The NFL Has 5 Quarterbacks Who Could Change Teams Before The Season Start

Five starting quarterbacks are changing addresses before the 2026 season kicks off, and not one of these moves is pretty. One franchise handed a guy $212 million and then had to pay nearly a hundred million more just to show him the door. One team traded away a former first-round pick for what amounts to a coupon. One quarterback flew across the country the night he got his walking papers and landed a job the next morning for next to nothing. This isn’t a quarterback carousel. It’s a five-car pileup, and somebody’s paying for the damage either way.

The Rumor Mill Lies. The Spreadsheet Doesn’t

Every offseason, the talking heads fill three hours of radio debating destinations, system fits, and “culture.” What they don’t talk about, because it’s not sexy, is the number that actually decides everything. Dead money. Guaranteed cash, a team still owes a quarterback after he’s gone. It doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t care about your new head coach or your shiny draft pick. It just sits on the cap and eats the money you were going to use on a pass rusher. One team alone is absorbing $99.2 million in dead money across two years, nearly a third of what the entire $301.2 million salary cap allows in a single season.

Five Names, Five Different Kinds of Pain

Two of these guys got cut loose with massive financial grenades going off behind them. One got shipped out for a late-round pick that will be forgotten before it’s ever used. One is 24 years old, available, and apparently not exciting enough to make a team reach for the phone. And one just needed somebody — anybody — to believe in him again after a year on the shelf. Every one of these stories ends the same way: somebody wins, somebody loses, and the contract is always the real reason why.

1. Arizona Is Paying $54.7 Million in Dead Cap to Watch Kyler Murray Play for Minnesota

The Cardinals cut Murray on March 11 and immediately started writing checks they’ll be cashing for two years. Arizona carries $47.5 million in 2026 dead money and another $7.2 million in 2027, $54.7 million total in cap charges for a quarterback who won’t play a single snap in a Cardinals uniform. They pulled the trigger before March 15, when another $19.5 million of his 2027 salary would have been permanently locked in. Murray flew to Minneapolis that same night, met with Vikings brass the next morning, and signed for $1.3 million, the veteran minimum, by Thursday afternoon. Minnesota got a twice-Pro Bowl quarterback for next to nothing. Arizona is eating $54.7 million for the privilege of watching him thrive somewhere else.

2. Chris Grier Gave Tua $212 Million

If you want to understand how a franchise can completely blow up its own future in one transaction, look no further than South Beach. GM Chris Grier signed Tua Tagovailoa to a $212 million extension before the 2024 season. Miami went 2-7, Grier got fired in October, and the new front office inherited a quarterback who threw a career-high 15 interceptions in 14 starts, posted an 88.5 passer rating, and got benched before the season ended. Releasing Tua triggered the single largest dead cap hit in NFL history — $99.2 million — split $55.4 million in 2026 and $43.8 million in 2027 after the Dolphins exercised an option bonus before cutting him. Tua signed with the Atlanta Falcons for the veteran minimum. Dolphins fans are literally paying for a quarterback to play in Atlanta. Chris Grier is somewhere watching this unfold. At least he doesn’t have to write the checks.

3. The Jets Paid $7 Million to Give the Chiefs a Quarterback for Free

Justin Fields went 2-7 as the Jets’ starter last season, ranked 31st out of 36 qualified passers in Total QBR at 37.3, and walked into a locker room that had already stopped believing. New York traded him to Kansas City for a 2027 sixth-round pick, a pick so late it’s basically a placeholder, and still had to eat $7 million of his $10 million guaranteed salary just to get it done. Fields is 16-37 as a career starter. Fourth team in four years. But here’s the twist nobody saw coming: Mahomes tore his ACL and LCL in December. If he’s not ready for Week 1, Justin Fields, the guy the Jets basically paid to take off their hands, is starting for the defending champions. Football is not a fair sport.

4. Anthony Richardson Is 24, Built Like a Freight Train, and Nobody’s Calling

This is the one that should make teams nervous. The Colts gave Richardson permission to seek a trade at the combine, and as of mid-March, ESPN’s Colts beat reporter Stephen Holder said no deal is imminent, though he named Green Bay as a “particular team to monitor.” The résumé is rough: 50.6 percent completions across 15 career starts, the worst mark of any quarterback in that sample. The cap hit is a manageable $10.8 million. The Packers traded a seventh-round pick to the Titans for Malik Willis in 2024 and turned him into a $67.5 million starting quarterback this offseason. LaFleur clearly can develop quarterbacks. The question is whether Richardson’s ceiling justifies the same bet, or whether his floor is what you’re actually buying. At 24, the window is still open. It just isn’t as wide as it used to be.

5. Will Levis Deserves a Second Chance. He Just Needs Someone to Offer One

Nobody on this list has taken more of a beating — literally — than Will Levis. Twenty-one touchdowns, 16 interceptions across 21 career starts, then a shoulder surgery in July 2025 that cost him the entire season before he ever got a shot at redemption. The Titans drafted Cam Ward first overall, which is the franchise’s way of saying the conversation is over without actually having it. ESPN’s Ben Solak said he’d be “stunned” if Tennessee doesn’t move him. The Jaguars make natural sense; head coach Liam Coen was his offensive coordinator at Kentucky and already knows what he’s got. Levis has been sacked 69 times across those 21 starts — 28 in 2023, 41 in 2024, a number that says as much about the chaos around him as it does about him. He hasn’t had a fair shake yet. Whether anyone in a front office believes that enough to trade for him is the last unanswered question on this list.

The Losers Signed the Extensions. The Winners Just Waited

Every offseason has winners and losers, and this one drew the lines about as clearly as you’ll ever see. Miami owes $99.2 million to a quarterback playing in Atlanta for the minimum. Arizona is eating $54.7 million in dead cap to watch their former franchise guy play for Minnesota. The Jets handed over $7 million just to get the privilege of sending away a first-round pick for a throwaway draft selection. Meanwhile, the Vikings got a Pro Bowl quarterback for $1.3 million. The Falcons got a former franchise arm for the table scraps. The Chiefs got a bridge starter so cheaply it barely stings. The lesson writes itself: the teams that win the offseason aren’t always the ones who paid the most. Sometimes they’re just the ones who were smart enough or lucky enough to let someone else make the mistake first.

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Sources:
Cardinals officially release QB Kyler Murray — Reuters
Sources: Jets to trade QB Justin Fields to Chiefs for 2027 pick — ESPN
Falcons officially sign QB Tua Tagovailoa to 1-year contract — Falcons Wire/USA Today
Packers Are ‘Team to Monitor’ for Former First-Round Quarterback — Sports Illustrated
NFL insider ‘would be stunned’ if Titans don’t trade Will Levis — Titans Wire/USA Today
The Dolphins become the latest team to take on a big dead cap charge with $99.2M for Tua Tagovailoa — Fox Sports