Tua Tagovailoa, Dak Prescott headline NFL QBs under the most pressure in 2024

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

First and foremost, let’s be clear: Every starting quarterback in the NFL is facing pressure this season.

If you’re good enough to have a quarter-billion-dollar contract, there’s the immense pressure of living up to that money. If you’re not good enough, there’s pressure to do everything you can to get yourself in position for such a jackpot deal.

If you’re a rookie who was picked high in the draft, there’s an increasingly short window in which to develop into a star before the team loses patience in its investment. That might only be two years. Consider the flotsam and jetsam of the 2021 first round, which now has seen Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Justin Fields and Mac Jones traded to second teams at a massive discount.

So, to narrow the field from 32 starting quarterbacks to just eight names here is to highlight the iceberg above water, to pinpoint those passers with unique and potentially difficult situations if 2024 doesn’t work out the way they’d like it to. There’s no shortage of QBs “getting paid a lot to not be winning playoff games,” but here’s who leads the pack.

1. Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins

Is he the next NFL quarterback to join the $50 million a year club? There are now six in that elite fraternity, none 30 years old yet, none with a Super Bowl win on his résumé. Tagovailoa has yet to throw for 30 touchdowns in a season, has played in only one playoff game and lost it while throwing for 199 yards. But he led the NFL in passing yards last year with 4,624, and he stayed healthy and played a full 17 games for the first time after appearing in no more than 13 in any of his first three seasons.

There’s a window of opportunity in the AFC East, where Miami’s last division title was in 2008. Even more pressing for the franchise is that its last postseason victory was eight years prior. With the Dolphins’ explosive offense and offseason defensive additions, can Tua get them over the…


Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/tua-tagovailoa-dak-prescott-headline-nfl-qbs-under-most-pressure-2024

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Publish date : 2024-07-23 13:30:17

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