. Those numbers would have led the league—and won him an MVP award or two—if the 26-year-old had logged enough snaps to qualify for the statistical leaderboards.
I get the fascination in a league that covets physically gifted throwers. Willis has a big arm, quick feet, and rare playmaking instincts. If a team can finish off the developmental work that Matt LaFleur and the Packers started, Willis could turn into something special. And with the numbers he’s put up as a backup, it’s easier to envision that happening. At the same time, the guy just hasn’t played enough football over the past two years to make me feel confident that he can replicate that success over a larger sample.
Regardless, I’m intrigued by him for the same reasons that I felt Willis should have been QB1 over Kenny Pickett and Desmond Ridder back in the 2022 draft The guy can sling the football all over the field.
And he’s got the speed and acceleration to create real problems for defenses in the run game. I’ll tell you who won’t be excited to see Willis get a starting job this season: opposing edge defenders who have to deal with him on option plays. One false step is enough to give Willis free access to the edge.
There’s no question about Willis’s ability to run the football. How he’ll hold up in a dropback passing game is another matter. He just hasn’t done much of that in the NFL. When he got on the field in Green Bay, LaFleur turned the Packers offense into something you might see from a service academy on Saturdays. And even when Willis did drop back to pass, it usually involved some sort of play-action fake. It clearly worked for Green Bay, but that makes evaluating Willis a bit trickier for teams that can’t provide the same offensive infrastructure that the Packers could.
My big concern with Willis is the same one that prevented me from really falling in love with him when he was a draft prospect. Like Murray and a lot of shorter quarterbacks, Willis seems to lose field vision when working in between the numbers. He routinely turned down open receivers running over the middle at Liberty, and that still seems to be a bug in his game four years later. On this play against the Giants, you can see Christian Watson throttling down his crossing route when he finds open grass. Willis is staring right at him and has enough time to make the throw, but he just doesn’t do it.
Now, Willis still made it work with his legs—which he frequently did in college, too—but it’s difficult to make a living as an NFL starter with that sort of approach. I don’t know whether I’d feel comfortable making an expensive bet that Willis can excel despite that weakness. But I’m excited that some teams appear more than willing to give it a shot.
The Jets offer a very important update on Justin Fields.
While NFL teams seem to be finding less value in the combine these days, the gathering of coaches and executives is still one of the best events for gaining insight into how teams plan to approach the offseason. I mean, where else are you going to get intel like this bombshell that Jets general manager Darren Mougey dropped when asked about Justin Fields’s future with the team?
“Yeah, Justin’s on the roster,” Mougey said.
The nicest thing Mougey could say about Fields is that his contract doesn’t include any trigger dates—like roster or workout bonuses—so the Jets can take their time deciding exactly how to purge Field from the team as they enter yet another offseason looking for their future franchise quarterback.
Don’t call your ex, Minnesota.
That’s advice for all of you. Just don’t do it. And certainly not in this particular case, when the Vikings are entering the offseason in a vulnerable spot. Minnesota’s brass doesn’t seem to be as enamored of 2024 first-round pick J.J. McCarthy after seeing him take the field last season. And the Vikings will be “exploring all options” when it comes to the quarterback position this offseason. Head coach Kevin O’Connell didn’t give his young quarterback the strongest endorsement when asked whether he still viewed McCarthy as “the franchise.”
“It’s just the timeline is in a different place for all of us than it was at that point [in 2024],” O’Connell said Tuesday at the combine. “And I have a responsibility—we have a responsibility collectively as we put together this team—to make sure that we use the data that we have at this time and the experiences we have, the feelings that we’ve had at different times as an organization.”
The data the Vikings have on McCarthy after two seasons is not encouraging—and in ways that may have been predictable before he was drafted. His smaller frame was a concern for scouts during the predraft process, and it’s an even bigger one now that he’s missed all of his rookie season and significant chunks of his sophomore campaign with injuries. When he has been on the field, McCarthy’s throwing ability—specfically his inability to throw with touch and to layer passes over defenders—has been highly scrutinized. Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner recently said that McCarthy isn’t “a natural thrower,” which is an assessment I’d agree with. When throwing downfield, he looks less like a pro quarterback and more like a second baseman trying to turn a double play.
It’s a bad sign that McCarthy has struggled in the ways his detractors predicted he might. And based on the results so far, we can say that McCarthy is just not a good NFL quarterback. That could change, but the Vikings won’t operate this offseason as if it will happen before the 2026 season.
“What we do know is we need a level of baseline quarterback play for us to be effective,” Vikings vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski said on Tuesday. “A lot of this has been J.J. in unfortunate [situations] with some of the injuries and things that he’s dealt with, but we’re going to explore every opportunity, and I don’t think there’s anything specifically we’re looking for. We can’t manufacture anything that’s not there. So no. 1, what are the options? Is it reciprocal? Is it financially doable? All those things. There’s just a lot of factors that go into it.”
The Vikings and O’Connell are desperate for adequate quarterback play. When they got it from Sam Darnold two years ago, this roster, which is largely still intact, won 14 games and made the playoffs. Watching Darnold win a Super Bowl with another loaded roster would convince a lot of teams in a similar spot to chase ghosts, which could lead Minnesota back to …
Kirk Cousins will be back on the open market this offseason, as the Falcons plan on releasing the veteran quarterback on the first day of the new league year. Cousins has already been linked with his former team, along with other vets like Murray, Smith, and even Derek Carr, who is reportedly planning on unretiring. Cousins is a familiar option and, based on his career track record, could be viewed as the safest option. But I’m not sure that Cousins is the floor raiser he once was. He didn’t do well in Atlanta in either of his two seasons. In fact, his presence on the field seemed to lower the team’s floor in comparison with Michael Penix Jr., who doesn’t set a high bar to clear.
Those three other options I listed have played good football more recently than Cousins has—including Carr, who sat out last season—and all would be preferable to running it back with a post–Achilles injury Cousins. During their first go-round with Cousins, Vikings fans grew frustrated with his inability to create out of structure. After the injury, the guy can barely move, which has had a knock-on effect on the other aspects of his game. To avoid getting hit, Cousins is throwing with more anticipation, which requires more guesswork, which can lead to dangerous throws. Cousins has thrown 21 interceptions in part-time work over the past two seasons. That’s eighth most since the start of 2024, and Cousins did it while ranking 26th in dropbacks.
Cousins is bringing even less to the table now than he did in his last season in Minnesota, which was already headed down a disappointing path before he tore his Achilles. Stay away, Minnesota.
This is the best press conference answer I heard at the combine.
Hopefully, Texans general manager Nick Caserio put an end to the most inane subplot brewing early on this offseason. C.J. Stroud had some ugly moments in a handful of island games last season—including two woeful outings in the postseason—but on the whole, he looked like a fringe top-10 quarterback, finishing right behind Caleb Williams and just ahead of Joe Burrow, Baker Mayfield, and Trevor Lawrence in dropback EPA.
The idea of a Stroud trade seems to be a media creation. You’d think we would have learned our lesson about writing off a young quarterback so soon after watching Darnold lift a Lombardi Trophy a few weeks ago, but apparently not. Fortunately, the Texans aren’t entertaining the conversation, saving those of us who cover the league a lot of wasted time this offseason.
Steven Ruiz
Steven Ruiz has been an NFL analyst and QB ranker at The Ringer since 2021. He’s a D.C. native who roots for all the local teams except for the Commanders. As a child, he knew enough ball to not pick the team owned by Dan Snyder—but not enough to avoid choosing the Panthers.
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