With Week 1 of the NFL season looming, nine teams will start a quarterback with less than a full season under center.

Teams are giving young quarterbacks less and less time to develop their skills. The NFL’s win-now environment has put pressure on inexperienced quarterbacks to play well immediately, with a short and steep learning curve to develop into a good starter. Large signing bonuses have caused owners to demand that their coaching staffs play the youngsters as soon as possible.

The Minnesota Vikings are a potential Super Bowl contender, but their success will hinge on the quarterback play of Tarvaris Jackson, who has a total of 14 career starts in the NFL. The chances of him making a leap in production are slim – few young quarterbacks play consistently well week in and week out.

One quarterback that will be under the league’s microscope this season is Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers. Rodgers held a clipboard for three seasons as the backup to Brett Favre. And after continuous reps in the offseason program, endless time in film sessions with the coaching staff, and simply watching one of the best to ever play the quarterback position, it is time for Rodgers to take the field. Save for Favre’s offseason antics, this is the right way for a young QB to develop.

The opposite can be said for Matt Ryan of the Atlanta Falcons, as management wants the future to begin as soon as possible. After the circus that was the 2007 season, starting with the Michael Vick arrest and culminating with Bobby Petrino’s midnight exit, the Falcons needed a new face of the franchise on the field as soon as possible. But Ryan’s entire professional career consists of training camp and two weeks of mini-camp, which means we are likely to see miscommunication and missed assignments from the QB position.

It’s not often that young quarterbacks play Super Bowl-caliber ball. Dan Marino has the distinction of leading his team to a Super Bowl berth with the fewest starts (26) at the quarterback position, and Ben Roethlisberger is the youngest quarterback to actually win a Super Bowl (at the age of 23). But they are the exceptions and not the rule.

Typically, a young quarterback is no longer allowed to develop, and if success isn’t immediate, he will be written off as a disappointment.