The Dolphins cut Josh Rosen yesterday. It's possible he'll draw some interest; former top-10 picks usually do. But it doesn't look like anyone should hold out hope for him turning his career around. It seldom happens with quarterbacks who haven't shown it by now.
Rosen struggled as a rookie with Arizona, which wasn't a huge surprise; lots of rookies struggle. Had the Cardinals not been in the position to draft Kyler Murray and pair him with Kliff Kingsbury, he'd likely have had another chance with Arizona, and maybe things would have gone better.
But after landing on his feet with the Dolphins and being given the opportunity to start, he washed out of the lineup pretty quickly. Highly regarded college quarterbacks who continue to struggle mightily in their second year -- seldom do those guys go on to have successful careers.
In the last 30 years, 41 other quarterbacks have been drafted with top 10 picks and attempted at least 100 passes in year 2 of their career. (I excluded guys who either rode the bench or got injured and didn't play much in those second seasons, like Philip Rivers and Matthew Stafford.) Among those quarterbacks, 16 really struggled in those second seasons, which I'm defining as completing under 57 percent of their passes. Of those 16, I think three can be said to have had reasonably successful careers: Eli Manning, Kerry Collins and Michael Vick (up and down). Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl and Sam Bradford had his moments, but I don't think anyone would say they had good careers.
The rest of the quarterbacks in the Rosen area all flopped: Carr, Locker, Harrington, Klingler, Sanchez et al.
| TOP-10 QUARTERBACKS, YEAR 2 STATS | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Pk | Player | Com | Att | Pct | YdP | TDP | Int |
| 2017 | 2 | Mitchell Trubisky | 289 | 434 | 66.6 | 3223 | 24 | 12 |
| 2017 | 10 | Patrick Mahomes | 383 | 580 | 66.0 | 5097 | 50 | 12 |
| 1999 | 1 | Tim Couch | 137 | 215 | 63.7 | 1483 | 7 | 9 |
| 2006 | 3 | Vince Young | 238 | 382 | 62.3 | 2546 | 9 | 17 |
| 1998 | 1 | Peyton Manning | 331 | 533 | 62.1 | 4135 | 26 | 15 |
| 2016 | 1 | Jared Goff | 296 | 477 | 62.1 | 3804 | 28 | 7 |
| 2018 | 3 | Sam Darnold | 273 | 441 | 61.9 | 3924 | 19 | 13 |
| 1995 | 3 | Steve McNair | 88 | 143 | 61.5 | 1197 | 6 | 4 |
| 2015 | 2 | Marcus Mariota | 276 | 451 | 61.2 | 3426 | 26 | 9 |
| 2003 | 1 | Carson Palmer | 263 | 432 | 60.9 | 2897 | 18 | 18 |
| 2015 | 1 | Jameis Winston | 345 | 567 | 60.8 | 4090 | 28 | 18 |
| 2003 | 7 | Byron Leftwich | 267 | 441 | 60.5 | 2941 | 15 | 10 |
| 2012 | 8 | Ryan Tannehill | 355 | 588 | 60.4 | 3913 | 24 | 17 |
| 2016 | 2 | Carson Wentz | 265 | 440 | 60.2 | 3296 | 33 | 7 |
| 2012 | 1 | Andrew Luck | 343 | 570 | 60.2 | 3822 | 23 | 9 |
| 2012 | 2 | Robert Griffin III | 274 | 456 | 60.1 | 3203 | 16 | 12 |
| 2018 | 1 | Baker Mayfield | 317 | 534 | 59.4 | 3827 | 22 | 21 |
| 2018 | 7 | Josh Allen | 271 | 461 | 58.8 | 3089 | 20 | 9 |
| 2014 | 3 | Blake Bortles | 355 | 606 | 58.6 | 4428 | 35 | 18 |
| 2008 | 3 | Matt Ryan | 263 | 451 | 58.3 | 2916 | 22 | 14 |
| 2011 | 10 | Blaine Gabbert | 162 | 278 | 58.3 | 1662 | 9 | 6 |
| 2005 | 1 | Alex Smith | 257 | 442 | 58.1 | 2890 | 16 | 16 |
| 1999 | 2 | Donovan McNabb | 330 | 569 | 58.0 | 3365 | 21 | 13 |
| 1993 | 1 | Drew Bledsoe | 400 | 691 | 57.9 | 4555 | 25 | 27 |
| 2011 | 1 | Cam Newton | 280 | 485 | 57.7 | 3869 | 19 | 12 |
| 2002 | 1 | David Carr | 167 | 295 | 56.6 | 2013 | 9 | 13 |
| 2011 | 8 | Jake Locker | 177 | 314 | 56.4 | 2176 | 10 | 11 |
| 1995 | 5 | Kerry Collins | 204 | 364 | 56.0 | 2454 | 14 | 9 |
| 2002 | 3 | Joey Harrington | 309 | 554 | 55.8 | 2880 | 17 | 22 |
| 1992 | 6 | David Klinger | 190 | 343 | 55.4 | 1935 | 6 | 9 |
| 2001 | 1 | Michael Vick | 231 | 421 | 54.9 | 2936 | 16 | 8 |
| 2009 | 5 | Mark Sanchez | 278 | 507 | 54.8 | 3291 | 17 | 13 |
| 1994 | 6 | Trent Dilfer | 224 | 415 | 54.0 | 2774 | 4 | 18 |
| 2007 | 1 | JaMarcus Russell | 198 | 368 | 53.8 | 2423 | 13 | 8 |
| 2006 | 10 | Matt Leinart | 60 | 112 | 53.6 | 647 | 2 | 4 |
| 2010 | 1 | Sam Bradford | 191 | 357 | 53.5 | 2164 | 6 | 6 |
| 2018 | 10 | Josh Rosen | 58 | 109 | 53.2 | 567 | 1 | 5 |
| 1994 | 3 | Heath Shuler | 66 | 125 | 52.8 | 745 | 3 | 7 |
| 2004 | 1 | Eli Manning | 294 | 557 | 52.8 | 3762 | 24 | 17 |
| 1993 | 2 | Rick Mirer | 195 | 381 | 51.2 | 2151 | 11 | 7 |
| 1999 | 3 | Akili Smith | 118 | 267 | 44.2 | 1253 | 3 | 6 |
It will escape no one's notice that Mitchell Trubisky had the "best" second season by this metric, which looks pretty sketchy. Completion percentage isn't everything. Perhaps Rosen will end up as the next Kerry Collins, bouncing around for a while until finally finding a home somewhere and emerging as a viable NFL starter.
But most likely, if he were going to emerge as a quality player, he'd probably have shown more to this point.
--Andy Richardson