How NFL teams helped young QBs with offseason moves: Bears beef up Caleb Williams protection, add Ben Johnson

In the modern NFL, there is nothing more important than quarterback play. Offensive success is more closely correlated with team success these days than is defensive success, and your offense tends to go as far as your quarterback can take it.

It is therefore of the utmost importance to put your quarterback in position to succeed. Make sure he has a good play-caller scheming things up. Make sure he is well protected by his offensive line. Make sure he has good weapons to whom he can distribute the ball. All of these things play a role in ensuring that a quarterback has the best chance possible to put his best foot — or arm — forward.

And they’re even more important for young quarterbacks than they are for veterans. The guys still on their rookie contracts tend to need the most insulation because they don’t yet have the experience to overcome potential shortcomings in the supporting cast. And because that’s the case, we want to take a look at how the teams around the league that are still working with young quarterbacks, helped those quarterbacks this offseason.

We’re going to go through each of the teams that is starting a rookie-scale quarterback and detail the various moves — or lack thereof — they made this offseason to put that quarterback in position to have success.

Class of 2022 (1)

The Niners spent most of their resources this offseason remaking their defense, and arguably depleted Brock Purdy’s supporting cast, rather than adding to it. They thankfully extended George Kittle at the top of the tight end market but they traded Deebo Samuel and lost Aaron Banks, Jaylon Moore, Elijah Mitchell and Jordan Mason via free agency and trades, with Demarcus Robinson being the only notable free agent addition. They used each of their first five draft picks on defense (three on the defensive line alone) before spending the latter portion of Day 3 adding Jordan Watkins, Jordan James, Kurtis Rourke, Connor Colby and Junior Bergen. James seems the most likely of those guys to make an impact, but even he is probably the No. 3 running back unless and until Christian McCaffrey gets injured again. All of which is to say, Purdy has spent much of his career to date playing on a Death Star-esque offense, but that’s no longer going to be the case pretty soon.

Class of 2023 (3)

Carolina replaced Miles Sanders with Rico Dowdle in free agency, providing an upgrade at the No. 2 running back slot behind and/or alongside Chuba Hubbard. The Panthers brought back Bryce Young’s veteran backup Andy Dalton, as well as his slot security blanket Adam Thielen. In the draft, they got the top receiver in Tetairoa McMillan, which just seems like a fantastic match of skill sets. McMillan’s size-strength-speed combination allows him to win both as a contested-catch guy and an after-the-catch guy, and Carolina has not really had either of those skills on the outside yet during Young’s tenure. Throw in another back in Trevor Etienne, yet another tight end in Mitchell Evans and a late-round wideout in Jimmy Horn Jr. (who has a little bit of juice with the ball in his hands as well), and the Panthers did fairly well despite not really investing all that much.

The Texans made A TON of changes this offseason. First and foremost, they fired Bobby Slowik and replaced him with on-the-risde coordinator Nick Caley, and then swapped out almost the entire decrepit offensive line from last season. Out went Laremy Tunsil, Kenyon Green, Kendrick Green and more, and in came Cam Robinson, Trent Brown, Ed Ingram, Laken Tomlinson, Jake Andrews and Aireontae Ersery. Whether they actually upgraded at any of those spots is up for debate, but they did make massive, sweeping changes. Then, they remade essentially the entire wide receiver corps beyond Nico Collins. It sure seems like they think Tank Dell is out for not just this year, but possibly longer, which is a major bummer. You probably don’t trade for Christian Kirk and draft both Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel if you think Dell is definitively part of the future. They also brought in both Braxton Berrios and Justin Watson as role players. Trading up for Woody Marks in the fourth round may not have been the best use of resources, but it should help the offense by giving Stroud another option as a pass catcher out of the backfield, as well as more juice to the Joe Mixon-led run game. 

The Colts brought in “competition” for Richardson in the form of Daniel Jones, but we’re going to treat him as the starter here nonetheless. And honestly, they didn’t do much here. In fact, by letting both Will Fries and Ryan Kelly leave in free agency, you can argue they allowed the supporting case to atrophy a big despite drafting Tyler Warren in the first round. They also got a developmental tackle in Jalen Travis and a complementary running back in DJ Giddens and a, frankly, Jones-esque quarterback in Riley Leonard. The first-round pick makes it seem like the Colts gave Richardson a bunch of help here, but the rest of their activity belies that, in my opinion. 

Class of 2024 (6)

Perhaps no team in the league did more for its young quarterback than the Bears. They hired Ben Johnson as their new head coach. They traded for Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson and signed Drew Dalman. They drafted Colston Loveland in the first round and Luther Burden III in the second. I mean … sheesh! That is a whole lot of investment in making sure the 2025 season is absolutely nothing like 2024. Williams should now have a functional offensive system, strong interior pass protection and a whole lot of weapons — even more than last year. They have made as big a commitment as possible to getting the best out of the No. 1 overall pick, which is exactly what a team in their position should be doing. 

We know the big moves that Washington made: Trading for both Deebo Samuel and Laremy Tunsil. The Commies didn’t have a true No. 2 option in the passing game last year beyond Terry McLaurin, and they also didn’t really have the gadget guy that Kliff Kingsbury wants in his offense. Samuel should fill both roles. The Tunsil trade and Nate Herbig signing, along with the drafting of Josh Conerly Jr. in the first round, should both upgrade the offensive line and give them more options in the case of an injury or ineffectiveness by any of the starters. 

If no team did more for its young quarterback than did Chicago, New England was a close second. The Patriots hired Josh McDaniels to be their offensive coordinator. (He’s a bad head coach but he’s good at this job.) They signed Stefon Diggs to give Drake Maye a No. 1 pass catcher, Morgan Moses to solidify the right tackle spot, Garrett Bradbury to play center and Mack Hollins and Austin Hooper to provide key depth at important spots. They drafted Will Campbell with the No. 4 overall pick, TreVeyon Henderson in the second round and both Kyle Williams and Jared Wilson in the third. Whew. Last year’s supporting cast was unacceptably bad, and the Pats clearly came into the offseason knowing that they couldn’t ask Maye to operate under the same circumstances again. Rightfully so.

The Falcons invested essentially all of their offseason resources in their defense. They’re bringing back almost exactly the same group on offense, except for allowing the aforementioned Dalman to leave in free agency. They are basically counting on Penix himself to be the change that helps their offense, rather than the other way around.

Minnesota saw what happened to Sam Darnold down the stretch of last season, when the offensive line fell apart. The Vikings appear determined to not let that happen in front of McCarthy. They signed both Fries and Kelly away from the Colts, then drafted Donovan Jackson in the first round. They brought back Aaron Jones and added Jordan Mason to give them someone more reliable than Ty Chandler behind Jones. Drafting speed freak Tai Felton (4.37 seconds in the 40-yard dash) gives McCarthy another passing-game option deeper down the depth chart.

Typically hyper-aggressive, Sean Payton instead seemed more targeted this offseason when it came to adding talent around Nix. The Broncos signed Evan Engram in free agency to fill the “joker” tight end role Payton never stops talking about. They let Javonte Williams walk and replaced him by taking R.J. Harvey in the second round. Harvey should immediately step in as the top guy in the running back room, though you never know with Payton. Pat Bryant has good size (6-2, 204) but ran just a 4.61 in the 40-yard dash. We’ll see if he can be a contributor early on but it seems more likely that he’s a role-player version of the Courtland Sutton X-receiver role in the offense. 

Class of 2025 (3)

The Titans attacked this task with volume, in a situation where they weren’t necessarily in position to do so with quality. To remake their offensive line, they signed Dan Moore Jr. to play left tackle and kick JC Latham back to the right side, while also signing Kevin Zeitler to play guard. They brought in Tyler Lockett and Van Jefferson in free agency, but they also drafted Chimere Dike and Elic Ayomanor in the fourth round, they signed Ward’s best receiver at Miami, Xavier Restrepo, who had no business going undrafted but did so because he ran a slow 40. They also drafted Gunnar Helm in the fourth round and Jackson Slater in the fifth, while adding yet another running back in Kalel Mullings in the sixth round. They’re clearly hoping to get a couple quality pieces by sheer force of volume here and betting that the remade line will at least keep Ward upright and allow him to play his point-guard style of quarterback.

Similar to Penix, Dart is apparently supposed to be the thing that changes the Giants offense, if and when he actually gets into the lineup once the Russell Wilson and/or Jameis Winston experiment runs its course. Drafting Cam Skattebo in the fourth round to complement Tyrone Tracy Jr. and Marcus Mbow in the fifth to provide offensive line depth and potentially develop into a starter down the line were the only other moves of consequence on this side of the ball. 

We don’t yet know what the deal is with Derek Carr, nor whether Shough will actually start games for the Saints. What we do know is that they used their first-round pick on a tackle in Kelvin Banks Jr., along with a sixth-round pick on a new running back in Devin Neal. Their major free agent signings (Dillon Radunz and Brandin Cooks) aren’t exactly the kind of moves that solidify the supporting cast, so the Saints will be depending on better health, especially in the receiving corps, to lift Shough should he enter the lineup at some point.