Somewhere in Seattle, Sam Darnold is still admiring the Super Bowl ring he spent half a decade being told he’d never sniff. Somewhere else, Patrick Mahomes is rehabbing from a disastrous ACL injury after watching a postseason for the first time in his career from a couch instead of a sideline. And in Philadelphia, Jalen Hurts watched the Divisional Round onwards from his own living room as well, season over, because a 49ers team running on fumes and adrenaline still had enough left to bury the Eagles in the Wild Card round.
Mahomes in ’22. Mahomes again in ’23. Hurts in ’24. For three straight years, a Black quarterback stood on that final stage, and now, a guy who spent years being the punchline before he became the answer just broke the streak. And as betting sites calibrate their odds for next season, the bets on Black QBs in the game aren’t expected to be surefire contenders.
Outlets such as the popular Thunderpick have already priced up their Super Bowl favorites for the 2026 season. At the top of the odds list come Matthew Stafford’s Los Angeles Rams, Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills, and Darnold’s defending champion Seahawks. They are expecting to end the year as champions, but for these four Black quarterbacks, the bookies are also projecting a big year on a personal level, specifically in the amount of passing yards they could well rack up.
Dak Prescott
Here’s the cruelty of it: Dak Prescott amassed a career-best 67.3 percent completion rate, 4,552 yards, third-most in football, and you could ask half the league’s fan base who led the NFL in completions last season and get a shrug. The Cowboys were already dead by the time the stat sheet filled out — 7-9-1 under first-year coach Brian Schottenheimer, eliminated weeks before Prescott got pulled at halftime of a finale that meant nothing. He threw 30 touchdowns against 10 picks.
Why does a quarterback this productive keep getting talked about like a tragic figure instead of an elite one? Brock Hoffman left for Pittsburgh, Terence Steele is still getting beaten off the right edge, and Dallas restructured Prescott’s own deal to keep CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens in the building — not to extend his ceiling, but to protect the weapons around him. The yards will come; a projected line of 3,999.5 almost guarantees that. Whether January ever cares again is the only question that matters for Dak.
C.J. Stroud
Picture NRG Stadium going quiet in Week 9 — C. J. Stroud face-down in concussion protocol after a hit against Denver, Davis Mills holding the fort, nobody saying it out loud, but everybody thinking it. Then picture the exhale when Stroud walked back into that huddle and ripped off six straight wins to close at 12-5, a second straight playoff berth, a Wild Card win over Pittsburgh that felt like validation.
Then New England happened. Four interceptions. Under 50 percent completion. A 28-16 funeral that sent the entire organization into an offseason of penance.
Houston signed Wyatt Teller, signed Braden Smith, traded for David Montgomery, traded up in the first round for interior lineman Keylan Rutledge, and brought Tank Dell home. Does adding that much beef in one winter read as confidence, or as panic wearing a plan’s clothing?
Stroud’s sack rate got cut by more than half once the protection actually showed up late last season — that number matters more than any single signing. The infrastructure’s finally there, and the projected 3,649.5 yards is a testament to that. Now it has to hold past Thanksgiving.
Caleb Williams
The Wild Card miracle against Green Bay and the gut-punch overtime pick against the Rams live in the same season, sometimes the same week of film study, Caleb Williams almost certainly didn’t ask to relive. A year ago, the Heisman winner who’d gone first overall in 2024 was getting bust whispers.
Does anybody remember that now? Ben Johnson walks in, and suddenly, Williams is setting the Bears’ single-season passing record at 3,942 yards, throwing 27 touchdowns against seven picks, engineering seven fourth-quarter comebacks, and landing on the cover of Madden NFL 27. Chicago goes 11-6, wins the NFC North, and GM Ryan Poles is already laying groundwork for a max extension before Williams is even eligible to sign it — with the Mahomes deal in Kansas City setting a number that should make every cap analyst in the building sweat.
What does it do to a 24-year-old’s head to go from draft-bust rumors to contract-projection headlines in one coaching hire? The turnovers are still in there, lurking. Cleaning those up is the only thing standing between Williams and clearing 3,599.5 yards again, an achievement that will put him into the QB tier he’s already being talked about in.
Jordan Love
Nobody wants to say “albatross” out loud about a $220 million contract, but three playoff trips and three first-round deaths will get the word circling anyway — even after the 32-touchdown breakout back in 2023 that earned him the deal in the first place. The latest one hurt the worst — a 21-3 lead, gone, a 31-27 loss to the Bears after Love threw for 323 yards and four touchdowns in the best playoff start of his career and watched it not be enough.
A thumb injury, a shoulder that never quite went away, a Week 16 concussion against Chicago that cost him the final two games — he still finished with 3,381 yards, 23 touchdowns, and only six picks across 15 starts. Then the offseason took two more bodies out of his receiver room, Romeo Doubs to New England, Dontayvion Wicks to Philadelphia, even as Green Bay locked up Jayden Reed and Christian Watson and waited on Tucker Kraft’s surgically repaired knee.
Love told reporters he still has “some weapons,” and the room went quiet in the way rooms go quiet when nobody quite believes the sentence they just heard. Does this receiver group trust him enough to let him cook, cook to the amount of 3,549.5 yards, or is Green Bay building an offense designed to protect him from his own contract?
