QB Confidential: How can the NFL better develop its backup quarterbacks?

One week into the 2024 NFL season, the league has seen one of its highest-paid quarterbacks sidelined by injury in the Packers' Jordan Love. He's expected to be replaced this week by backup Malik Willis, 25, who has yet to throw a touchdown in his two-plus seasons in the league.

Love suffered a sprained MCL, escaping serious injury, and could return soon. But when a starter is lost for a significant period, it can ruin a team's entire season. And that, of course, is because there's a significant dropoff between the QB1 and the QB2.

When we set out to do our "QB Confidential" anonymous survey this summer, we asked 38 NFL quarterbacks about their picks for the league's smartest quarterback, the best arm, the top receiver they'd like to throw to and the toughest defender they go up against. 

But we also asked them about a deeper issue concerning the league: How can the NFL better develop its backup quarterbacks?

"That might be the hardest question yet," one quarterback said, echoing the frustration across the league with a system that must focus in-season on preparing the starter, leaving little time to help backups grow and learn.

"It is a challenge," one veteran quarterback said. "I've gone several seasons where I didn't play a snap, backing up the whole year. You get better by playing. So that's a good question. There definitely is not an obvious answer. It's a challenge when you're not going to beat out a guy unless he gets hurt, and you don't wish that on anyone."

Training camp and preseason may have some semblance of competition, and with that, some division of practice reps, but once the regular season begins, roles are set and meaningful reps are reserved for the starter.

"The hardest part about being a backup is you don't get any reps during the week," one quarterback said. "How do you get backup quarterbacks more reps? In order to do that, you're taking away reps from QB1, which you don't want. If you want to add reps, you're putting more on the starting skill positions, their legs. Now they're running more routes. It's hard."

Backup quarterback jobs are getting harder to find. Some teams will carry three quarterbacks on their 53-man roster, but others get by with two, putting their third on the practice squad, trusting they could sign them to the roster if an injury created a need. The boom of elite quarterback salaries rising to $50 million a year and more is great for the elites of the league, but that leaves less money and salary-cap space to invest in experienced backups and eventual successors.

Another battle for backup quarterbacks and their long-term growth is the ever-shrinking NFL preseason. What used to be four games went to three when the NFL shifted to a 17-game regular season, and there's a strong chance the league will soon move to 18 games, which would mean only two preseason games. Those exhibitions can be afterthoughts for fans because starters barely play to avoid injuries, but for backups, it's a rare chance to get on the field and get live reps against real competition. But because the outcomes don't count and teams don't want to show any hints of what's ahead, schemes are vanilla, with little care or need to game-plan for specific opponents.

"They need to take preseason games more seriously in game-planning and prep time," one backup quarterback said. "It's not just that starters are sitting, but the game plan is very dumbed down. It's nothing like a Sunday when you have to play. Make them a more realistic picture of an NFL game."

Said another: "I definitely don't think they should be taking away preseason games. Not just speaking for backup quarterbacks, but there are a lot of positions out there that need that."

A few NFL backups have experience playing in spring football leagues — once the XFL and USFL, now combined to the UFL. That's solid experience, offering real snaps in real games, but with a diluted level of competition. 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - NOVEMBER 09: Tyson Bagent #17 of the Chicago Bears looks to pass during the first half at Soldier Field on November 09, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)

If the NFL had a direct relationship with a spring league, teams could send some of their developmental players there, trusting that the experience and coaching would be valuable enough to offset any risk of injury. As it stands, the NFL restricts how much interaction coaches and players can have in the spring and summer.

"It's a system where you have to develop yourself," one quarterback said. "Coaches can't have much contact with you in the offseason, so it's up to you to fine-tune your skills."

Even within the current NFL model, quarterbacks said there are small changes that could help develop backups. A scout-team quarterback's job is to simulate opponents and other team's offenses, but some said their coaches will translate the scout-team cards into their own team's terminology, giving them more meaningful work. One remembered how Tom Brady would organize an off-the-books "quarterback school" in summer, "like a normal day of school, but it would just be quarterback play."

Some NFL teams — and college programs as well — use virtual reality headsets to give quarterbacks something closer to real reps in terms of having defenses to read and react to in real time. A young quarterback might be able to set up weekly time with a coach a little lower down the food chain — an assistant quarterbacks coach or pass game coordinator — to review game tape or discuss the upcoming game plan in greater detail.

"Having extra meeting time where a backup can come in and talk to a coach, you have to create that on your own," one quarterback said. "It's focused on the starter and everybody in the room understands that. But it helps to have one-on-one time with coaches so you can ask questions."

A veteran backup in the NFL must be able to learn by watching, without the physical repetition of actually making the throws, learning the timing of each receiver, the instincts of how each will respond to coverages so passer and receiver can be in sync. More often than not, the only way a backup quarterback really grows is getting pressed into a starting role, when the QB1 gets injured or plays poorly. Progress comes from playing real games and the successes and failures that come with that. 

How else do backup QBs learn?

"That's the question, isn't it?" one said. "Shoot, I don't know. I don't have advice. Go to a good team."

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.