Shortly after the Falcons lost A.J. McCarron to a season-ending ACL tear, they have agreed to terms with Josh Rosen. The recently cut 49ers quarterback will head to Atlanta, per ESPN.com’s Jordan Schultz (on Twitter).
This will mark Rosen’s fifth team since 2018. The former Cardinals top-10 pick was in Miami by 2019 and spent the 2020 season in Tampa and San Francisco. The 49ers, however, made Rosen one of their first training camp cuts this year. The UCLA product cleared waivers shortly before McCarron’s injury, opening the door for this marriage of convenience.
Rosen has not played since the 2019 season, having spent the 2020 campaign on the Bucs’ practice squad and as a 49ers backup. The Falcons, however, have seen their QB room become light on experience behind Matt Ryan. Following longtime backup Matt Schaub‘s retirement, the Falcons signed McCarron. His ACL tear left rookie UDFA Feleipe Franks as Atlanta’s lone quarterback behind Ryan on the depth chart.
The fourth quarterback selected in 2018’s five-QB first round, Rosen has drawn some bad cards to start his career. He struggled on an overmatched Cardinals offense in 2018, and the franchise’s Kliff Kingsbury hire led to Rosen being traded to the Dolphins during the 2019 draft. Starting a rebuild, the Dolphins plugged in Rosen for three starts. Ryan Fitzpatrick held onto that job for most of the season. Rosen did not move up to the Bucs’ active roster during his time on what turned out to be a Super Bowl-winning team.
Overall, Rosen has not shown much to justify that original 10th overall draft position. The 24-year-old QB has completed just 55% of his passes (on 5.7 yards per attempt) and has thrown 12 touchdown passes compared to 19 interceptions. Rosen will attempt to learn a fifth offense, but Ryan has been one of the most durable players of his generation. The 14th-year Falcons passer has missed just three games in his career.
Rooting for Rosen to be cut by every team before his career is officially over.
Makes sense. I figured this would be the landing spot for him since he knows the Shanahan offense and he’ll get the chance to learn under Ryan.
And it doesn’t hurt that Ryan has only missed three games in 13 years.
Tannehill wasn’t very good until he got in Arthur Smith’s system but might still be Rosen’s last shot.
Not a Josh Rosen fan but man give the kid a chance to stick on a team for more than a year and see if he’s any good
Yeah same I’m not really a fan but I hate to see him not get a shot. It took Josh Allen 3 years to be any good (not saying they are the same player) but that was because they gave him room to grow.
He’s never really gotten a full shot anywhere. Needs to go to a team with a stable QB situation and back up for a few years. He was clearly a good prospect at one point. I wish the Cowboys would sign him. Their backups are awful.
I watched him alot in college and thought both he and his rival darnold were overrated. But the scouts, who know a ton more than me, saw something and the guy has had zero opportunity to get comfortable anywhere. He gets a pass until he settles somewhere. Atlanta is a good spot and the team has taken zero risk on a top 10 pick. Let him settle in for at least 2 years and see what you’ve got…
This guy sucks. He’s been given so many chances yet every team he gets with cuts him. Stop saying he hasn’t been given a shot. So many QBs have been given less and done more. He’s garbage.
Your mullet is extra angry today.
I guess this great news for everyone who was considering Tebow as their first choice in fantasy football.
If the dude had a tiny bit of consistency in his coaching staffs he might not be so bad. Trying to learn a new offense every year won’t help any QB’s development.
I’m not buying that. The word is that Rosen isn’t a good student and needs to improve his work ethic. Bouncing from one system to another is difficult for sure but it also provides exposure to many good coaching ideas. Brian Hoyer is a great example of a QB that moved around a lot but is still in demand as a backup and sometime starter.
Hoyer spent the first three years of his career with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. Not exactly a good comparison with Rosen’s career.
I think in some ways, being stuck on the depth chart behind someone like Brady could have been very depressing and confidence draining because Hoyer had to know there was no chance of ever unseating Tom for the starter job.
Hoyer was undrafted and signed with NE in 2009 with Brady already 3 rings deep. I highly doubt he was depressed his 1st 3 years because he couldn’t unseat Brady for the starting gig. My guess is he was elated to land in that spot to learn and nervous that he would be cut because he couldn’t perform. What undrafted qb would be depressed on any team? Much less due to the fact that they couldn’t unseat the starter?
I originally didn’t like him because of his comments directed at Alabama (whom I don’t like, but to me sounded like he was bashing many schools like Alabama .. a typical mantra for the failure of West Coast schools since they had to start winning Championships on the field). It wasn’t until I tried to find the quote a couple of years later and read the entire article and realized Rosen was taken completely out of context and the true enemy of America is the media looking to get clicks.
From that point on I have rooted for him. I hope he not only sticks here in Atlanta. I doubt he will ever be a true #1 with Atlanta (as he would parlay any type of showing into a contract somewhere else), but I am still hoping he turns it around. If for no other reason so he can blow the press up for trashing his comments. NOTE – The original interviewer kept his entire quotes, but one person didn’t and the rest of the media just sent that out of context quote everywhere without any sort of fact checking.
Josh had a decent career at UCLA under a lot of pressure. He had a different offensive Coordinator all three seasons as a Bruin. This has continued as a NFL QB. The Cardinals and Dolphins had poor running games and poor OL. I hope he gets a chance to stick in one place and be able to thoroughly learn an offense. He is a very intelligent young man who has diverse interests which led to him being labeled as not totally in to football. This is far from the truth.
Can you say “desperation”? This move sort of backs up the idea that the Atlanta GM is in over his head, as at this point Rosen’s only proven ability is availability.