
September 30th, 2026
Drake Maye has followed up a season in which he was the MVP runner-up with an opening month reminiscent of some of the biggest recent draft busts.
J.J. McCarthy likewise finds himself in not-so-illustrious company after being traded away following a swift flameout in Minnesota.
Two of the six quarterbacks selected in the first round of the 2024 draft—a number that tied the record—are off to a rather poor start in the 2026 season.
Let's begin with Maye, who rose to stardom in his second season in 2025, leading the NFL in passer rating (113.5), completion percentage (72.0) and yards per attempt (8.9), and finishing a close second to Matthew Stafford in MVP voting while helping the Patriots reach the Super Bowl.
New England managed to make the playoff run despite rather unremarkable playoff performances from Maye against some of the league’s premier defenses, yet the situation has only deteriorated over the first three games of this season.
Maye has turned the ball over seven times in the first three games while producing only one touchdown for the Patriots, which is the first time since 2007 that any quarterback has done that.
The one positive is that the last QB to do it was Drew Brees, who recovered to have a solid season that year and a Hall of Fame career after that.
The other team Maye plays for is far less encouraging: his 58.6 passer rating is the fifth time in the last 10 seasons that a quarterback has been under 60 after starting the first three games.
The other quarterbacks on that list include notable draft busts such as Anthony Richardson (55.9 in 2024), Justin Fields (50 in 2022), Zach Wilson (51.6 in 2021) and DeShone Kizer (53.2 in 2017).
The Patriots have scored only 29 points on offense so far this season — they had a defensive touchdown in a Week 2 win over Pittsburgh — the lowest total through three games since the Jets had 20 in 2021 in the first three starts of Wilson's career.
McCarthy suffered a season-ending knee injury in his first exhibition game for the Vikings, becoming only the third top-10 quarterback not to take a single snap as a rookie.
He started last season as the starter and won NFC Offensive Player of the Week in his debut, but injuries limited him to just 10 starts that season.
After dropping to third string this season, following a last-place finish among all qualifiers with a 72.6 passer rating the previous year, McCarthy will now look for a fresh start with the New York Giants.
Since the common draft era began in 1967, McCarthy is only the sixth quarterback selected in the top 10 to have made 10 or fewer starts for the team that drafted him.
Rich Campbell, whom Green Bay selected sixth overall in 1981, threw 68 passes during his career and never started a game for the Packers.
San Francisco traded away Trey Lance, its No. 3 pick in 2021, after only four starts, once Brock Purdy had taken over the starting role for the 49ers.
Jack Thompson, picked third in 1979, went on to make five starts for Cincinnati; Marty Domres, taken ninth in 1969, made six starts for the Chargers; and Andre Ware, drafted seventh in 1990, had six starts for Detroit.
None of those quarterbacks achieved any measure of success in their new environments.
Case Keenum’s win for the Chicago Bears in his first appearance in nearly three years was just the latest example of a team succeeding without its starting quarterback.
In total, quarterbacks who did not start in Week 1 have gone 6-0 this season when filling in, with Atlanta’s Michael Penix, Washington’s Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston of the Giants also joining that list this week with wins.
Drew Lock emerged victorious in his starting debut for Seattle in Week 2, following Sam Darnold's injury in the opener, while Carson Wentz similarly stepped in for Minnesota that same week after Kyler Murray was sidelined.
Murray made his return this past week and secured a win, whereas Darnold and the Seahawks suffered a defeat at the hands of Mariota and the Commanders.
According to ESPN, this marks the first time since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger that six quarterbacks who did not start the opener all won in Week 2 or Week 3, not counting the 1987 season with replacement players.
Keenum's victory in his inaugural start for the Bears secured him wins with a seventh franchise, having previously achieved the feat with Houston, the Rams, Minnesota, Denver, Washington and Cleveland.
This equaled Ryan Fitzpatrick's record for the greatest number of teams for which a quarterback has secured a win as a starter.
The Minnesota Vikings' start is something not witnessed in almost 70 years.
Driven by a dominant defense, the Vikings are 3-0 even though they have failed to reach the fairly ordinary mark of 250 yards of offense in any game.
The last time a team did that while winning its first three games of a season was in 1957, when the Cleveland Browns did it with Paul Brown as coach and Jim Brown as a star rookie running back.
Cleveland reached the NFL title game that season before losing to Detroit.
In fact, only two other teams since 1950 had managed three-game winning streaks without gaining 250 yards in any game at any point in a season.
Tampa Bay did it in 1999 and Minnesota in 1969.
The Buccaneers made it to the NFC title game that season and the Vikings reached the Super Bowl before losing to Kansas City.
In all, the Vikings are one of 328 teams to start a season 3-0 since 1939, and their average yardage differential of minus-81.3 per game ranks second-worst, behind only Seattle's minus-89.3 in 2020.
The Los Angeles Chargers and Houston Texans, who began the season among the ten teams with the best odds to win the Super Bowl, are still seeking their first wins.
The Chargers dropped to 0-3 in a highly surprising manner, losing 24-16 to Buffalo despite producing five takeaways and holding a plus-four turnover margin.
Since 2013, teams with at least five takeaways and a plus-four turnover margin have gone 81-3-1 in the regular season and playoffs.
The other losses prior to Sunday serve as a painful reminder for Chargers fans.
Their team lost the 2022 wild-card playoff game under those circumstances to Jacksonville, as well as a Week 17 game to Denver in 2015.
The most recent team aside from the Chargers to have suffered such a defeat was Arizona in 2012, against Atlanta.
The Chargers and Texans must defy considerable odds to secure a playoff berth; merely six teams have ever accomplished such a feat in a nonstrike season after commencing 0-3.
The sole team to have achieved this in the current century is Houston, which accomplished it last season and in 2018.
Prior to that, this feat had been accomplished by Buffalo in 1998, Detroit in 1995, the Chargers in 1992, and the Jets in 1981.
After throwing a late interception on a potential game-winning drive in Sunday's loss to the Giants, Cam Ward fell to 3-17 in his career as a starter for Tennessee since being drafted first overall in 2025.
In the common draft era, only two other quarterbacks taken first overall have suffered as many losses in their first 20 starts as Ward.
Hall of Famer Troy Aikman was also 3-17 after losing all 11 of his starts as a rookie in 1989 with Dallas, and Bryce Young, drafted first by Carolina in 2024, likewise went 3-17 over his first 20 starts.
Among quarterbacks selected first overall, Andrew Luck and John Elway share the highest number of victories through their first 20 starts, each tallying 14.
The sole others to post a winning record after 20 starts were Carson Palmer (11-9) and Michael Vick (10-8-1).
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September 30th, 2026

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