The 2019 NFL Stretch Run Quarterback Power Rankings
Has Lamar Jackson cracked the top tier? How do the other young QBs stack up? And has Tom Brady finally slipped for good?
NO POSITION IN SPORTS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE QUARTERBACK. Every sports fan knows it, and every team knows its ultimate ceiling based on the potential of that one man under center. A quarterback can make or break an entire NFL roster. One critical quality can condemn an entire season. One guy making the leap can change an entire franchise.
And so we come back, yet again, to the Quarterback Power Rankings. We started here on Opening Day, and we’re back again as we enter the home stretch of the 2019 NFL season and head toward the playoffs. The NFL is a passing league, and it’s only getting more and more important to have a quarterback playing at an elite level.
A lot has changed since Opening Day. The Old Guard has shown their age, Dak Prescott and Kirk Cousins have become reliable Pro Bowl quarterbacks, and Lamar Jackson is a bona fide MVP candidate. Let’s head around the league and rank all 32 starting NFL quarterbacks as they stand right now. Which guy would you want quarterbacking your team down the stretch run?
PAST QUARTERBACK POWER RANKINGS
TIER IX — NOT NFL STARTERS
32. David Blough, Detroit Lions (Opening Day ranking: NR) 31. Dwayne Haskins, Washington Haskins (NR) 30. Kyle Allen, Carolina Panthers (NR)
Remember when folks thought Kyle Allen should keep his job over a healthy Cam Newton? That was fun. The numbers are more bad than terrible, but we’ve seen enough now to know Allen is an NFL backup, not a starter.
Dwayne Haskins has been disastrous. His 4.4% interception rate is awful even for a rookie, and his 14% sack rate is historically bad. Haskins has thrown a touchdown in only two of seven games and completed 55% of his passes for 6.1 yards per attempt (YPA). Every metric is awful, awful, awful.
David Blough may not even be in the NFL next year, and he still has as many TDs in two games as Haskins has in seven. That’s really all you need to know.
TIER VIII — WHEN YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW
29. Mitchell Trubisky, Chicago Bears (29) 28. Jameis Winston, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (28) 27. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Miami Dolphins (31) 26. Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals (25)
There’s three QBs in this tier everyone knows are bad and one fans are still deluding themselves into thinking otherwise. Mitch Trubisky’s 6.2 YPA and 9.6 yards per completion both rank dead last among all starting quarterbacks. Yeah, but what about that ____ game?! It’s true, Trubisky has four games this season with three TDs. He has four touchdowns total in the other nine games. Sorry, but that is not a winning quarterback. The best thing Mitch did last year was run the ball, and he had almost completely stopped doing that too until last week. The worst (best?) part is Trubisky’s doing just enough late to trick Chicago coaches and fans into buying in all over again.
We already know Fitzmagic and Jameis are bad, but this really has been a quintessential season for both. Winston is seven yards and two TDs away from leading the league, while his 23 interceptions are the most since 2013 and his five pick 6s are one off the all-time record. Fitzpatrick has started at least half his team’s games in 11 seasons and never won more than six games, and yet somehow he’s now one of 44 quarterbacks in history with 200 TDs and one of 47 all time with 30,000 yards. How did we let this happen?
Andy Dalton is the ultimate NFL litmus test. Play him at quarterback and he’ll be exactly as good or as bad as your team. The Bengals are terrible.
The worst part is at least three of these guys will be starting for some NFL team on Opening Day next fall. Maybe all four.
TIER VII — TOO SOON TO TELL
25. Devlin Hodges, Pittsburgh Steelers (NR) 24. Daniel Jones, New York Giants (NR) 23. Drew Lock, Denver Broncos (NR) 22. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills (30) 21. Sam Darnold, New York Jets (17)
Duck Hodges has an impressive 8.5 YPA, which would lead the league over a full season, but he’s thrown only 80 times in five games against mostly poor defenses. Pittsburgh is hiding him, and for good reason for an undrafted rookie out of Samford-not-Stanford. Let’s see how he does against Buffalo and Baltimore.
Danny Dukes has been fine for a rookie. The numbers are all bad, like most rookies. Too many sacks, interceptions, and incompletions, but none of those numbers are egregious. Truth be told, he’s probably having a slightly better rookie season than his New York counterpart did last fall. Drew Lock has only played two games, but he just became one of five rookie QBs ever to have throw for 300 yards, 3 TDs, and 75% completions in one game.
This is as high as I can place Josh Allen. Look past the 9–4 record. Allen is still completing under 60% of his passes, getting sacked 7.5% of his dropbacks, and averaging under 7.0 YPA. All those metrics are improved from a year ago — the problem is they’ve improved from not-an-NFL-player to just ordinary bad. Allen is improving. He’s thrown only one interception in eight games, and he adds value on the ground. He’s become a viable game manager. Is that enough?
Improvement is more than you can say for Sam Darnold. Darnold’s numbers are all slightly better than Allen but they’re also pretty much the same as what he did last year, with very little progression.
It’s too soon to tell for these guys, but it’s also not particularly promising.
TIER VI — REASON TO BELIEVE
20. Baker Mayfield, Cleveland Browns (10) 19. Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals (18) 18. Gardner Minshew, Jacksonville Jaguars (NR)
Going by this year alone, Baker Mayfield would plummet down these rankings, maybe into the bottom tier. Baker has been awful. He’s thrown more interceptions than touchdowns and completed only 59% of his passes, and the eye test looks the part. Mayfield has lost his confidence and has no pocket presence. He’s regressed in a massive way. Of course, he also had an all-time rookie season, and that’s not just null and void. That year is still way better than what anyone below this has done. Baker had a nice Week-9-to-12 stretch against Denver, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, but those were also his only games this season with more TDs than interceptions.
This year’s #1 pick, Kyler Murray, has pretty impressive numbers considering he has no offensive line or defense and every weapon on the team has been injured all year. Murray has 16 TDs and nine picks with a 64% completion rate. Pretty good! Hopefully he gets more help next year.
You know who else has been good? The mustached man, Gardner Minshew. Minshew has been spectacular for a sixth-round rookie. He has 15 TDs and only five interceptions, his 1.3% interception rate among the best ever by a rookie. Minshew is far better than Super Bowl-winning quarterback Nick Foles, and he’s been at the helm for breakout seasons from D.J. Chark and Leonard Fournette. If Jacksonville is dumb enough to make Minshew available, a lot of teams should give him a shot.
TIER V — DEPENDS ON THE SITUATION
17. Tom Brady, New England Patriots (4) 16. Jared Goff, Los Angeles Rams (14) 15. Jacoby Brissett, Indianapolis Colts (32) 14. Philip Rivers, Los Angeles Chargers (6) 13. Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons (12) 12. Jimmy Garoppolo, San Francisco 49ers (19) 11. Carson Wentz, Philadelphia Eagles (11)
How many NFL quarterbacks could you swap for Tom Brady right now and the Patriots would have just as good a chance to win this year’s Super Bowl? Are you sure it’s not like half the league? With Adam Vinatieri on IR, Brady is he oldest player in the NFL, and he looks the part. Brady’s 6.6 YPA ranks 29th in the league. His 60.5% completion percentage is awful and going in the wrong direction, at 55% or lower four straight games. Almost all of his numbers are career lows, and he’s thrown an interception in seven of his last 10 games. It’s ugly. Of course, I also dropped Brady from 2nd to 13th this time last season and then he won a Super Bowl.
That was against Jared Goff, who might be ranked five or 10 spots too high. Goff has 15 TDs and 14 interceptions along with a 45 QBR (out of 100). He hasn’t looked right all season, though it’s worth noting that he’s completed 70% of his passes three straight games. Did Sean McVay finally adapt his offense, and was it too late?
Jacoby Brissett and Jimmy Garoppolo are the last two Pats other than Tom Brady to start a game at quarterback, and now they’re both ranked ahead of him. I ranked Brissett dead last among Opening Day starters. I was way off. He has 18 TDs and doesn’t get sacked or turn it over. He’s become the perfect game manager, and I mean that as a compliment. Indy just had too many injuries this year for a game manager to do enough. Garoppolo has 25 TDs and an 8.3 YPA, but I’m wary of the Kyle Shanahan boost and shades of Jared Goff. I need to see more like his performance against the Saints before I move him up further. But I’d still take both of them over Brady now. I think. *gulp*
Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan might be the same quarterback. When things are perfect, they can put up great numbers. Otherwise they’re fine, slightly above average quarterbacks. And things are not perfect this year.
Things are not perfect for Carson Wentz either. Far from it. They’re literally signing receivers off the street, the line is all banged up, the running backs can’t pass protect or run the ball, there’s no one to stretch the field, and the playcalling absolutely sucks. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Wentz has looked shaky much of the year, but the numbers are pretty good, considering. He has 22 TDs and only seven INTs, and those numbers are pretty typical for him. Wentz’s 6.5 YPA is the one metric that stands out, fourth worst in the NFL with nothing downfield in this offense. It has been a pretty rough season for the Eagles. But rather than blaming Wentz, I wonder if he’s actually the one thing still holding this playoff run together.
TIER IV — WAIT, WHAT?!
10. Derek Carr, Oakland Raiders (22) 9. Kirk Cousins, Minnesota Vikings (13) 8. Ryan Tannehill, Tennessee Titans (NR)
Yes, these are three of the top 10 quarterbacks in the NFL right now.
Derek Carr has been here before, in 2016 when he was an MVP candidate. Carr’s been a disaster against the Chiefs. Against everyone else, he has 16 TDs and four interceptions, completing over 70% of his passes. Oakland’s pass defense is a nightmare, but Jon Gruden really got this offense clicking.
It terrifies me to rank Kirk Cousins this high as a Vikings fan, but the metrics alone would rank him even higher. Cousins’s 8.4 YPA are the best of any QB that’s started all season. He has 24 TDs and four picks, and he’s completed over 70% of his passes. He still has an absolute clunker about once a month that precludes any sort of four-game playoff run, but even those clunkers are closer to half a game now most of the time. Cousins hasn’t been good this year. He’s been great.
You know who’s been even better? Ryan Timothy Tannehill III. Let’s put some respeck on that name. In past columns, I called Tannehill the perpetual 20th best quarterback in the NFL and said he was “one of the most mediocre, forgettable, longtime starters ever.” Until now. Since taking over for Marcus Mariota (who stunk in the exact same system), Tannehill has played at an MVP level. He’s thrown 15 TDs in seven starts, with a league-leading 9.8 YPA. If that doesn’t translate for you, every time Ryan Tannehill attempts a pass, the Titans average a first down. Tannehill has 2000 yards in seven starts and, at 6–1, quarterbacks the league’s hottest offense outside of Baltimore.
Is it ridiculous to rank Tannehill this high? The way he’s playing right now, it’s not. These guys have been top 10 QBs in 2019, whether you like it or not. And for the record, Matt Stafford would be in this tier too, if healthy.
TIER III — WE GOT NEXT, AND NEXT IS NOW
7. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys (15) 6. Deshaun Watson, Houston Texans (8) 5. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens (16)
You probably think Dak Prescott is too high. You’re wrong. Prescott, not Ezekiel Elliott, has carried the Dallas offense. Dak leads the league with 4122 passing yards. Do you have any idea how absurd that would’ve sounded three months ago? He ranks top three in QBR, sack rate, and YPA. Like Wentz, Dak is what’s keeping the Cowboys afloat, not the reason they’re failing. He is worth every penny he gets this offseason.
Deshaun Watson has been inconsistent. He can be spectacular at times, but there are still too many other times. Watson’s metrics are down a bit but that’s only because they’re usually terrific. He’s still never thrown double-digit picks in a season, and he is one of like five humans on earth that can win an NFL game all on their own.
And yeah, Lamar Jackson is on that list, too. Jackson probably deserves to rank higher, but let’s be cautious and see how this holds up. Jackson leads the league with 28 passing TDs and 78 QBR, but most of his passing metrics are more fine than great. Maybe that’s okay when you’re also the most electric runner in the NFL, with 1017 rushing yards and seven TDs. Maybe this is too conservative, leaving Jackson at #5. If he keeps doing this in the postseason, he’ll be #1 next fall.
TIER II — RESPECT
4. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers (2) 3. Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints (5) 2. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs (1)
This is the first time I’ve ever ranked Aaron Rodgers outside the top three, and you could argue I’m still giving him too much credit. Rodgers is not what he once was. There’s simply no denying that. His YPA doesn’t measure up to what it once was, and he has a ton of throw-aways and sacks. He also has 23 TDs and two interceptions, which gives him a whopping four picks over the last two seasons combined. Rodgers is not what he once was, but he once was putting up all-time elite numbers. He can still be really, really good without being the Rodgers of old. We’ll find out if he still is in January.
No one’s really talking about Drew Brees, but he is about as good as ever. There are three big negatives a quarterback can have — incompletions, interceptions, or sacks. Even great QBs typically pick one of the three. Rodgers throws the ball away a ton instead of risking a turnover. Russell Wilson gets sacked a lot. Drew Brees does none of these things. He is the NFL’s all-time completion percentage leader and continues to raise his percentage at age 40; his 73.6% this year ranks second all time, behind himself a year ago. Brees has the league’s lowest sack rate. He’s thrown only four picks along with 17 TDs. His YPA is a bit down, but Brees is as good as ever, and he’s coming for that second Super Bowl ring.
It’s remarkable how good Patrick Mahomes’s numbers are this year, even with a litany of injuries to every part of his body and every weapon on his roster. In a disappointing MVP defense, Mahomes ranks second in the NFL in QBR, second in sack rate, and third in YPA. He’s thrown only three interceptions with 21 TDs which, to be fair, is 29 short of last season. And he’s doing it all with a broken down body and with dudes named Pringle and Mecole. We don’t deserve Patrick Mahomes, and we almost didn’t get him multiple times this year.
TIER I — THE MVP
1. Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks (3)
And then there’s Russ. I’ve long kept Russell Wilson near the top of my QB rankings despite a lot of argument otherwise, and now you all know why. This is Wilson’s masterpiece. QB wins are not a stat, but Wilson has now won nine games in all of his eight seasons in the league. Really he’s won 10+ games in all but one, and that’s about to be 11+ wins in all but two seasons. Seattle is a mediocre team with a mediocre offense and mediocre weapons, and Wilson is single-handedly dragging them toward the 1-seed. He has four 4th-quarter comebacks and five game-winning drives. He’s two off the league lead in TDs. Wilson has done everything, and he’s done it with very little help.
In the end, that may not be enough. If the Seahawks don’t win out and secure the 1-seed, Lamar Jackson will probably win the MVP trophy. But Russell Wilson is the best quarterback on the planet right now, and he’s got his eyes on another trophy altogether. ■
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