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Reddit comments need help. Your bad opinions are taking years off my life. With today’s Lamar Jackson news, we are going to get a lot of wild opinions that will be presented with confidence that borders on anger. There is no need to live this way, fans. I did this initially as a check on my own opinions, and now let me share what I came up with to keep you from embarrassing yourself further today.
I watched all-22 for every single guy on this list. I used stats in close cases and to fill in any gaps in the film. This is a ranking of my own personal opinions backed by over a decade of experience in the game.
As far as the list itself, the tiers are much more important to this exercise than the ranks within the tiers. Even I, a working, mildly successful football coach, cannot fully account for schemes, teammates, coaching, etc. You can nitpick 8 vs. 9 if you want but I don’t care. Different guys will perform differently on different teams.
Third, my biases, as best as I can list them, are: I love the Cowboys, but I don’t like them. I refuse to go to any more games as long as Jerry Jones is alive. I hate the rest of the NFC East, although I pity Washington. I respect NE but I enjoy it when they lose. I dislike GB and SF based on our 90s rivalries. I value a young QB over a vet I know has peaked even if the vet is a little better right now.
I watched Philly the most. I am an OL coach, they have the best OL, so I study them closely. I know a bunch of Eagles fans will see the little star next to my name and freak out, but hopefully, whoever is reading this to them can explain that I know their team better than they do at this point. Since they can't throw batteries at me through the internet, please ask them to throw them through a window of a local toy drive. Aim away from any children.
Salary is taken into account in extreme cases.
Feel free to mock or ignore anyone who cites PFF. If you want to argue about meaningless metrics go bicker with a technical analysis on wallstreetbets.
Lastly, I use a lot of hyperbole to make points. Please do not be that guy in the comments. I get a lot of those guys.
Tier N/A

• Matthew Stafford

He was good, then LA had about 10 improbable things happen all in a row and won a SB. Now he’s crippled. LA is shopping him with no takers because he may never play again and his contract is a beast. The Rams are really about to roll out a practice squad with Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp. Wild times.
Tier 1 - Undeniable

• Patrick Mahomes

Mahomes is the best QB in football. This is not something I want to spend a lot of time on because no serious person would disagree.
In my opinion, any list of the top 5 players in the NFL, irrespective of positional value, would include Tyreek Hill. The Chiefs traded Hill and the passing offense went from historically great, to . . . even better. If you really feel the need to argue there are several other websites where you can find like-minded people.
Tier 2 - Best of the rest

• Josh Allen

Josh Allen is incredible at football. He also is incredible at doing the stupidest possible thing like 3 times a game. It’s like the football Gods wanted to pour Pat Mahomes’ talent into another person, but this person is 6’6 so they ran out before he filled up so they finished him off with some Carson Wentz. It’s science.
Allen tries to do too much, and when it goes wrong it is as ugly as it gets. But I understand the instinct. Other than Diggs, he isn’t surrounded by talent. They had to pull Cole Beasley off 4chan moderator duties for the playoffs. The OL goes on strike every time they call a run play. I have so much respect for Allen because he digs his team out of holes left and right (even if he sometimes creates them). He carries that entire offense. He’s the run game, he’s the passing game, he’s the team. Do you know how much confidence in your QB you have to have to call mesh from empty on 3rd and 1?
Allen is not as good a passer as Joe Burrow, Tom Brady, or a few other guys. But considering the circumstances, and his incredible athletic ability, I think he’s the next off the board after Mahomes. Buffalo needs a better OL and one more playmaker at WR. If they get that, I think we’re going to see a special season.

• Joey Burrow

If Tom Brady actually retires, Joe Burrow will be the best “just read the defense and throw it to the open guy” in the league. This sounds like an easy thing but it isn’t -- a QB has to know where his own guys will be, what the defense is playing, where the protection is weak, what adjustments are made within the play, etc., every single snap of the game. The mental strain is incredible.
What separates Burrow further is his ability to use the Madden directional passing in real life. Brady hits his guy in the chest, Burrow throws both to his guy and away from the defender, constantly giving his man the very best chance to catch it on every play. There is no way to describe how impressive this is without turning this into a 4,000-word essay, but be assured that watching Burrow when he’s dealing is like watching Neo when he’s resurrected at the end of The Matrix. He’s playing a game few QBs are even aware of.
He’s not perfect. He doesn't have an elite arm which limits his options down the field as the play develops, which is a huge reason why his production drops off a cliff under pressure. This means he needs to operate within the scheme, which isn’t easy to do against good defenses that can force you to play left-handed. But his strengths far outweigh those “flaws,” which are less a weakness and more a lack of elite ability in certain areas. His game should age like a fine wine, too, meaning Cincinnati should be in the discussion for the next 10 years. This does mean that we are all going to have to brace ourselves for the fact that Zac Taylor of the Cincinnati Bengals is going to win a SB at some point. What a time to be alive.

• Justin Herbert

Being ranked as the 4th best QB in football is impressive but it still kills me to put him here because I am in love with the guy. He may have the highest ceiling other than Mahomes. He makes 4 throws a game that cause me to curse in disbelief. You know those Madden glitches where the ball flies right through the defenders hands to the WR behind him? Herbert does that irl. I fully believe he will throw a football through someone’s torso at some point, like when the T1000 gets shot.
Unfortunately, that murder completion will probably happen on an 8 yard pass on 4th and 27 because Herbert plays for a poverty franchise and a dipshit head coach that thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. The Chargers backed into the playoffs this year because Keenan Allen publicly shamed Staley into punting more and LA played a piss poor collection of QBs in their stretch run (also, ATL had them beat and fumbled a fumble recovery at the end). Jacksonville, an average football team, put them in their place. Herbert has to account for leaky pass pro on nearly every down, too. He handles it beautifully, but it takes its toll. Jalen Hurts gets more clean pockets in a game than Herbert got all year (hyperbole, don’t check this).
So, it’s hard to tell just how good Herbert is. He is definitely a top-tier talent, but until LAC figures out it’s shit, I can’t justify putting him above Burrow and Allen and their postseason resumes even as he carries the Chargers on his back every week. There are also stretches where he tries to do too much and gets the offense out of its rhythm. Sometimes it works, but stuff like that isn’t consistent enough to win over the course of 20 games.
Tier 3 - The Legacies

• Tom Brady

Tom Brady is retired, allegedly. Even so, this is a ranking of the best QBs right now, and Brady could still play. He’s not what he once was, but most of what makes him special is still there. The only thing prime Brady had that Father Brady doesn’t was a superhuman toughness, used to summon a scramble at the absolute biggest moment in the game for a first down.
This Brady doesn’t want to run and doesn’t want to get hit. He’ll throw too early at times and is too willing to let his fundamentals lapse in order to avoid a hit during a throw. When he’s protected, though, he’s the same old guy and could probably make it 50. I, for one, will mourn our missed opportunity for divorced dad energy in the league.

• Aaron Rodgers

I get the sense that GB is fed up with him and ready to see him go . . . and boy did they play like it. I don’t know how many calming crystals Rodgers had to attune last year after games but I’m surprised he didn’t snap and strangle one of his teammates. GB was so bad last year that even a real-life superhero couldn’t save them.
It got better as the season went and Watson developed as a threat. And, to be fair, Rodgers did have at least one incredibly goofy mistake each week. But overall, it looks to me like he’s still 90% of what he used to be. Instead of contorting himself to some impossible angle and throwing a dime 35 yards across the field, now he’s off by a foot and the ball bounces out of the hands of some guy who shouldn’t be playing.
AR is declining, and he’s probably long past his tipping point of being somebody his teammates want around, but he can 100% still play at a high level if he can find his limits as an old man. The guy is maybe the most talented passing QB of all time and will still casually do the impossible from time to time. His throw to Watson along the sideline against the Jets is just . . . like who else could do that?
Dez caught it, but the biggest reason Dallas lost that game is because AR played the best game I’ve ever seen a QB play. I think at one point in the second half he was just throwing fireballs like power flower Mario. Yes, he’s an annoying hippie, but that’s Chico, CA’s main export. In a Space Jam scenario, I would pick him to win one single game. I would also not rule out him playing on mushrooms next year and actually seeing the Dolphins' defense as big cartoon aliens.
The point is, do not underestimate this man.
PS - I would absolutely love to see Matt LaFluer and Brandon Staley coach against each other in some random high school game. The Clusterfuck Bowl.
Tier 4 - Send Help

• Lamar Jackson
• At this best, he’s an unstoppable superweapon. At his worst, he’s a superweapon but Russia built it. His feet are shaky because he gets into scramble mode too quickly. He takes too many risks for my liking, passing up easy completions for shots at big plays. When he hits a few, look out, but when he doesn’t it stalls out a lot of drives.

Still, part of me wants to put him up with the other big dogs. He was MVP, after all, and is at worst an above-average passer with instant big play ability at any time. When he’s feeling it he’s as good as anyone, and a genuine joy to watch when he’s running.
But there are real reasons he’s been lousy in the playoffs, imo, and that is what keeps him out. I think he can do it if he refines his dropback decision-making a little more and Baltimore can add another weapon. If the last few years have taught us anything it’s that a true #1 WR will unlock a whole new level of play from even the best QBs. Part of this is one Baltimore.

• Dak Prescott

Dak Prescott is a very good QB, let’s just get that out of the way. He reads defenses quickly, accurately, and delivers the ball more or less where it’s supposed to go and has enough raw talent to make things happen when the play is dead. He’s smart, a great leader, physically gifted, and puts more on his plate every year. His raw numbers are unreal.
There are reasons I don’t consider him a top guy. He’ll often throw the ball where it’s “supposed” to go even if the WR isn’t there or is blanketed. He isn’t great in tight coverage on deep throws and, for some reason, loves to misdiagnose leverage outside the numbers and throw a pick-6 every game. It tells me that he’s missing that mental ability that great QBs have to adjust their throw mid-motion.
Dakota Prescott is an A- player who is asked to be A+ week in and week out. He’s good, but not as good as Dallas seems to think he is. He probably needs a great weapon on the perimeter to truly unleash his abilities.
Dallas will have to work to limit the very worst of his game in order to win a title, but if they do, they have an excellent window over the next few years. If not, let’s just enjoy our yearly wildcard win while the real contenders bounce us in round 2.

• Jalen Hurts

Hurts is an interesting one to slot in here. On one hand, he has the easiest setup in the league. His OL is deep and elite. Hurts barely has to break a sweat on most throws (worth noting that he was still sacked exactly as many times as noted statue Matt Ryan. It’s a QB stat, people!). Philadelphia fleeced Tennessee so bad for AJ Brown (a top 5 WR with perfectly reasonable contract demands) that it got the Titans GM fired. They played the easiest schedule in football, facing 3 good QBs before meeting KC in the SB, and one of those 3, Trevor Lawrence, played like absolute ass in that game with 4 or 5 TOs. The fact is, a good number of QBs could’ve done the same thing.
Philly limits what it asks Hurts to do. Throws are often single-read deals and they lean on the run/RPO game more than any other team I’ve seen. But the flip side of this is that Jalen Hurts is excellent at what they have him do. He’s an accurate thrower down the field, makes great decisions with the ball in RPOs, and can run out of any situation since, as broadcasters love to tell us, he can squat 600+ pounds and is one of the better power backs in the league. He also has the most random elite skill in football -- the ability to throw a corner route over a flat defender and in front of a deep defender. He is startlingly good at that and does it every week.
The next few seasons will tell us if Hurts is merely a great system QB or a great QB on his own. He’s going to have to improve as a passer outside of their playaction/RPO stuff. He gets sacked waaaaay too often for someone with his running ability and two hall of famers in front of him blocking. His extension will limit Philly’s ability to bring in stars and have high-quality depth along both lines. He could end up in the top 5, or he could fall if other parts of his game don’t develop. We’ll see. Either way, he’s an easy guy to root for.

• Trevor Lawrence

It took half the year for him to unlearn Urban Meyer, but there’s no doubt he showed up bigtime in the latter part of the year. I suspect this is as low as I'll ever have him.
He just finished a his 2nd rookie year, and makes young QB mistakes. He misses a few reads and had turnover problems early in the year. I fully expect him to threaten the top 5 at some point soon, but let’s slow our roll on him for now. He flaashed terrific instincts and accuracy this year but also played a lot of bad football early on.
Tier 5 - Fatally Flawed

• Jared Goff

Before the season there was an NFL hot take thread. My contribution was that Goff would have a top-10 statistical season. It got 2 upvotes so hopefully those two guys can swing by and vouch for it.
I love Goff, as a fan of pretty football. He might, without exaggeration, have the nicest throwing motion of all time. It is smooth, efficient, and mechanically brilliant. When the pocket is clean and his guy is open, he will deliver a perfect ball more often than not.
His fatal flaw is that the pocket is not always clean in the NFL. It takes a level of grit to sit in there and I’m not sure Goff has it. This will bar him from the highest echelon of the sport, but even so, he was in a SB once. LA played the one team that will drill down on your biggest weakness and exploit it and the Rams were nearly shut out. But he was there and that counts for something. If he has a good system around him, he can win for you. If you give him Jeff Fisher, he won’t.

• Tua Tagovailoa

Tua has two elite skills, which is probably why he’s named that. First is accuracy and is evident from watching him play. The second is his anticipation, which is as good as anybody I’ve ever seen. There are throws on tape that I wouldn’t coach him to make, but he sees it clearly and makes the play. He might be the best slant/glance/post thrower in the league because of his ability to time his guy through a window in coverage.
The fatal flaws are also obvious. He’s small. His arm strength is poor and he’s terrible when pressured as a result. He needs both feet planted and full rotational force to make regular NFL throws. He’s left-handed (just kidding). In order for him to lead a great team, he has to be perfect and it’s an easy bet that he won’t be because nobody is. Right now he’s throwing to the best athlete in the sport and another guy who’d be most teams #1, both of whom excel in yards after catch. It’s a well-built offense (Tua was #1 in yards per attempt! #2 was . . . Teddy Bridgewater!) but Miami can’t count on having the game’s best skill player for the rest of Tua’s career.
There’s also the ugly fact that he’s one bad hit away from being forced to retire.

• Jimmy Garoppolo

Jimmy G is a good QB who gets knocked because he’s not a great QB, and because he can’t stay healthy. Unlike the next two dudes on the list, he is popular in the locker room and mostly knows who he is on the field. He also holds the distinction of the only Briles-tree college QB to be worth a shit in the NFL. You can count RG3 if you want, but I don’t. Here’s hoping for Hendon Hooker.
Jimmy is a little too comfortable throwing into tight windows down the field, and must’ve made some monkey paw deal to make it in the league because he can’t stay on the field. Every single snap for him is like a John Wick movie. Jimmy G will get hit by a car somehow in during a game.
His biggest knock is economic -- nobody wants to pay a huge chunk of their cap for a guy in the training room. On the field he wins, he’s popular, and he’s manageable, and if you really want to be gobsmacked, look up who is currently #1 in yards per attempt in the NFL since 1955.

• Kirk Cousins

Kirk is a worse version of Jared Goff. There is no need to get too in depth with it other than that. They both are fine in good situations but are missing that extra something that will push through tough situations. Goff is taller, younger, and more sound, so he’s higher. Kirk is also a giant weirdo who every coach he’s ever had wants to replace.

• Kyler Murray

Sometimes average means a player doesn’t do anything well or poorly. Sometimes it means a player has several great qualities and several extremely poor ones that cancel them out. Murray is, in my opinion, a perfect example of the latter.
Murray can, if you catch him at the right time, look like the best player in the world -- dodging 4 guys before putting a dime on his guy in the back of the endzone for a go-ahead touchdown. The problem is context -- he’s also probably the reason AZ was down in the first place. Missing reads or holding out for a big play is why he had to run around. He’s also, famously, a piss-poor leader who doesn’t understand the support/body language side of his position.
That stuff is invisible to a casual fan, but there are big red warning lights flashing all the time with him. Murray is noob bait. Don’t fall for it.

• Brock Purdy

Brock Purdy annoys me. It is fun to watch SF have a good team and constantly trip on their own dicks, but this time they tripped and fell into some kid who showed up and immediately became one of the best QBs in football, statistically. If you listen to the right people, you know that Shanahan wanted to draft Mac Jones, but got stuck with Tre Lance. So instead, he fell backwards into a better version of Jones with the last pick in the draft. This is annoying to me.
There is no wow factor to his game. Nothing he does is amazing. It’s just really impressive how competent he is. If you fast forward 15 years and tell me he’s the next Tom Brady, I would believe you. Brady grew up like 30 minutes from Santa Clara, giving it a worryingly poetic symmetry. If you went forward and told me he was the next Andy Dalton, I would believe that, too.
SF is stacked on offense. It’s not that hard to chuck the ball over to one of 4 guys they have that can house any short pass. But Brock is definitely a starting QB, it’s just a matter of what his ceiling is. I don’t see a star but I see someone at least good enough to earn a giant contract that SF regrets after a year.

• Kenny Pickett

Listen, there’s a little Joey Burrow in there. Maybe like 30%. Don’t freak out about it yet but, like, let’s see where this goes.
I don’t know what his ceiling is. He’s a right-handed Tua, maybe? His ability to throw people open as a rookie is awesome, but there are still some questions I have about how he’ll play when he’s sped up by pressure and falls out of his fundamentals. Some of his misses may be rookie things, but he can’t lean on that excuse anymore. He’ll need to do normal grown-up QB things like eat the ball and take a sack, or hang in for an extra half second to get the ball downfield. If he doesn’t, he’s never going to be more than Kirk Cousins 2.0 or something like that.
Still, for a small sample size, I’m encouraged. Pitt may have stolen one here.
Tier 6 - Meh

• Jacoby Brissett

There is an unconscious bias against Brissett, I think, because he’s an old-school QB. And by old-school QB I mean he looks like he smokes at halftime. I don’t know why, he just moves and throws like his knees and lower back always hurt.
That being said, he’s a perfectly decent QB. The Browns didn’t ask a ton of him and, based on how many teams he’s played for, I get the sense that offensive coaches get frustrated with his limitations. Cleveland ran the ball a lot and threw a ton of quick game. Brissett is currently dead last in active passers in yards per attempt.
Still, I don’t see any obvious drawbacks to his game other than being slightly overly conservative like that uncle you tolerate at family gatherings. He’s maybe the worst aesthetic QB in the sport, but that’s subjective. He protects the ball, he’s decisive, fairly accurate, and can extend plays. He doesn’t do anything exceedingly well but he’s a high-floor player that can operate an NFL offense.

• Geno Smith

Look, Geno didn’t escape a decade of backup roles just to suddenly bust out as a star at 32. He’s a decent QB that gets to play with DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. If a player is wide open he’ll get it there, and a lot of Seattle's big plays are scheme throws to very talented WRs. If there’s nobody open he’s going to get sacked or bounce one off the turf somewhere. He holds onto the ball too long and isn’t great with improvisation.
He’s very talented and capable of making some spectacular throws. He’ll also just disappoint you if you get your expectations too high and some of those high-variance shots don’t land. I remember the year before when he came on after Wilson was injured and played pretty well. I was like, oh, ok, Geno Smith! Then he stunk in the following couple of games before Wilson came back. Then it’s like, oh, right, Geno Smith. It’s a wonderful story but, come on.

• Derek Carr

What if Aaron Rogers wasn’t supernaturally talented? Then you’d have Derek Carr. This guy plays like he’s 13 and playing in a park somewhere. No footwork, middling decision making and accuracy. There’s also definitely a bit of “fuck it throw it to Devante,” which is understandable at least.
If you wonder why he’s so inconsistent year to year, even game to game, and can’t seem to break his team into the big time, that’s why. There’s just nothing there to lean on. He has talent, but his fundamental base is limited. It makes sense his best football came under Gruden, who doesn’t let stuff slide, but he’s canceled and Carr was back to his old self last year. Not sure what NO is expecting here but there are 40 million reasons why they balked at a trade.

• Ryan Tannehill

If Tennessee wants to contend anytime soon they are going to have to take Ryan Tannehill out into a cornfield and threaten to beat him to death and bury him in there unless he takes a pay cut. He’s a perfectly fine football player, but man I bet most Titans fans would prefer Tanny donate half his salary to keep AJ Brown around.
Tennessee is in a rough place. The OL blocks like they have the other team’s defense in fantasy. Derrick Henry is majestic but watching him run into 11-man fronts is genuinely depressing. All so they can pay the league’s largest cap hit to Ryan Fucking Tannehill.
And look, Tanny isn’t bad. It’s not his fault their last GM gave him the equivalent of the state’s GDP and balked at Brown’s very reasonable contract demands. But it has to count in this case because that team is a mess, and is wasting Henry’s prime.
Tannehill is a competent QB with enough athletic ability to add an element of movement to the offense. But look at Tenn’s numbers in 2021 when Brown was on the field vs. when he was off and you tell me who drove the bus for that offense.

• Daniel Jones

I cannot believe the NYG gave him so much money. He’s played one half-season of not-awful football, and that came in a system that asked absolutely nothing of him. Bill Walsh once said that he was only competing against 8 teams each year, and signings like this are big reasons why teams aren’t in that 8.
The Giants historically love to get high on their own supply. Biggie warned us of this.

• Mac Jones

Mac Jones has a higher ceiling than some guys currently ahead of him, the problem is that none of his above-average skills are physical. He has to play the mental/technical game, which is very hard to do 35-40 throws a game.
What makes it harder is that NE plays very bland, robotic, by-the-numbers football. Everybody does what they’re supposed to with the joyless precision of a North Korean military parade. This works when Tom Brady is there, smiling menacingly and waving with a bad haircut. It works when Danta Scarnechia is coaching the OL. This does not work when you have no good offensive players and Matt Patricia (!?) takes over the line. These little chinks in the armor add up and submarine teams built for consistency.
Mac will get better under Bill O’Brien because Bill O’Brien is not Matt Patricia or Joe Judge. But the way NE operates puts all the pressure on the QB and Mac Jones is not that guy. Billy B is also notorious for dumping talented players the very second they become valuable. This is 2022 New England Patriots offensive football -- Everything Is Average Everywhere All At Once. Good luck Mac!

• Marcus Mariota

Mariota is one of the bigger beneficiaries of watching the tape. Initially, I had him in the 8th tier but moved him up after seeing what he can do. Obviously, he isn’t great, but neither is ATL’s pass game. It lacks in both personnel and design, and the pass pro was very rough at times.
His accuracy isn’t good enough to consider him a GOOD starting QB, but he can do enough to be in the club. His decision-making is fine and he can run around enough to make some things happen. He won’t be good enough to carry an elite offense but I do think, with the right weapons around him, he could be a solid stop-gap option for a team otherwise ready to contend (Since I wrote this, Philly scooped him up as insurance on a team ready to contend).

• Deshaun Watson

This is a tough one to rate. One one hand, he, JJ Watt, and DeAndre Hopkins carried a poverty franchise for 4 years. On the other hand, he threw away 2 years of his career, signed an onerous contract, and came back like football’s Ben Simmons. He’s not only lost a step physically, but he’s behind mentally, too.
And it’s not like he’s in a Justin Fields situation. Cleveland has a very good OL (they are, admittedly, much better run blockers than pass protectors), a powerful run game, and several decent-to-good weapons around him. He’s in the right system for his skill set. He’s just bad at football right now.
Watson could take the offseason, improve, and come back into the discussion as the top 10 guy he once was. But based on the last 2 calendar years I cannot put him any higher than this, as it is just as likely he'll move to the next tier down.

• Davis Mills

I think Mills can be a good QB. His biggest weakness is that he plays for a FEMA disaster site masquerading as a football team. I don’t want a lot of Texans football because I don’t want my face to melt off like the nazis from Indiana Jones, but I forced myself to do it for this project and you know what? He’s not bad at all and I don’t miss my face as much as I thought I would.
He’s got prototype size and arm talent (which all Stanford QBs since 1970 do) he makes quick decisions, and has a nice compact release that can get balls where they are supposed to be on time. Of course, his intended target is usually in the middle of falling over or looking the wrong direction when the ball gets there, but that’s Texans football, baby.
If anyone reading this is running a football team with an ability to take a flier on a young QB, Mills is worth calling for. His cap hit is going to 1.5 million this year. I’d rather have that on my books than David Carr for 30. Or Daniel Jones for 30. Or Kyler Murray for soul flees my body 50. Or Baker Mayfield for any amount of money.
Tier 7 - Past Their Primes

• Russell Wilson

There are certain players you know won’t age well. When that wall hits, it HITS. Russ hit that wall this year. He was probably never a brilliant drop-back passer, but he could escape pressure and was brilliant at creating big plays out of it. Seattle has also had a Quixotian commitment to running the football, which lowers the overall ceiling for the offense but generally helps the QB by taking pressure off of him.
This one is simple -- of the 30ish qualified passers in the NFL, only Justin Fields was sacked as often (55 each. 3rd was a tie between Kirk Cousins and Geno Smith who had 160 and 90 more attempts than Russ, respectively). Russ lost a step and he can’t get away from anyone anymore. It’s easy to blame that on an OL but nobody is sacked 50+ times just because of that. Sacks are at least 50% a QB stat, maybe more in his case. Watch the tape, it’s there.
There’s a pattern for running QBs as they get to the NFL -- they are so used to being able to take off in high school and college that they never develop the ability to throw into tight coverage or come down to a 3rd read because they never had to. They’re behind developmentally in a crucial NFL skill and almost none of them end up getting there. Once the legs go, there isn’t much left.
The one thing to monitor is the Nathaniel Hackett factor. Russ will probably improve now that the franchise is run by a competent football coach so we’ll really see how cooked our man is or is not in ‘23.

• Matt Ryan

He’s thrown for over 60k yards and would’ve won a Super Bowl had Dan Quinn stuffed Kyle Shanahan into a locker at halftime. Still, time comes for us all. Older QBs start to falter when their bodies break down, or they just get tired of the beatings. Ryan is a textbook case of this. He’s sped the game up for himself, almost desperate to beat the pass rush. Combined with a little lost velocity, you get a guy who just can’t operate anymore.
Indy was a circus this year and I don’t judge anybody there based on anything that happened after the coaching change, but Ryan was probably toast before he ever got there and is only this high out of respect for a good career.
Tier 8 - Does One Thing Well

• Justin Fields

Fields is at the top of this list for one reason -- He’s an ELECTRIC athlete who makes other professional athletes look like tiny nerds who were picked last for dodgeball in high school. He’s at the bottom of the tiers because he sucks at everything else.
Chicago’s offense is the exact offense you’d run if you didn’t trust your QB. Fields misses open receivers or takes off before they come open all the time. Sometimes it results in a big play but it won’t consistently. It’s pretty clear he isn’t totally comfortable reading defenses because he throws a lot of 2 yard routes into coverage and bails on concepts to just throw a go route down the sideline. Yes, his team isn’t great, but he isn’t helping.
So I’m not optimistic on Fields, but if anyone from this last tier busts out I’d pick him just based on his physical tools. There’s a place in the multiverse where Chicago does what Philly did with Hurts and puts the best OL in football in front of him and falls into one of the best WRs in the game, but in real life they signed a bunch of veteran LBs and safeties. Good luck, Bears fans.

• Jameis Winston

Jameis Winston is impossible to rate. Jameis Winston is chaos personified. Is he the 30th-best QB in the NFL? Yes. Is he the 5th-best? Also yes. Is he the 50th-best? Believe it or not, yes. In relationship terms he’s the crazy ex you keep in your life for the life-altering sex but UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES do you introduce this person to your family!
Jameis Winston is capable of incredible feats of athletic beauty. Then he gives us the ugliest of ugly, so that we may appreciate those moments of beauty. He is the flower in the gun barrel of the NFL. I do not want him anywhere near my team.
Tier 9 - Zach Wilson

• Zach Wilson

Poor Zach. There’s so much hate for this kid that he’ll probably run out of New Jersey and have to set up a new colony out west. This was a joke about Mormons.
Here’s the thing, playing QB in the league is an impossibly hard thing to do and requires every single person in your building to support you. NYJ is not that place. His WRs are open less than one of those flowers that bloom once a decade. Like it’s an event when a Jets WR gets open. You should take photos and cherish the memory. His OL blocks like it’s coated in vaseline. Then who gets the blame? The QB. And if you feel like you’ve lost the confidence of your team, it’s over. There are some psychos like Tom Brady who can alter reality through sheer force of will, but most of us are not like that.
But boyos, I’m not exaggerating. I went into this expecting a shitshow at QB, but the shitshow I found everywhere else is so much worse. Usually, there is one person open somewhere and the good QBs will find it and the bad ones won’t. In Jets games, there are entire stretches of the game where there’s nobody to throw to. And when there is, it’s 50/50 if the ball is actually caught.
This doesn’t automatically mean he’s good, either. The only thing worse than the play calling at NE was Wilson’s 2nd half accuracy. Something broke in him and he was airmailing everything. It was hard to watch and he earned his benching.
So I made him his own little place on this list and we’ll see what happens in the future. Hopefully he can get on MILF Manor 2 and clear his head a little bit.
Tier 10 - Who Gives A Shit

• Andy Dalton

Let’s be clear, Dalton was never that good. Dalton got to throw to Ochocinco and prime AJ Green who covered up a lot of sins. He’s a good backup QB that can fool bad GMs into not drafting another QB.

• 2022 Pro Bowler Tyler Huntley

Huntley is not a good QB. It’s a credit to Baltimore that they made the playoffs with him and came within a fluke QB sneak fumble from beating Cincinnati. He’s athletic and can help the run game, but if you take away his initial read he’s toast, and pretty much everybody knows they are trying to get to Andrews on 3rd down. The offensive design got a lot of shit under Roman, which I think is a little unfair. Tyler is an OK backup at best and they stayed competitive. That’s an achievement.

• Taylor Heinicke

I have already spent too much time on this to justify the 7 upvotes it’s going to get, so I’m not going in deep on Taylor Heinicke. I would be very happy if he were my team’s backup QB.

• Baker Mayfield

An actual, real life NFL team took this guy #1 overall. You can look it up, it’s real.
He’s not totally useless. He plays with swagger, in a good way, he just, you know, can’t see over the pass rush. Or coverage LBs. And he isn’t accurate enough outside the numbers to compensate.

• Sam Howell

Tiny sample size in a meaningless game, but he’s got a shot to be a top 20ish starter in the long run. We’ll see.

• Desmond Ridder

It is way too early to make any kind of final judgment on a rookie who only played a handful of games, but if I had to put money on it, which I don’t but will anyway, I think Atlanta drafted a career backup. I saw no indications of high-level play and several instances of being unable to get through a dropback progression and some wtf accuracy issues. For a guy that has as many college starts as he has should be further along. Mariota was better than this.
ATL should give up whatever it can for Lamar.

• Carson Wentz

I don’t like kicking people when they're down unless they disagreed with me once on the internet, but holy shit is he terrible. He’s so bad I actually felt bad for his teammates having to run around all game knowing they will have to spend the afternoon trotting back after a sack and having to catch balls thrown 53 mph at their shins. He’s the anti-Burrow, with a miraculous ability to throw his guys into defenders. I cannot fathom how this guy was an MVP candidate at one time. He is broken and I would not take him as a backup at this point.

• Drew Lock

I’ll be honest I did not watch any 2022 Drew Lock film. Because there isn’t any. He sucks. He’s always sucked. Geno Smith not only salvaged his own career but Lock’s, too, since sitting on the bench keeps Lock’s XFL future at bay for at least one more year.