The NFL’s rookie quarterbacks are off to a historic start in 2018

Week 3 was a historic one for the NFL’s first-year quarterbacks. Baker Mayfield made his debut while leading the Browns to their first win since 2016. Josh Allen dismantled the Vikings for the league’s biggest upset in more than two decades. Josh Rosen even got his first opportunity to save the Cardinals — even if it didn’t make much sense at the time or in hindsight.

Mayfield and Rosen’s debuts meant all five of 2018’s first-round quarterbacks had seen the field before Week 3 came to a finish. It’s the first time in the modern era that’s ever happened:

In Week 4, Rosen, Allen, Mayfield, and Darnold will all earn starts; it’ll be just the second time in league history four rookies have done that in the same week — the other time was 2012, when Andrew Luck, Ryan Tannehill, Robert Griffin III, and Brandon Weeden all got the call.

But these situations are more than just functions of weak rosters forcing unprepared youngsters into roles for which they aren’t prepared. They could dictate the future of a few franchises across the league. Like, for example:

It’s just one half of one game, but Mayfield’s efficient debut was enough to make Cleveland hopeful it has its first homegrown franchise quarterback since Bernie Kosar. Mayfield took the field thanks to a Tyrod Taylor injury, then instantly made the case he should be the Browns’ starter from Week 4 until his arm falls off. 2018’s No. 1 overall pick entered the game trailing 14-0 in the second quarter and engineered four scoring drives to snap his team’s seasons-long victory drought. He finished his day with 17 completions in 23 attempts — light years ahead of Taylor’s 4-of-14 performance — and even found the end zone for a two-point conversion borrowed liberally from his days at Oklahoma:

Since 2015, the Browns are 1-0 in games where Mayfield plays and 1-32-1 in games he does not. Seems like a good reason to keep him in the lineup. With any luck, the 30th name on Cleveland’s starting QB jersey of shame will be the last one for the foreseeable future.

Darnold put the league on notice with an explosive start in Week 1, throwing for nearly 10 yards per attempt and a pair of touchdowns in a 48-17 blowout of the Lions. He’s been unable to reclaim that magic in the weeks since — and now the Jets have to hope he bottomed in Week 3. The USC product’s college problems bubbled to the surface then, as his inaccuracy and willingness to force bad passes into even worse situations manifested in a 21-17 loss to the Browns. Darnold completed less than half his attempts and threw a pair of interceptions in the final two minutes to squash any chance of a comeback win.

It was an ugly display of the bad traits that haunted him throughout his NCAA career, but Darnold still has plenty of time to recover his balance. He rebounded from throwing a pick-six on the first dang pass of his pro career and wound up completing 76 percent of his attempts against the Lions in Week 1. He threw a pair of interceptions in Week 2, but still threw for 334 yards against the Dolphins. One bad game won’t define him — remember, Peyton Manning’s NFL career started with 11 interceptions in his first four games.

Minnesota was a 17-point favorite to beat the Bills at home Sunday. Instead, this happened:

Allen had the best performance of his budding career in the biggest upset the league’s seen in more than two decades. He finished his day with 235 total yards (196 passing, 39 rushing) and three touchdowns. The Vikings, comparatively, needed a fourth-quarter rally just to outgain the rookie passer and avoid a shutout in a 27-6 defeat.

It was bad for Minnesota:

But great for the Bills, who relinquished their claim as the league’s worst team with the win. It was a major bounceback from Allen, too; the Wyoming product had looked overwhelmed in 1.5 NFL games after taking the reins from beloved Buffalo landmark Nathan Peterman in the season opener. Allen had major questions to answer about his accuracy after completing only 56 percent of his passes while facing Mountain West defenses at Wyoming. He didn’t do much to answer them in his first two games; he completed 24 of his 48 attempts while being sacked eight times and throwing a pair of interceptions.

In Week 3, he dusted a strong Minnesota secondary for 8.9 yards per pass. While his second half was a quiet one — he didn’t have to do much after sprinting out to a 27-0 halftime lead — his ludicrous start against a Super Bowl contender is something the Bills can cling to no matter how bad their 2018 gets.

For 27 minutes Sunday, Sam Bradford was nearly perfect. His 6 of 7, two-touchdown performance through 1.8 quarters gave him a sterling 158.3 passer rating and put the Cardinals in position for their first win of the season.

And then he folded in upon himself like a cardboard mansion, committing three turnovers that helped turn a 14-0 lead into a 16-14 deficit against the Bears with less than five minutes to play. First-year head coach Steve Wilks, sensing the urgency of the situation, decided this was the perfect time to throw Rosen into his first NFL game.

It was not a warmly received decision.

For a minute, it looked as though the decision might pay off. Rosen completed four of his first six passes to push the Cardinals to midfield and needed just 15 more yards to set up a game-winning field goal. Instead, Wilks called a baffling third-and-2 run that was stopped for a loss of three yards by a Bears bullrush that had handcuffed Arizona’s running game all afternoon. Forced into a do-or-die fourth-down situation, Rosen had no choice but to throw into coverage, leading to his first interception as a pro.

It wasn’t a great start for the rookie, but it’s tough to fault him after being thrown to the wolves and then dunked on my his team’s own rotten play-calling in a pivotal moment.

But Wilks is going to give him the chance to build from that moment. The Cardinals named Rosen their starting quarterback this week. Even if he struggles, he could be the team’s starter by default through 2018. Arizona can save $4 million this fall by demoting Bradford from the active roster, and that would leave Mike Glennon — the poor man’s Brock Osweiler — as Rosen’s backup.

Jackson always had the most difficult path to playing time among this year’s first-round rookie quarterbacks. Not only did he fall to the 32nd pick of the draft, but he also had to weave his way past a reenergized Joe Flacco rather than Nathan Peterman, Josh McCown, zero knee cartilage-having Sam Bradford, or a in-the-last-year-of-his-contract Tyrod Taylor.

But the Ravens have still found a way to insert the 2016 Heisman Trophy winner into their lineup. He’s earned snaps at quarterback, wide receiver, and in the backfield as Baltimore has tried to find the best possible use of his talents while keeping Flacco installed as a starter. He took 30 snaps in a Week 1 blowout win over Buffalo, then was limited to just six plays in a loss to the Bengals. That trend continued in Week 3, where he played just two downs against the Broncos, failing to crack the box score in the process.

He did almost get martyred by his own starting quarterback, however.

Barring a Flacco disaster, this looks like Jackson’s role for 2018. The veteran quarterback has been asked to hurl the Ravens back into contention, throwing 43 passes per game in Baltimore’s 2-1 start. He’s been good enough to lock down his team’s starting spot — meaning John Harbaugh is going to have to get creative to work his rookie QB into the lineup.

All in all, you’ve got two heroes, one goat, one debutant who got tossed directly into the fire, and poor Lamar Jackson, who is stuck finding innovative ways to crack the lineup. That’s not perfect, but that’s a group that got both the Browns and Bills key victories in Week 3, which is no small feat. In Week 4, we may be able to see what Rosen can do with a clean slate rather than being forced to clean up his predecessor’s mistakes. And we’ll get a better idea of which Darnold is the real one — the guy who crushed the Lions, or the one who rolled over for Cleveland.

In 2017, it took Mitchell Trubisky a full month to unseat sentient scarecrow Mike Glennon as the Bears starter. In 2016, Jared Goff waited more than half the season behind Case Keenum in Los Angeles. 2018’s passers needed only three weeks to turn their potential into production. Three of those five players have already been instrumental in wins.

This class still has a long way to go, but early returns suggest the ‘18 draft unleashed a new round of franchise quarterbacks on the league.