Quarterback Questions and Contract Chaos in the AFC North

Of quarterbacks, contracts and vacation time

The OTAs, mandatory and otherwise, are over, and everybody in the NFL is headed to vacation to charge their battery for training camp starting in about five or six weeks, depending on the team.

The rosters of the teams won’t change much between now and then, so these are pretty much the players they have.

As such, then, this is a good time to take a quick look at the teams in the AFC North.

The Browns, who are looking up at the other three clubs in the division, still aren’t sure how their quarterback room will shake out, but it would be a surprise if anybody other than Joe Flacco will be under center in the opener against the Cincinnati Bengals. However that happens, head coach Kevin Stefanski and General Manager Andrew Berry have to get it right, for, considering last season’s 3-14 crash-and-burn and the Deshaun Watson debacle, you have to wonder how patient owner Jimmy Haslam will be, and for how long.

The Baltimore Ravens don’t have many questions otherwise, but the one they do have — and have had for several years now — is franchise-changing in that they have to figure out how to make quarterback Lamar Jackson as good in the postseason as he is in the regular season. The clock is ticking on that. That window of opportunity to not just get to the Super Bowl, but to win it, won’t stay open forever. This isn’t lost on the Ravens’ top people, most notably head coach John Harbaugh, for if they can’t get it done, then it will haunt them forever.

The Pittsburgh Steelers finally have their quarterback in Aaron Rodgers — Art Rooney Sr. and Chuck Noll must be turning over in their graves with how all that came down — but now they have to hope there is enough time for the offense, which was mediocre at best last year, to gel. They also have to put out a fire with their future Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive end T.J. Watt being disgruntled with his contract situation. So, there is much to do in Pittsburgh. The Steelers are anything but a finished product right now. However, there’s no head coach in the NFL more capable of getting a team through all this than Mike Tomlin.

Then there’s the Bengals, who are seemingly headed down the same slippery slope that cost them a playoff spot — and quite likely a deep run — last season. The Bengals are known as NFL’s penny-pinchers, and they lived up to it in 2024 when they fought with standout wide receivers JaMarr Chase and Tee Higgins over contracts right up to the opener. It caused them to get off to a slow start and they couldn’t recover, even with quarterback Joe Burrow. Now it’s with the defense that the Bengals are tempting fate, with their two ends, top draft pick Shemar Stewart and Trey Hendrickson, with Watt and Myles Garrett the best edge rushers in the league, both being ticked off about their contracts. If the situation drags right up to the opener again, causing the Bengals to struggle out of the gate and miss the playoffs, then the fans in Cincinnati will be beside themselves.

Steve King