Looking backward and forward for this season's second-year quarterbacks
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2025
⏱️ 78 minutes
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Summary
The 2024 rookie quarterback class was a big story from the moment that it put six players in the first round of the draft. The group had about as diverse a range of rookie season experiences as possible, from J.J. McCarthy missing the season due to injury, to Jayden Daniels leading the Commanders to the NFC Championship Game. What was 2024 really like for the five guys who played? And what are realistic expectations for all of them (other than McCarthy) going forward. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen give their diagnosis on the former, and prognosis on the latter, on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Hosts: Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Producer: Michael Beller
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the athletic football show. |
| 0:05.0 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:06.2 | Really enjoyed today's show. |
| 0:08.2 | We've been dancing around this one a little bit, kind of hinting at the fact that we |
| 0:11.3 | were going to do it. |
| 0:12.5 | We dug into the second year quarterbacks today, talked about all five guys who were |
| 0:17.2 | drafted in the first round last year and actually played in the regular season. |
| 0:20.8 | So no J.J. McCarthy here. Sorry, Vikings fans. And just tried to contextualize what their rookie |
| 0:25.9 | seasons were for real. Like when you go back and you watch the film, when you look at the |
| 0:31.2 | stats, we're a little bit removed from it. What were these guys as rookies? And based on that, |
| 0:36.2 | what can we expect from them moving forward? Based on what we saw from them as rookies? And based on that, what can we expect from them moving forward? |
| 0:39.2 | Based on what we saw from them as rookies and some of the changes in their situations heading into year two. |
| 0:45.1 | I really enjoyed talking to Derek Kasten about all of these guys. |
| 0:48.4 | I feel like many of them were better than we expected. |
| 0:51.7 | There's just so much collective excitement about this group. |
| 0:54.4 | And after going back and really studying it, I think a lot of that excitement is justified. |
| 0:59.5 | I mean, that obviously applies to Jaden Daniels, but Drake May did so many good things as a rookie. |
| 1:04.3 | I was so impressed by so many things that Michael Pennix did going back and watching those three games |
| 1:08.9 | today. Bo Nix was an incredible story last year and what he did in the second half of the season compared |
| 1:14.1 | to the first half of the season. |
| 1:15.9 | And then we'll talk about Caleb Williams as well. |
| 1:18.0 | But even in a year that was gross and disappointing in so many different ways for that Chicago |
... |
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