Welcome to the first Cleveland Browns quarterback tracker.
Each Monday through April 21, three days before the start of the draft, we’ll devote this space to the game’s most important position. Who’s available? Which draft prospects are visiting Berea, Ohio? Which free agents might have ties to the Browns?
Sometimes, the tracker will be in a list format. Sometimes, we’ll address rumors, contracts or draft rankings. Along the way, we’ll explore various angles, options, tidbits and scenarios as the Browns prepare to add at least two quarterbacks to their group ahead of the 2025 season.
We start with some potential free-agent options for Cleveland, and ahead of that we share, via TruMedia, a list of the top 10 impending unrestricted free-agent quarterbacks, sorted by EPA per dropback over the last two seasons (minimum 500 offensive snaps played).
Sam Darnold
Mason Rudolph
Joe Flacco
Justin Fields
Russell Wilson
Jameis Winston
Jacoby Brissett
Mac Jones
Drew Lock
Daniel Jones
Despite his late-season swoon, Darnold is the top free-agent quarterback and will be out of the Browns’ price range. Even six years later, it’s hard to imagine them adding Rudolph after the incident with Myles Garrett — and, yes, it’s extremely likely Garrett will still be with the Browns next season. So, which players might realistically fit? Could Cleveland find a real (even temporary) starter in free agency if it wanted to? Let’s explore.
Players’ ages are listed as of the first weekend of the 2025 season.
Russell Wilson (36)
The Denver Broncos cut Wilson in early 2024 and took on a record $85 million in dead money over two seasons to do so. Wilson landed in Pittsburgh for the veteran minimum and played well for a long stretch in October and November, but the Steelers finished the regular season on a four-game losing streak and were eliminated in the wild-card round by the Baltimore Ravens. Wilson will almost certainly ask for more money on his next contract, and it’s unclear if the Steelers want to keep him. There’s a theme here: the supply of legitimate starting quarterbacks does not meet the demand.
Justin Fields (26)
Fields began the 2024 season as the Steelers’ starter and was replaced by Wilson despite helping Pittsburgh to a 4-2 record through six games. He’s made 44 career starts and has cut down on interceptions after throwing 21 in his first two seasons. But he still has to prove he can be consistently accurate enough to become some team’s clear-cut starter. The Steelers are the only team that can negotiate a contract with Fields ahead of March 10, so there’s a chance he never hits the market.
One potential Browns option — don’t scream at the messenger here — would be pairing Fields with a rookie quarterback of a similar skill set. New offensive coordinator Tommy Rees coached Jalen Milroe at Alabama in 2023.
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Daniel Jones (28)
The New York Giants are swallowing around $22 million next season to move on from Jones, and with the relationship over, they cut Jones late last year and allowed him to finish the season in Minnesota. Jones led the Giants to nine regular-season wins and a playoff victory in 2022 to help secure a big new contract, but since then he’s thrown 10 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in two seasons, with the Giants winning just three of his 13 starts. He’ll be affordable, he’s mobile and — depending on what some teams decide with quarterbacks currently under contract — could be somebody’s opening-day starter.
Joshua Dobbs (30) and Jacoby Brissett (32)
They were in the same Browns quarterback room for much of 2022, and Dobbs also spent the following offseason with Cleveland. If the Browns want a veteran in the quarterback room who’s much more a coach and tutor, then both are real options.
Brissett is held with high esteem in the Browns’ building for his stint in 2022. The Browns traded Dobbs just before the start of the 2023 season, netting a fifth-round pick and allowing the team to get a fuller two-year evaluation of Dorian Thompson-Robinson than anyone involved — with the team or with the NFL in any capacity — ever probably wanted. Dobbs spent 2024 as a backup with the San Francisco 49ers, and Brissett opened the 2024 season as the starter in New England before giving way to rookie Drake Maye.
Mac Jones (27)
A first-round pick of New England in 2021, Jones has made 49 career starts. He wasn’t awful in seven starts for Jacksonville this season (65 percent completion rate, 8-8 touchdown-to-interception ratio), but evaluators probably believe Jones has a ceiling. He could be a bridge quarterback or a clear No. 2 for some team in 2025.
Jameis Winston (31) and Joe Flacco (40)
The last two quarterbacks to make the Browns temporarily function like a real NFL offense both seem like long shots to return. Perhaps Flacco is the more likely of the two after he spent 2024 as the backup in Indianapolis. Winston helped the Browns to two memorable wins, but coach Kevin Stefanski has gone out of his way to say the team needs to stop throwing picks. Winston has been in the NFL for 10 seasons and has been unable to stop throwing interceptions.
Jimmy Garoppolo (33)
His extensive resume includes a Super Bowl appearance with the 49ers, 11 seasons in the league and 64 regular-season starts. He was the primary backup for the Los Angeles Rams in 2024, and he’s probably best suited as a No. 2 going forward. The Browns had multiple chances in the past to pursue Garoppolo and ended up going other routes.
Drew Lock (28)
Denver replaced Lock with Wilson ahead of 2022 and traded Lock to Seattle. He made five starts for a pretty hopeless Giants team this season and was basically the same player he’s always been: capable of making some big throws, but too wild to be fully trusted.
Kyle Trask (27)
A 2021 second-round pick, Trask never made a start and only threw 11 passes in his four seasons in Tampa Bay. It will be interesting to see if the Bucs try to keep Trask or if some team is intrigued by his preseason tape.
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Zach Wilson (26)
It didn’t work for Wilson and the New York Jets after he was the No. 2 overall pick in 2021. He was traded to Denver last offseason and spent 2024 as a backup after competing for the starting job in the offseason. Like some others on this list, he’s likely to land in a spot where he’ll be given a chance to compete for playing time.
Cooper Rush (31)
Rush has been in the league since 2017 and made 13 of his 14 career starts over the last three seasons — all in years that went sideways for the Dallas Cowboys. Rush played his best in his most recent stint this season, completing 61 percent of his passes with 12 touchdowns and five interceptions.
Trey Lance (25)
Lance is a bust as the 2021 No. 3 overall pick, but he’s still made just five career starts and didn’t have much of a college career, either. He’s probably more likely to go somewhere as a backup who can learn from an established starter, and his athleticism might still intrigue some teams.
Wait, where’s Kirk Cousins?
Cousins is not a free agent, yet. No one actually believes the Atlanta Falcons will keep Cousins at his current 2025 cap number of $40 million, so it’s highly unlikely that any team would trade for Cousins ahead of his age-37 season. The Falcons can cut Cousins’ 2025 cap number to $19 million with a conversion that leads to him being designated a post-June 1 release, and that’s the most likely outcome ahead of March 16 when Cousins is due for a roster bonus.
The Browns have already been linked to Cousins across various league (and internet) circles because Stefanski coached Cousins in Minnesota — and because the Browns figure to need a bridge quarterback. Cousins left Minnesota last year and got $40 million guaranteed on a four-year deal despite coming off a torn Achilles tendon, but the Falcons benched Cousins in December in favor of first-round rookie Michael Penix Jr.
“Kirk was healthy,” Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot told reporters at his season-ending news conference. “The play just wasn’t there.”
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March 16 is also when the Seattle Seahawks owe Geno Smith a $16 million roster bonus. Seattle could save $31 million on the 2025 salary cap by releasing Smith ahead of his age-35 season and the final year of his current contract. The Seahawks could opt to keep Smith — or, given the lack of appealing options across the quarterback market, potentially look to trade him. In a Smith trade, the acquiring team would take on Smith’s $14.8 million base salary and the $16 million roster bonus. Any team trading for Smith would also likely re-work his contract, adding at least one more season and likely lowering the acquiring team’s cap hit for 2025.
The Jets are likely to cut Aaron Rodgers, too. And then Rodgers, 41, will have to decide if he wants to play another season. Derek Carr, who turns 34 in March, will have to restructure his contract if he wants to remain with the New Orleans Saints. Carr’s $30 million base salary for 2025 becomes fully guaranteed just after the start of the new league year in March.
Other free agents
Going way, way down the list leads you to names such as Marcus Mariota, Jarrett Stidham, Carson Wentz, Tyler Huntley, Taylor Heinicke, Brandon Allen, Teddy Bridgewater, Andy Dalton, Mason Rudolph, Case Keenum, Easton Stick, Jeff Driskel and Brett Rypien. If some of those names sound familiar, it’s probably because the Browns have been through a lot of quarterbacks.
Bridgewater signed with the Detroit Lions after spending most of last fall coaching high school football in Florida. Bridgewater also was coached by Stefanski in Minnesota, but it’s hard to believe he’s a realistic option in Cleveland — at least until after next high school football season.
(Photo of Russell Wilson: Justin Berl / Getty Images)
