Football fans across America have an unexpected reason to give thanks this Thanksgiving Day—the holiday’s carefully curated NFL lineup will mercifully keep some of the league’s most struggling quarterbacks away from prime-time television screens.
The 2025 NFL season has been marked by a troubling wave of quarterback underperformance that has left teams, fans, and analysts alike scratching their heads in frustration. From veteran signal-callers failing to live up to their hefty contracts to promising young quarterbacks stumbling through growing pains, the position that traditionally drives NFL success has become a source of widespread disappointment.
The quarterback struggles have been so pronounced that many franchises find themselves in seemingly impossible situations. Teams that entered the season with high hopes have watched their playoff aspirations crumble as their field generals consistently fail to execute in crucial moments. The ripple effects extend far beyond win-loss records, impacting everything from offensive coordinator job security to fan engagement levels.
While Thanksgiving Day traditionally showcases some of the NFL’s marquee matchups, this year’s slate appears particularly well-timed for viewers who have grown weary of watching erratic quarterback play week after week. The holiday games promise to deliver competitive football without subjecting audiences to the most glaring examples of positional dysfunction that have plagued other contests throughout the season.
The quarterback crisis represents more than just statistical underperformance—it reflects deeper issues within team development, coaching systems, and talent evaluation processes. Organizations that once prided themselves on quarterback stability now find themselves desperately searching for answers as their offensive units sputter and stall.
For many NFL observers, the situation has reached a breaking point where even the most dedicated fans are reconsidering their viewing habits. The combination of poor decision-making, accuracy issues, and leadership failures at the quarterback position has created a perfect storm of unwatchable football in certain markets.
As families gather around television sets this Thanksgiving, they can appreciate that the day’s football offerings will provide genuine entertainment value rather than the frustrating displays of quarterback ineptitude that have characterized too many games this season. The holiday scheduling has inadvertently created a refuge from the league’s most pressing positional crisis.
The broader implications of this quarterback drought extend well into the future, as teams must now reassess their development programs, coaching philosophies, and personnel decisions. What was once considered the NFL’s deepest and most talented position has suddenly become a glaring weakness across multiple franchises, forcing a league-wide reckoning about how quarterbacks are identified, trained, and supported.
