Unlike the AFC, that was dominated by three quarterbacks since 2001, the NFC has been much more evenly matched when it comes to the playoffs. In the AFC, of the past 18 Super Bowls 16 of them were quarterbacked by one of three men, the NFC has not seen that reign of dominance in the same time with only one current quarterback (three overall) making a Super Bowl appearance two times—Russell Wilson as the current and Kurt Warner and Eli Manning as the formers.
Although Russell Wilson is a long way from retiring as he is only 31, he is no longer the future of the NFC as he is in the second half of his career. We have seen dominant quarterbacks in the NFC such as Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Russell Wilson, but as good as these players are, they were not able to be as dominant in the playoffs as the three-headed monster in the AFC.
With all of these players being in the second half of their career and some contemplating retirement it is time that we look for the next generation of players in the NFC to lead the league like these quarterbacks have (even if just regular season).
One constant that we have seen with the NFC representatives in the Super Bowl is that they are great on one side of the ball and average on the other side of the ball. Based off the previous 18 seasons only ten of them were top 10 scoring in both offense and defense, just over half. Rankings are a great tool to use to see which teams were the best of that year but can be a little misleading when comparing years, based off the NFC champions since 2001 the “best” team based off rankings was the 2006 Chicago Bears who ranked as the number three scoring defense and number two scoring offense.
Unlike the AFC where we saw three quarterbacks dominate their way to the Super Bowl, the NFC has constantly been changing. Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers were the best of the time period in the NFC but they both only made one Super Bowl each, showing that any team was fair game in the NFC.
We can look at who will be the future of the NFC in two different ways, one we can see who has the potential to make a dynasty a top tier quarterback such as Brady, or two we can look at like it has been recently, a true fight for the top spot with a truly balanced team.
Let’s start off with the first option, who can be the future quarterback or quarterbacks of the NFC.
The first choice will be a controversial pick because he is already in his seventh season at 29 years old, Jimmy Garoppolo. Garoppolo just came of his first full season as the main man in San Francisco and led them to the Super Bowl along with a top tier defense. Garoppolo and the offense proved that they can do whatever it takes to win, pass, run and grit it out on defense. Garoppolo clearly has the best team as of right now with the overall mixture of greatness but he is still a relatively young quarterback who could run the NFC for years to come.
Kyler Murray would be the next option as the next best thing, but he has to deal with playing in the best division and being the worst team in the division. Murray is coming off of a great rookie season in which he ended up winning rookie of the year. Just because he won rookie of the year does not mean he will be great, in fact the most recent rookie of the year showed regression in his second season. Not saying, Baker Mayfield will not be good, but this is a sign that quarterbacks can regress, it is all about how you come back.
Murray, like Mayfield was the number one pick so he had to deal with going to the “worst” team, this could prove to be a downfall for Murray. If he can stay consistent at quarterback, then by the time the Cardinals improve they could be a front runner with Murray at the helm. With Murray’s talent there is no reason why Murray couldn’t be the future of the NFC, we will just have to see how the team around him can help.
Two quarterbacks that people may say but is a question mark would be Dak Prescott and Carson Wentz. These two are a question mark to me because they have been in the league for a while and have not shown the ability to rule the league. These two are different in the sense that Prescott has always had great teams and could just never get them over the hump, while Wentz has looked very good, but you can’t trust his health.
These two very well could be the future, but these concerns make it tough to trust that they would run the NFC.
Now going to option two we look at the most balanced teams in the NFC. This is hard to predict for the future because we do not know how everything will work out, we can only base this off of the previous season, but how did that work out last year. Last year the NFC champions were the Rams, and everyone thought the Rams would be there again, but they didn’t even make the playoffs.
This season we saw the 49ers make it out of the NFC and all signs are pointing to them doing this for years to come, but in a very competitive NFC we could see any team make it in any season.
It is not certain that there will be a true future of the NFC, but with everything we saw this season it looks like it could easily be Jimmy Garoppolo and the 49ers. Garoppolo may not be the most talented quarterback, but he is good enough to win them games. Combine that with his other talent on the offensive end and the talent on the defensive end, the 49ers can be dangerous for years to come and they could easily be the future of the NFC.