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Broncos, Commanders making changes

Rough day (week, season, whatever) to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. A lot of those guys have been getting hurt, and more recently a lot of those guys are getting benched. Several more just today, in fact.

The mild surprise comes from Denver, with the Broncos benching Russell Wilson. This may be less a performance issue (Wilson has played pretty well statistically) than a financial one, with the team not wanting to risk him getting hurt, making it harder to get out of his contract in the offseason. Regardless, Jarrett Stidham will take over.

The Giants are benching Tommy DeVito for Tyrod Taylor, while the Commanders are benching Sam Howell for Jacoby Brissett. Both of these are performance related. Among the flaws of those players, they sure do take a lot of sacks.

Below see the per-game sack numbers of all quarterbacks who have started at least 6 games this year (minimum of 2 sacks per game). Sacks aren't all on the quarterback, of course, but they're usually part of the problem -- slow internal clock, and just not feeling pressure well and getting rid of the ball quickly.

Quarterbacks who have been benched at least once this season are listed in bold. Not all of them have been benched for taking sacks (Mac Jones, for example, is more of a magnet for turnovers). But those are among the factors for some of these players.

QUARTERBACKS, SACKS PER START (2023)
PlayerStartsSacksSk/St
Tommy DeVito6366.0
Daniel Jones6305.0
Zach Wilson11464.2
Sam Howell15604.0
Bryce Young14533.8
Ryan Tannehill7253.6
Will Levis8273.4
Justin Fields11363.3
Russell Wilson15453.0
Gardner Minshew II11322.9
Deshaun Watson6172.8
C.J. Stroud13352.7
Kyler Murray6162.7
Desmond Ridder12312.6
Joshua Dobbs12302.5
Aidan O'Connell8202.5
Dak Prescott15362.4
Lamar Jackson15362.4
Joe Burrow10242.4
Trevor Lawrence15352.3
Baker Mayfield15352.3
Geno Smith13302.3
Jalen Hurts15342.3
Justin Herbert13292.2
Jimmy Garoppolo6132.2
Kirk Cousins8172.1
Mac Jones11222.0

--Andy Richardson

Fantasy Index