Inside the Huddle: How Quarterback Captures the NFL’s Most Demanding Job

July 24, 2025

27 5 minutes read

Being a professional quarterback is arguably the toughest job in football — maybe in any sport, period. Quarterback shows why. Season 1 of the series from NFL Films, Omaha Productions, and 2PM Productions launched in 2023 with an eight-episode debut that followed Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota through the 2022 NFL season.

This season, Quarterback returns to the field with three players (including one familiar face) and the same all-access intensity. The series continues its mission to show fans what it really takes to lead an NFL team — mentally, physically, and emotionally — with new stories, new cities, and new stakes. Click here for more Quarterback Season 2 release info, or watch the trailer below. And read on for a breakdown of what Quarterback is all about: how it’s made, what it reveals about the sport, and why this franchise has become one of the most intimate looks at football ever filmed.

Watch the Quarterback Season 2 Trailer Here

What is Quarterback about?

The series gives fans an inside look at the players’ lives on the field and off. It documents intimate moments with their families, friends and trainers. It also reveals the many pressures involved: what it’s like to take a hit from a 300-pound defensive lineman, to receive an entire stadium’s cheers or boos, and to ask your loved ones to make serious sacrifices on your behalf. It’s part football epic, part character study — and, depending on the week, part parenting manual.

Who are the players in Quarterback?

Season 1 followed three starting quarterbacks — Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota — as they navigated the highs and lows of the 2022 NFL season. In 2024, Netflix launched Receiver, a companion series that spotlighted star pass-catchers like Davante Adams and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Now, in 2025, Quarterback returns for a second season, this time featuring Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, and the reappearance of Kirk Cousins, who joins a new team after recovering from a devastating Achilles injury.

How was Quarterback made?

What sets Quarterback apart from other NFL documentaries is the unprecedented access granted during and outside of games. For Season 1, Mahomes, Cousins, and Mariota all wore a microphone during practice once per week and during every game of the season, marking the first time the NFL had allowed such a setup with quarterbacks. They were also interviewed throughout the season, and each player was assigned a different director to coordinate their shoots, which involved letting the crews into their personal lives.

“If you can make the players comfortable with the person they’re dealing with, they’re going to be more trusting, more open to you,” Quarterback showrunner Joe Zucco told Netflix. “We’re really inside the lives of these three guys from Week 1 through the season.”

Beyond seeing how players experience wins and losses on the field, Quarterback allows us to understand how quarterbacks deal with those successes and setbacks at home.

“Any quarterback’s season is gonna be a roller coaster. Even with Patrick Mahomes, there’s still ups and downs,” Quarterback executive producer Keith Cossrow told Netflix. “To be able to track those contours of a season gives people insight into what these guys go through and how they handle such a high-pressure job.”

It may seem like this level scrutiny would be too much for the the athletes to manage alongside their professional duties, but these players are accustomed to the spotlight. Manning allows that some quarterbacks initially passed on the project “because they because they said this might be too much of a distraction” — but then Mahomes proved otherwise. For Season 2, Manning said, “we have a lot of quarterbacks that want to do it because now they realize, ‘Hey, if I do this, I’m going to win the Super Bowl and be the MVP of the league.’ ”

What does a quarterback do, exactly?

“You have to know everyone else’s job just as well as your own,” Manning said in Season 1 of the series. As the player who receives the snap at the start of every play, the buck starts and stops with the quarterback. Before every play is begun, they assess the formation of the opposing defense. Once the ball is in their hands, they try to move the ball downfield, typically by either handing the ball off to a running back, or passing it downfield to a receiver before they can get tackled by a defender –– all while making sure not to turn the ball over via an interception or fumble. (Though coaches typically call plays, the quarterback has the freedom and responsibility to improvise or call an “audible,” before calling the snap count and receiving the ball from the center.) A quarterback needs a strong, accurate arm for throwing the ball downfield, and it requires quick feet — and quick thinking — to elude a crunching hit from defenders.

But the role of quarterback extends far beyond the field and the sidelines. Quarterbacks are expected to be leaders in the locker room and, fairly or unfairly, the face of their franchise, answering for everything that happens within a team on and off the field. Because of football’s popularity, the pressure from both media and fans is unmatched.

Why Quarterback Is the Toughest Position in Football

“Win or lose, you are going to be front and center,” Manning says in the series. “You have to give credit when it’s good, you have to take the blame when it’s bad.”

Part of the difficulty of the job is the physical wear and tear that players experience –– often compared to being in a car crash every week –– for 17 weeks per season (and more, if they reach the postseason).

We get it: They’re athletic. What other skills does a quarterback need?

It takes more than a great arm to make a quarterback. The position demands intense mental preparation each week, from reviewing game film to studying massive game plans with highly specific strategies. “When you finish high school and you finish college you kind of say, ‘Okay, now no more homework,’ ” Manning told Netflix. “And for a quarterback, the homework is just beginning. You have to know not just your assignment, [but] 10 other guys’ assignments as well.”

In Quarterback Season 1, Mahomes takes us inside the process of studying game film of not only his own performances, but also of his opponents. Mariota enlists the help of his wife to help him memorize wordy play calls, while Cousins uses neurofeedback exercises to train his brain to stay focused during stressful situations — such as having to deliver a pinpoint pass when he’s about to be tackled by a massive defender.

How much do quarterbacks get paid?

If quarterbacks can handle the mental and physical workload that comes with the job, the benefits are unmatched. As the star attractions in a multibillion dollar industry, the most valuable quarterbacks earn around $50 million a year: Mahomes’ 10-year, $450 million contract with the Chiefs was one of the biggest in NFL history (though as is common in NFL contracts, much of that sum is not guaranteed, but will be paid in the form of bonuses contingent on Mahomes staying on the Chiefs’ roster), and was surpassed, at least on a per-annum basis, by the five-year, $275 million contract extension Burrow signed before the 2023 season. Goff’s current contract with the Lions guarantees him $170 million total through the 2027 season. Cousins earned $40 million during the 2022 season with the Vikings, and signed a four-year deal, with $100 million salary guaranteed and more possible in bonuses, before the 2024 season with Atlanta. In 2022, Mariota made roughly $9 million after serving as a backup the previous two years. And, because quarterbacks are so prominent, the most successful and personable ones can rake in millions more from endorsements.

All said, the love of the game underwrites their paychecks. “Those quarterbacks would play for free,” Manning told Netflix. “They shouldn’t — they would never say that out loud, but I think they love football that much. That comes across in [Quarterback].”