My 2023-24 QB Tier List

The 2023 NFL season kicks off with some teams having questions at the most important position in the NFL: the quarterback position. Let's see where every QB stands in this league.

Tier 8: Rookies

QBs who are rookies (duh)

Bryce Young

Young is an interesting prospect to me. He doesn’t have elite measurables, which dims down his ceiling a bit, but he has solid zone coverage awareness and looks more experienced than your average rookie. He also is mobile, although not as mobile as someone like Kyler Murray. Also, unlike Murray, he sees and attacks the middle of the field. This is why I never believed in the comparisons between the two height-challenged QBs. Regardless of whether Young is good, he’ll probably be the best QB out of the division if he tries to reach his ceiling, and it’d probably be the first time he’s ever reached a ceiling in his life.

C.J. Stroud

I am not as high on C.J. Stroud as most people, and it’s not just because he looks like he's about to cry in every picture he's on. He has a quick release and has a solid deep ball, but he is also super turnover prone and, considering his horrible Wonderlic score, may be rawer than everybody is giving him credit for. I liked his performance against my Bulldogs in the Semifinal, but he had Marvin Harrison and Jaxon Smith-Njigba to throw to at Ohio State while in Houston, he doesn’t even have Brandin Cooks. It may take a year or two for him to be a quality starter.

Anthony Richardson

Richardson is a prime example of how the NFL works now, with teams valuing upside and athleticism over actual production. Sure, Richardson is probably the most athletic quarterback in the league currently, if not all-time. However, he wasn’t even a good college QB at Florida, which makes him an extreme gamble and nothing more than an idea of a good quarterback at this point. Sure, he has Shane Steichen coaching him, but just like with Jalen Hurts, I don’t see the results of his development appearing until at least his second year if not his third.

Will Levis

Levis is comparable to Richardson in that he’s extremely raw with a cannon for an arm and just about nothing else. His draft day comparison to Jay Cutler is pretty fitting, since he could be a massive wild card with his accuracy issues. Unlike Richardson’s situation, the Titans already have a starter in Ryan Tannehill, so Levis will get to learn as his backup. He’ll also have to compete with Malik Willis, which could be easier said than done. Let’s just say if he were to intimidate defenses the way he intimidated me when he ate a banana without taking off the peel, he’d be a Hall-of-Fame QB.

Tier 7: Too Soon to Tell

These are QBs that haven’t gotten enough playing time to make any grand declarations about.

Jordan Love

It’s wild how little playing time Love has seen despite him playing for three years. Of course, the Packers wanted to do the same thing with Love and Aaron Rodgers that they did with Rodgers and Brett Favre. Hopefully Love developed some elite traits from Rodgers after cooking in the oven for three seasons, but when you’re asked to replace a Hall-of-Fame QB, the microscope is on you to perform. He might be helped by his talent at receiver and running back and a solid offensive line, but if he busts, the Packers are back to square 1.

Kenny Pickett

Kenny Kitten Mittens Pickett had a tale of two seasons last year. In the beginning, he had 3 TDs to 7 INTs as the Steelers looked like they were in the running for the 1st overall pick. Then, he and the team went 180, finishing the year 7–2, while Pickett had improved, but still just OK numbers. However, he showed big play ability in the clutch later in the season, which helped keep Mike Tomlin’s non-losing streak alive. He dishes the ball out quickly, which causes a lot of checkdowns, but with the clutch plays he showed last year and the connection he has with George Pickens, his ceiling has yet to be realized yet. However, I don’t think he’s going to find it with Matt Canada as his offensive coordinator.

Brock Purdy

Purdy had a rockstar rookie season filling in for the injured Jimmy G., making it all the way to the NFC Championship game and proving to some that the Niners could make any quarterback look good with their system. It’s true, the Niners don’t need a quarterback with a high ceiling like Trey Lance, who lost the starting job to Purdy this year, but it was guys with high floors like Purdy and Garoppolo that catalyzed the system and led the 49ers to success. Unlike Jimmy G. I feel like there’s still more room for Purdy to grow, and if he can throw deeper more often, the 49ers will go from great to dynasty in no time.

Sam Howell

Unless some drastic changes happen, it looks like wannabe Baker Mayfield will get a crack at starting for the Commanders. While he was underrated as a 5th rounder, that doesn’t give you any confidence with him being the starter. He is a sneaky athlete (white), but he’s slow when going through reads and muscles the ball too much on deep throws. It remains to be seen what he can do, but if he flames out, the Commanders will probably be in line to take Caleb Williams in next year’s draft.

Desmond Ridder

I am a Falcons fan, and I have faith in them to win games, but I don’t have a lot of faith in Desmond Ridder. Like Kenny Pickett, Ridder is a quarterback with a high floor, but low ceiling, and while Pickett showed flashes of being a good quarterback in the league, I view Ridder as nothing more than a stopgap for a QB in the future. He only threw 2 touchdowns and lost 2 fumbles in four games last year. In hindsight, I’m glad we didn’t take Malik Willis in the draft, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we trade for a veteran QB or trade up in the draft for one next year. Ridder got compared to Marcus Mariota during draft time, and us Falcons fans know how that went last year.

Tier 6: Scrubs

These are QBs who actively hold back their teams.

Malik Willis

Maybe I’m being a bit too mean to a guy who’s only been in the league for one season, but I was just not impressed with Willis last year. His advanced statistics are worse than Ryan Leaf’s were, and the tape shows it. It also doesn’t help that Tennessee already replaced him with Will Levis, and I doubt he makes the team at this rate. It’d be a strange fall from grace for a guy mocked as the 2nd pick to the Lions not even 2 years ago.

Zach Wilson

It turns out the mirage of him panning out in the NFL due to his play against community college kids was, in fact, a mirage. There is almost nothing he does well; he doesn’t progress his reads, he puts the ball in harm’s way, and he is also not accountable at all. He may be amazing at scoring on milfs, but it’s unlikely he’ll be scoring much in the NFL at this rate.

Baker Mayfield

This is the part of the Brady cycle where everyone immediately forgets about the team he leaves as they fall to being bottom feeders. The Bucs reinforced that with Mayfield as their starting QB. I doubt Kyle Trask starts for the team with Mayfield’s contract, but neither one of them give hope to the Bucs faithful anyway. Baker is a shell of his former self, and while he had good 2018 and 2020 seasons, the flaws in his game (his short stature, his accuracy issues) are too hard to mask up at this point. I’d be surprised if he ever becomes a quality starter in the league again.

Justin Fields

This is one that will ruffle the feathers of some people, but so far, he just hasn’t showed enough in the league. People will look at the flashes he showed last year and how he performed at the running game and think this is too mean, but outside of three games, he hasn’t shown anything in the passing game. That’s what separates him from a guy like Lamar. He still doesn’t process reads quickly enough and bails from clean pockets too much. It shows with his terrible sack percentage. He now has legit weapons to throw to and a better offensive line, so he could prove me wrong, but let’s just say I have my doubts.

Tier 5: Wild Cards

These are QBs who were terrible last year, but with their history, no one knows how they’re going to do this season.

Matthew Stafford

If you were to tell me after the 2022 Super Bowl that Stafford would end up leading one of the worst offenses in the league the year after, I’d be surprised, but not shocked. That is exactly what he did in 2022. He threw 8 touchdowns and 9 interceptions in 10 games, leading the Rams to a 2–7 record. To add injury to insult, he hurt his back and was out for the last 7 games. He now has a much worse supporting cast, a worse offensive line, and is dealing with more injury concerns than last year. It’s basically Detroit west in Los Angeles right now, and this season will probably end his chances at being a Hall-of-Famer. At least he got a ring.

Russell Wilson

Football Gus Fring had a harrowing first season with Denver, averaging only 16 points per game with the Broncs in the first 12 games. He looked nothing like the Russ we were used to seeing, and he became more known for his shitty Subway commercials than his play on the field. At least in the last 5 games, he played better, showing that he still has an inkling of talent left, and unsurprisingly, RC Cola Freddie Kitchens, a.k.a. Nathaniel Hackett is gone to the Jets. Sean Payton should help him have a bounce back year or else he will have to live off Subway commercials for the rest of his life.

Deshaun Watson

As a person with somewhat good morals (I’d like to think), I think Watson should be in jail instead of the NFL, so it was a little karmic justice to see him struggle last season. The Browns needed him to be the savior last year to get them to the playoffs after Jacoby Brissett kept the seat warm for him, but he crapped himself, throwing only 7 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. Of course, most of that can be attributed to rust from not playing since 2020, so he’ll probably have a bounce back year. When he does, the NFL will skirt around his misdeeds like they did with Big Ben when he played, but I hope that he never wins a Super Bowl or gets an MVP or makes it to the Hall of Fame.

Geno Smith

Geno Smith belongs into this tier for the opposite reason. Coming into the season he was considered a draft bust at 32 years old and a miserable replacement for Russell Wilson, aka Football Gus Fring, but he proved everyone wrong in the biggest way possible, producing an amazing season and getting more MVP votes than Russell Wilson ever did in Seattle. However, he tailed off a bit last season against better defenses, and he is going to be 33 soon, so there are questions on whether he can have another elite season or even close to that. If he does, he’d be an above average quarterback.

Tier 4: Average

These are QBs that won’t lose you games but won’t go out and win games like the best.

Mac Jones

After a promising rookie season, Mac Jones had a dreadful second year that made people think of him as a scrub. However, I believe that was mostly due to Matt Patricia and Joe Judge calling the plays on offense, which is like having two astrophysicists performing heart surgery on a kid. As a result, I think McCorkle Jones is going to show that steady play he showed us at the beginning of his rookie year and go back to be a solid QB. However, I don’t see him developing a lot from that considering he’s already physically maxed out. Hopefully Bailey Zappe doesn’t turn into Tom Brady.

Ryan Tannehill

Ryan Tannehill has always been fine as a starter. Outside of two years where it looked like he was having a career turnaround, Tannehill has largely been the definition of mid at quarterback. His career winning percentage is .550, almost dead average. He’s got some sneaky athleticism, but never uses it (white), he has ok accuracy, and an alright touchdown to interception ratio. Tennessee won’t be bad enough with him to land Caleb Williams in the draft, but it may not be long until the Titans see what they have in Will Levis. Probably next year, though.

Jimmy Garoppolo

The fragile system QB was shipped off to replace his red and gold with silver and black. As for his play on the field, he basically showed everything he’s about last year. He’s a solid commander of the offense, but he’s jittery in the pocket, he doesn’t give you much as a scrambler, and he’s fragile. I doubt he’ll have the same numbers in Josh McDaniels’ system that he did with the Niners, but at least he has Davante Adams and Josh Jacobs, I guess. If it doesn't work, he might have to live off of modeling gigs.

Daniel Jones

After three dreadful years as the Giants starter, Jones finally broke through under new head coach Brian Daboll. He was still the same quarterback in terms of throwing talent, but he showed more of his athleticism and speed and committed way less turnovers than before. Of course, he’s helped tremendously by Daboll’s talent at managing an offense, but for a guy who looked like a draft bust from the moment he was selected 6th overall in 2019, it’s nice that he’s finally on people’s radar a bit, including mine. I don’t think he’ll ever elevate the Giants to new heights unless he somehow improves his pocket presence and deep ball accuracy in year 5, but at least he doesn’t look totally hopeless this year.

Jared Goff

Goff’s career is hard to judge at this point. He has oscillated from being terrible to elite every season he’s played. As a result, he lands right in the middle. Honestly, I think people overrate Jared Goff a bit. He was dominant at home, sure, but he was still below average on the road, and the Lions play a lot of tough opponents on the road this year. Still, he is good enough to have real hope for this team to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2016. It’ll be very interesting to see how he does this year because that could have a lot of baring on what his future is as a Lion.

Derek Carr

Carr’s career has been a carbon copy of Matthew Stafford’s to this point. Every year, his offenses have always been below average to average, he’s shown massive inconsistencies where he’ll look like an elite QB some weeks and a bottom 5 starter other weeks, and he’s never been able to utilize his tools completely yet. The only difference is unlike Stafford, Carr is not clutch. Not even getting Davante Adams and a career year from Josh Jacobs could help him be clutch, as there were several games last year the Raiders would’ve won if Carr was just a little better in the 4th quarter. However, like Stafford, Carr was traded to the NFC and is now given potentially the best WR duo he’s ever had with Thomas and Olave, his offensive line is alright, and Alvin Kamara could go back to form. Despite all this, though, there are serious doubts about if it’ll all come together.

Tier 4: Above Average

These are QBs that have shown flashes of taking over games more than the average quarterbacks, but those flashes are very rare.

Tua Tagovailoa

Tua had a whirlwind season last year. After not really showing much his first two years in the league and making the Dolphins look foolish for taking him instead of Justin Herbert, 2022 was a breakout year for him. He led the league in almost every efficiency stat when he was active, and Miami had a solid record of 8–5 in games that he started and finished in. Unfortunately, he was concussed three times over the season, and he has never played a full season since 2018, so he comes with some injury risk. On one hand, I wouldn’t blame Tua if he decides to retire after suffering another concussion in a game this year at some point. On another, Tua has proved that he is a star quarterback and I want to see him make his playoff debut and play a full season.

Dak Prescott

Dak had a strange year last year. He threw 15 interceptions and led the league in turnovers despite playing only twelve games last year. However, he still had insane games against Minnesota, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and even Tampa Bay in the playoffs. To be fair, those matchups may have more to do with the defenses he’s facing than him, which makes sense with the rest of his career as a quarterback that seems to live off padding stats against bad competition. He also doesn’t really show up in the most important moments like the best quarterbacks do, although sometimes he does. That makes him good enough to place here.

Kirk Cousins

Last year was a very anti-Cousin’s year on the surface. He was mostly average, but his team went 13–4 and won the NFC North by a landslide. However, the negative point differential and loss to the Giants in the divisional round just reinforced everything about Kirk Cousins up to this point in his career. He’ll keep putting up great stats in the 1pm timeslot against lower-level competition, but when the primetime lights are on, or he must face someone legitimate, he just isn’t as reliable. He’s going to have a divisive legacy once he retires, like Tony Romo. While I doubt, he makes the Hall-of-Fame, I would pay to see 5 more seasons of him on the QB documentary.

Kyler Murray

This is the lowest point of Kyler’s NFL career. He had an underwhelming season last year, tore his ACL, and watch the team collapse to a bottom feeder without him. His front office didn’t help by releasing that they put a film study clause on his contract, which caused people to label him as a lazy child who would rather play Call of Duty than win football games. However, he’s still the guy who led the Cardinals to a dominating start in 2021, where he looked like an MVP candidate. I believe it’s more of the Cardinals who have held him back from reaching his full potential, from Kliff Kingsbury being one-dimensional to Steve Keim sucking at drafting. I think Murray is going to prove that he can play, but it won’t reflect much on the record, and if the Cards get a chance to take Caleb Williams, Kyler may be traded.

Tier 3: Studs

These are QBs who are legitimate talents, but they aren’t as proven as the two tiers above them.

Lamar Jackson

I’m interested to see how this season goes, since he has better receivers to throw to this year than just Mark Andrews and 3 games of Rashod Bateman, but as for now, he belongs here. He may just be an adequate passer, but he’s the greatest running quarterback that the league has ever seen to the point where it improves his passing game too. He’s also shown flashes from these last two years of being better as a passer. However, these last two years, he’s shown issues with durability, which made it a risk when it came to extending him this season. The good news is the Ravens did extend him, as he has a 74%-win percentage with the Ravens, and they really suck without him. I hope this year, he comes closer to his peak with the new weapons and a new offensive coordinator instead of one as antiquated as Greg Roman.

Trevor Lawrence

After his dreadful rookie season with Urban Meyer running a clown show in Duval and a better but still mediocre beginning of the year, Lawrence showed his talent in a big way, leading the lowly Jaguars to a 5-game winning streak to end the year, clinching the AFC South, and winning a playoff game. He did have his warts like lost fumbles and struggles in the clutch, but the sky is the limit for this generational talent, and with the state of the AFC South, he should be in line for another monster season and another playoff appearance.

Justin Herbert

Herbert should’ve elevated in the next tier of elite QBs this year, but thanks to Joe Lombardi’s offensive play calling, broken ribs at the beginning of the season, and the Chargers chargering all over themselves in several games, it didn’t happen. He at least got a winning record and a playoff berth out of it, but still, it was disappointing. There’s still hope for Herbert to reach his ceiling, as Kellen Moore is better for his style than Joe Lombardi, and they drafted Quentin Johnson as more weapons for him. Hopefully he finally approaches his ceiling as a passer because he’s so fun to watch when he’s on.

Tier 2: Elite

These are QBs that are a threat to win any game they start in and should give the team they’re on at least 10 wins each year.

Josh Allen

Allen is the Vegeta to Mahomes’ Goku. Hipsters will put Allen over Mahomes in QB rankings, and its reasonable with the insane amount of pressure he puts on defenses with his rocket launcher for an arm and his centurion legs. His stats don’t even show his entire effectiveness, and they’re still amazing. However, whether it’s his fault or not, his teams have yet to reach the mountaintop and make a Super Bowl. Last year was their best shot to do it in my opinion, but with Allen under center, they’ll always be a worthy competitor in the AFC playoff picture.

Joe Burrow

While Allen is like Vegeta, Burrow is more like Frieza. He doesn’t have quite the same arm talent as Allen, but his pocket presence and decision making can rival anyone in the NFL. Plus, he still has Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to catch any deep ball he throws. Even if he’s not as athletic as Allen, he’s led his teams to more playoff success than Allen so far. However, he has yet to live up to his Joe Cool nickname in the postseason yet. He hasn’t had a dominant postseason run so far, and the last two years he was a touchdown drive away from winning the Super Bowl and another touchdown drive away from making another Super Bowl. With Mahomes, you can never take anything for granted, but Burrow has at least given the Bengals legitimate hope.

Aaron Rodgers

I still think that Rodgers has the reputation as an elite quarterback despite last season’s struggles. He still showed his deep ball ability on occasions, showing he hasn’t lost anything physically yet. Plus, he had a broken thumb and a group of rookie receivers and Allen Lazard to throw to. Now he has Garrett Wilson as his #1 guy and a dynamic running game, like his 2019–2021 seasons. This season will be huge for him, although it might be his last elite season.

Jalen Hurts

It is insane how Hurts has evolved. In 2021, he looked like a stopgap from Carson Wentz to the next great quarterback. Then in 2022, he blossomed into a legitimate franchise quarterback and led the Eagles to the best record in the league and a Super Bowl berth. Sure, he’s helped by his receiving core of DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown, but he’s improved his deep ball, his short game has improved thanks to Brown, and he is almost at Lamar’s level in terms of scrambling. He makes the Eagles one of the only exciting teams to watch in the NFC this year.

Tier 1: Mahomes

Yeah, that’s right. Mahomes belongs in his own tier of greatness. He’s the main character of the NFL, and last year reinforced it, with another MVP, another 1st round bye, another Lombardi (with help from the refs), and another Super Bowl MVP. Ever since he’s been in the league, the Chiefs have played at home in the AFC Championship game. That’s nuts. He has the most wins and most touchdown passes of any 5th-year starter, and unlike guys like Tom Brady, he does it with an insanely balanced and entertaining playstyle. In my opinion, he has the best shot at becoming the GOAT over Brady in the future. If my Falcons don’t win a ring (which they probably won’t) I hope Mahomes does.