Football
Five NFL teams will open training camp this month without a settled quarterback, and Pro Football Network’s Jacob Infante sees the same force deciding four of them: how close each team is to winning now.
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Arizona barely qualifies. Infante ranks the Cardinals fifth because the real question is Jacoby Brissett’s contract, not the depth chart. Brissett was a functional starter in 2025, Gardner Minshew arrived as insurance, and Arizona spent a third-round pick on Carson Beck. If Brissett holds out, Minshew has the experience to open the season.
Infante doesn’t expect it to come to that. “I do think Brissett is gonna come back,” he said on PFN’s The Hot List. “I think they’ll figure out some sort of pay raise, even if it’s minor, and then he’ll start for Arizona this season.”
The Raiders present the cleaner version of the same logic. Las Vegas took Fernando Mendoza first overall, then signed Kirk Cousins, and Infante would let the rookie wait. “That starting job should belong to Kirk Cousins, at least to start,” he said. “I think it makes a lot of sense to start Cousins to slowly ease Mendoza into things. There’s no need to rush.” A team not built to chase January can afford patience.
Atlanta is where the pattern gets interesting. Michael Penix Jr. enters his third season coming off a partially torn ACL, and the Falcons added Tua Tagovailoa on a one-year deal to push him. Infante still gives Penix the opening job, but not much rope.
“I think [Penix] will end up winning this quarterback battle, but I do think that [Tagovailoa] is gonna end up starting sooner rather than later,” he said, adding that “his leash is gonna be very tight.” In a soft NFC South, Atlanta has enough talent to make the margin for error slim.
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Minnesota carries the highest stakes on the list. J.J. McCarthy’s second season was rough, yet the Vikings still went 9-8, and they signed Kyler Murray to compete. Infante isn’t hedging. “I think this is Kyler’s job to lose,” he said. “I think McCarthy is gonna be on a short leash.” With the Bears and Packers both in the playoffs a year ago, the Vikings can’t afford another lost year at the position.
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Cleveland tops the ranking, and Infante’s read on it flips the whole framework. He calls it the most contested battle and the bleakest, between Deshaun Watson, who missed 2025 after an Achilles tear, and Shedeur Sanders. By Pro Football Network’s QB Impact metric, Watson graded as the worst starter in football in 2024, and Sanders ranked as the second-worst quarterback in the league as a rookie.
Infante doesn’t dress it up. “Watson sucks. I hate to say it,” he said. “Watson just isn’t that guy anymore.” His case for Sanders isn’t about production. It’s about direction. The Browns traded Myles Garrett to the Rams for [Jared Verse] and draft capital, then spent the offseason getting younger, double-dipping at receiver with [KC] Concepcion and Denzel Boston. Cleveland is not a roster chasing a playoff spot.
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That is exactly why the Browns are the outlier. Everywhere else, proximity to contention argues for the steadier veteran. In Cleveland, the absence of it argues for the opposite. “I think you go with the upside,” Infante said. “You give [Shedeur] Sanders the reps to develop, and then you go from there.”
Four of these jobs should tilt toward experience by Week 1. The one that shouldn’t belongs to the team with the least to lose.
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