Three starting quarterbacks in NFL history have wins over all 32 NFL teams: Drew Brees, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning. Tom Brady will join that list if his Buccaneers beat the Patriots this season. And Aaron Rodgers could join the list too if he ends up on another team, and that team beats the Packers. But no quarterback has accomplished the feat of losing to all 32 teams.
Washington quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick can come the closest this season.
Fitzpatrick has lost to 28 different teams as a starting quarterback, according to Pro Football Reference. Of the four teams he hasn’t lost to, three are on Washington’s schedule this season: The Packers, Saints and Buccaneers. If Fitzpatrick loses to those three teams, he’ll have lost to an all-time record 31 NFL teams. (The Lions are the one team Fitzpatrick hasn’t lost to and won’t play this season.)
Although no starting quarterback has lost to 31 or 32 different teams, seven have lost to 30: Drew Bledsoe, Drew Brees, Brett Favre, Matt Hasselbeck, Jon Kitna, Carson Palmer and Alex Smith. One quarterback, Kerry Collins, has lost to 29 teams. But all of those quarterbacks are retired, so they can’t reach 31 losses like Fitzpatrick.
In addition to Fitzpatrick, the other quarterbacks who have lost to 28 different teams in their careers are Derek Carr, Jay Cutler, Joe Flacco, Jeff George, Eli Manning, Warren Moon, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Ryan and Vinny Testaverde. Carr, Flacco, Roethlisberger and Ryan can still add to their totals, but none can reach 31 different teams this season like Fitzpatrick can: Ryan’s Falcons only play two of the four teams he hasn’t lost to, while Carr’s Raiders and Roethlisberger’s Steelers play one each. Flacco’s Eagles play two of the teams he hasn’t lost to, but he’s not expected to start this season, so Flacco is unlikely to add to his total.
Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Matthew Stafford have each lost to 27 different teams, but none of them can add more than three new losses this season, so none can catch Fitzpatrick.
In a strange way, losing to all 32 teams is a more difficult accomplishment than beating all 32 teams: Quarterbacks who lose a lot of games usually get benched or cut and don’t last long enough to lose to all 32 teams. It’s hard to keep a starting job for a long time while losing a lot of games. But Fitzpatrick has been a starter for eight different franchises, and Washington will be his ninth. He’s had an unusual career, and this year he can do something unprecedented in NFL history.