NFL Teams Turn to Bargain Backups With High-Priced QBs Sidelined

The NFL is going deeper into its pool of alternative starting quarterbacks this weekend.

The Sunday of Week 9 of the season arrives with the Eagles’ Joe Milton III, the Cardinals’ Gardner Minshew II, and the Browns’ Shedeur Sanders slated to start for the first time this season. There’s also Drew Lock making another fill-in start for the Seahawks. Carson Wentz is penciled in to start Monday night for the Vikings.

That’s after undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano became the Ravens’ third different starter of the season Thursday night to open Week 9. And starter No. 4 is on the way for Baltimore. The Ravens just completed a trade with the Cardinals to add Jacoby Brissett. He’ll try to hold things together for a team that’s reeling without its two-time MVP and $260 million quarterback, Lamar Jackson, and his veteran backup, Tyler Huntley.

The 2026 starting debuts Sunday of Milton, Minshew, and Sanders will mean that the 32 NFL teams collectively will have used 47 different starters at quarterback this season. According to the Associated Press, that will be the league’s most through nine weeks of a season since there were 48 in 2019.

The NFL’s leaders and rule-makers have always believed that high-scoring games and wide-open passing offenses are appealing to fans and integral to the league’s mammoth viewership figures. And nothing is more important to passing and scoring than keeping star quarterbacks healthy and on the field.

Every time fans, viewers, and even analysts on broadcasts complain that quarterbacks are overly protected by officials throwing flags for roughing-the-passer penalties, they overlook just how important it is to the NFL’s overarching success for the most prominent quarterbacks to be in the lineup.

According to the Front Office Sports ranking of the league’s heftiest contracts based on their average annual values, the NFL’s 13 highest-paid players are quarterbacks. Texans pass rusher Will Anderson is the highest-paid non-quarterback on the list, at No. 14 overall.

The Cost of Injuries

So it is an issue that Jackson, who’s in the fourth season of a five-year deal worth $52 million per year, is on the injured reserve list with a thumb injury that may have ended his season. It’s an issue that the Eagles are without Jalen Hurts, their $255 million quarterback, who is not expected to play again this season while being treated with blood thinners after blood clots were found in his lungs.

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni, with his team on a six-game losing skid, made the switch from Tanner McKee to Milton for Sunday’s game against the Giants. The Eagles thus have gone from a quarterback with a contract worth $51 million per season and a former Super Bowl MVP, in Hurts, to a third-year pro who’s making his first NFL start and has a salary of $1.075 million for this season, the league minimum for a player of his experience level.

“This is just what I felt we needed to do right at this particular moment to give ourselves the best chance to win this weekend,” Sirianni told reporters Friday of the switch from McKee to Milton.

The Backup Carousel 

The Eagles will join the Giants, Ravens, and Bears as teams to use three different starters this season. The Giants are going with J.J. McCarthy after trading for the former first-round draft choice by the Vikings. He has followed Jaxson Dart, who is sidelined by a knee injury, and veteran backup Jameis Winston. The Bears have used Caleb Williams, Tyson Bagent, and Case Keenum.

The Cardinals and Browns will join the Seahawks and Vikings among the seven teams that will each have used two different starters this season. Sanders gets the start for Cleveland after Deshaun Watson was in the NFL concussion protocol this week; he was cleared and reportedly was to travel with the Browns to New Orleans for their game Sunday against the Saints.

Cardinals coach Mike LaFleur made the move to Minshew and temporarily dropped Brissett from first to third on the Cardinals’ depth chart, behind rookie Carson Beck, before he was traded to Baltimore.

Lock makes another start for the Seahawks in place of Sam Darnold, who’s sidelined this time by a quadriceps injury. Wentz fills in again for Kyler Murray, who’s plagued by a hamstring injury, with the Vikings coming off their first loss of the season.