Does Cam Ward start from Week 1? Ward was the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, but he will still have to beat out incumbent Will Levis this offseason.
Four quarterbacks, one starter: The Browns have four potential starters for Week 1, but who will earn the job? Any of Shedeur Sanders, Dillon Gabriel, Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett could seize the opportunity.
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Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Offseason activities are officially underway in the NFL, and training camp is right around the corner. There will be battles at every position across the league, but none will be as spoken about as much as at quarterback.
Six teams enter the 2025 season with the quarterback position up in the air. Who will start under center for the Tennessee Titans, New York Giants, New Orleans Saints, Cleveland Browns and Indianapolis Colts?
The answer is easy for some. For others, such as the Colts and Browns, the decision might not be made until the season’s eve. We’re predicting each team's starter by the time Week 1 rolls around.
Tennessee Titans: Cam Ward vs. Will Levis
This may be a tad disingenuous of a place to start, but is there a small chance that there’s still something resembling a quarterback battle in Tennessee? The Titans drafted Miami quarterback Cam Ward with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, which effectively solidified the front office's commitment to making Ward the franchise cornerstone for the next five years — and hopefully longer.
Ward earned a 92.9 PFF overall grade in 2024, his lone season with the Hurricanes, helping them to a 10-3 record while just missing out on the ACC Championship game. In 13 games, Ward completed 67.2% of his passes for 4,313 passing yards and 37 touchdowns, throwing only seven interceptions. His 31 big-time throws were the second most in the FBS, behind only Syracuse‘s Kyle McCord. The Titans had their eyes set on Ward early in the draft process and never wavered, despite reported offers to trade down. By all accounts, Ward should be the Titans' starter from Week 1. But there’s a conversation to be had about bringing him into the fold slowly.
Will Levis, the incumbent, earned a 54.9 PFF overall grade in his second season with the Titans, completing 63.1% of his passes for 2,091 yards and 13 touchdowns while throwing 12 interceptions. His 4.4% turnover-worthy play rate was the eighth-highest clip among quarterbacks, and Levis was sacked 41 times in 12 games, in part because of his play style and also because of one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL — a unit that has since been improved with the additions of Kevin Zeitler and Dan Moore Jr.
If Ward was too raw, there’d be a conversation about letting him sit early in his career, but that's not the case. A five-year college starter, Ward has shown significant improvement and was the No. 1 pick for a reason. He’s ready to go, and the environment he’s entering, while not perfect, is a vast improvement from where the Titans were in 2024. This one is a cut-and-dry decision: It’s Ward.
Prediction: Cam Ward
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New York Giants: Russell Wilson vs. Jameis Winston vs. Jaxson Dart
Two winning seasons in 10 years. That’s where the New York Giants stand. In that time, a plethora of quarterbacks have taken the reins in the hopes of being the franchise's savior of the franchise, and all have failed. The Giants signed Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston in free agency before trading up to the No. 25 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft to select Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart. In their eyes, the next franchise quarterback is in the building, and hopefully, it’s Dart.
The former Ole Miss quarterback wowed with his arm in 2024, earning a 92.5 PFF overall grade and completing 69.2% of his passes for 4,276 yards and 29 touchdowns — a career-best season in his final year in college. Dart is a big-play hunter who can get the ball where it needs to go, but while there’s a lot of potential, he’s a prospect who needs time. Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss offense didn’t ask Dart to make a lot of post-snap reads, so his processing skills may need time to develop.
With Dart likely out of the running early doors, it comes down to Russell Wilson or Jameis Winston. And from there, the choice becomes a lot simpler for the Giants. Winston is an excellent locker-room presence, and he ignited a sinking Cleveland Browns offense in 2024. But he remains a turnover machine, and his 5.2% turnover-worthy play rate led the NFL last season.
Wilson might not be close to the player he was five years ago, but his 79.5 PFF overall grade with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2024 was his best since 2020. A former Super Bowl champion and 10-time Pro Bowler, Wilson will bring veteran experience to the locker room and provide leadership and guidance to Dart while making the Giants more competitive than they’ve been for the past two seasons. Eventually, Wilson will pave the way for Dart, but he likely enters the 2025 season as the Giants’ starter.
Prediction: Russell Wilson
New Orleans Saints: Tyler Shough vs. Spencer Rattler vs. Jake Haener
Derek Carr’s retirement, following a lingering shoulder injury, likely took the Saints' brass by surprise. Although they may have been building for a future without Carr, the decision left them scrambling to address the most important position in the sport after the draft had already concluded.
Spencer Rattler and Jake Haener were the remaining quarterbacks on the roster, and rather than take a quarterback with the No. 9 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, instead drafting Texas tackle Kelvin Banks Jr., the Saints picked Louisville’s Tyler Shough at No. 40.
The answer to who will start the season as the Saints’ starting quarterback isn’t simple. Traits-wise, Rattler is probably the top quarterback on the roster, but he earned a 52.0 PFF overall grade in seven games in 2024, the lowest mark among all quarterbacks, and was sacked 22 times. A new coaching staff, led by Kellen Moore, will probably look to hang its hat on a quarterback of its own, and right now, that looks to be Shough.
The front office spent a second-round pick on Shough, who earned an 87.4 PFF overall grade in 2024, completing 62.1% of his passes for 3,191 yards and 23 passing touchdowns for the Cardinals. The overall direction of the Saints is unclear, though they’ll likely have one of the poorer records in the NFL in 2025. Still, Shough will likely enter the season as the starter. Whether he’s the QB1 by Thanksgiving is an entirely different question.
Prediction: Tyler Shough
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Cleveland Browns: Joe Flacco vs. Kenny Pickett vs. Dillon Gabriel vs. Shedeur Sanders
This quarterback battle feels as open as any. The Browns have four legitimate options to start the season at quarterback: Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders. While the Browns will likely be hunting for a quarterback in the 2026 NFL Draft if none of the four pan out, the front office and coaching staff will still want to be competitive in 2025, as their seats are getting increasingly hotter after the Deshaun Watson mess and the direction of the team in the post-Baker Mayfield era.
Flacco had success with the Browns in 2023, leading the team to a 4-1 record and the playoffs while earning a 72.8 PFF overall grade — his highest since 2014. However, Flacco is 40 years old now, and the Browns don’t have a lot to gain from him starting, or finishing, the season as quarterback. They know who he is, and he should be viewed more as a stable presence in the room to help the younger quarterbacks mature, not the answer to their immediate quarterback problems. If anything, the Browns probably don’t want Flacco to see the field this season.
Cleveland traded a fifth-round pick and Dorian Thompson-Robinson this offseason to the Eagles for Pickett, who is now on his third team in four years. Pickett has shown flashes in three seasons but is on the fast track to becoming a career backup.
Gabriel was one of the Browns’ two third-round picks in 2025 and, in terms of draft capital invested, is the favourite to start. The former Oregon signal-caller earned an 86.8 PFF overall grade in 2024, leading the Ducks to the Big Ten Championship. Sanders, the most polarizing prospect in recent draft history, was selected in the fifth round after a major slide but earned an elite 91.0 PFF overall grade this past season.
Narratives or outside optics won’t matter too much to the Browns; the goal is purely to put the most talented quarterback under center. And even if none of their options project to be the long-term answer, Sanders could be the starter for 2025. Draft order notwithstanding, he is the most talented quarterback on the roster. He has reportedly impressed in OTAs, and while there will be some noise regarding how he found his way to the team, his talent is undeniable.
Prediction: Shedeur Sanders
Indianapolis Colts: Daniel Jones vs. Anthony Richardson
The Colts' front office drafted Anthony Richardson with the No. 4 pick in 2023, knowing that he was a raw prospect but betting on the upside visible through his can’t-miss physical traits. Richardson is one of the best athletes ever to grace the quarterback position, fit with the cannon arm to match, but physical traits alone aren’t enough to succeed at the position, and his early-career struggles are emblematic of that.
The challenger to Richardson is former Giants quarterback Daniel Jones, who joined the Colts in free agency on a one-year, $14 million deal with $13.15 million in guaranteed money. The money involved paints the picture of a real quarterback battle incoming, something that leaves Richardson’s future with the team in flux if he loses said battle.
If the question is who has the most upside, the obvious answer is Richardson, but the warts on his game are big. He earned a 62.2 PFF overall grade in 2024, completing just 47.7% of his passes for 1,814 yards and eight touchdowns with 12 interceptions. His accuracy issues are evident, and over the past two seasons, 30.6% of his throws have been graded as inaccurate or off-target, the highest rate among all quarterbacks. On top of that, Richardson has played just 15 of a possible 34 games since he was drafted. As the cliché goes, the best ability is availability, and Richardson has struggled to stay on the field.
Jones posted a 72.0 PFF overall grade in 2024 before being released by the Giants midway through the season. He joined the Vikings after clearing waivers but never saw the field during their run to the playoffs. Jones is a serious threat to be the Week 1 starter in Indianapolis. The offense from top to bottom is talented, more talented than Jones has been used to for the past six years, and the Colts' front office may believe that Jones gives the team a better shot at making the playoffs in 2025.
Richardson is already behind the eight ball once more, suffering an injury to his throwing shoulder during OTAs, and is now set to miss the Colts’ minicamp. Head coach Shane Steichen told reporters that there is no timetable for Richardson’s return, but when that point comes, Indianapolis will ease him back into throwing. While a few weeks between now and the end of the season won’t change the trajectory of Richardson’s development too much, he still needs those valuable reps. After all, he has thrown just 348 passes in two seasons.
Richardson was always going to need time, and his 12.3-yard average depth of target in 2024, which was the highest at the quarterback position since Tim Tebow in 2011, paints a picture of a player who may need the game to be put on rookie mode for a while. But everything, including the most recent injury to Richardson, points toward the Colts being potentially too far down the garden path. Richardson will likely walk into the 2025 season as the team's starter, but Jones will be breathing down his neck the entire way. The margin for error is thin for general manager Chris Ballard and Steichen with this decision.
Prediction: Anthony Richardson