NFL Quarterbacks 2022: A Comparative Statistical Analysis
I hope that some of you, a handful, maybe, among the world's population read my first QB analysis from last year. We have, once again, crowned a Super Bowl champion and entered into the offseason, which could also be known as the NFL QB Carousel and Silly Season Derby.
Derek Carr has been released and, as of 3/6, signed with the Saints. It is somewhat likely that Aaron Rodgers will be traded elsewhere or it is always possible that his 4 days in dark isolation might lead him into retirement. Tom Brady DID retire, again, at least until the first time a team with a need calls. I won't believe he is retired for good until August, 2028, when he is inducted in Canton.
As usual, all of the most interesting stories always revolve around that QB position. The Mitch Trubisky and Marcus Mariota resurrection projects failed, with each being supplanted by a rookie, Kenny Pickett and Desmond Ridder, respectively. Russell Wilson bombed in Denver, although I think that we will eventually find that was more about Nathaniel Hackett than anything else. Sean Payton will probably quickly right that ship!
Trey Lance started 2022 as the 49ers new QB1, to almost immediately suffer a season ending injury. Jimmy Garoppolo to the rescue, until HIS injury lead to Brock Purdy, the 2021 draft's Mr. Irrelevant. Both Garoppolo and Purdy were stellar, the 49ers made it to the NFC Championship game to finally be undone by yet another QB injury, this one to Purdy. The only certainty in San Francisco is that the team is really great and Garoppolo will NOT be a part of things next year. He will be starting somewhere else, we just don't know where, yet.
Lamar Jackson's status in Baltimore, is, as always it seems, up in the air. The Ravens gave him the non-exclusive franchise tag and will likely trade him. Atlanta would be ideal as they are running an offense that fits his skill set. But they bowed out on day one. So did many of his purported suitors, but I think a lot of that is just bluff. IF Jackson goes, his lesser talented style of play clone, Tyler Huntley, will likely take over. Mariota might be worth signing as a backup. Or a first-round QB pick might be in the offing if Lamar exits, with the Ravens receiving 2 first round picks in automatic compensation.
Miami, it seems, has found their QB1, except can they trust Tua Tagavailoa to remain healthy? And the issue is concussions, which could be a career ender. Their big offseason issue is which 1(b) starter to add as his backup should disaster strike? I've always thought Teddy Bridgewater is better than most think, but that didn't work too well for the Dolphins as he also got hurt. They limped into the playoffs, but their 7th round rookie, Skylar Thompson, could not fit the bill the way Purdy had in 'Frisco. Perhaps Miami would make a good landing spot for a Darnold, Dalton or Mayfield in a backup role?
Geno Smith came of age last season in Seattle (a hint....he is in my Elite QB category this year, more on that later), won the Comeback Player of the Year award and I would be shocked if Seattle doesn't re-sign him as a free agent. And, as it turns out, they DID sign him on the same day that the first shoe dropped with Carr's signing.
There are generally considered to be 13 (maybe 14) teams in the QB market, although 4 of these teams have free agent QB incumbents that they could simply re-sign. Those four being Seattle, Baltimore, Tennessee and the NY Giants. There are 10 viable free agent starters available and Aaron Rodgers might be on the market, as well, in a trade deal. It is also quite possible that the Titans release Ryan Tannehill, putting both him AND the franchise on the QB market. That would be 11 or 12 QBs, not counting the four college QBs that are generally considered to be first round possibilities.
So, basically, the rub is in deciding what your team wants or needs. Atlanta, for example, could simply stay with the development of Desmond Ridder and find a backup. Or they could blow up the budget and their draft capital and trade for Lamar Jackson. Personally, as a lifelong Falcons fan, I love Jackson, but getting him puts the team right back in the cap space hell that they were in with Matt Ryan when there are so many other holes that could be filled with the draft picks and the cap space available this offseason. And all of that still never netted them a coveted championship. I feel like the best move is to find an inexpensive backup/mentor type, like Andy Dalton (who played really well least year!) or, if you want to get in on the truly sneaky QB no one is talking about, Jacoby Brissett, and continue to develop Ridder AND the rest of the team.
The weirdest quandary to me is the 49ers. Basically, everyone thinks they are a Super Bowl winner in waiting, needing only a quarterback that is DIFFERENT (not necessarily better) than Garoppolo. That is the narrative throughout the league. So. Jimmy G will be gone, supplanted by either Trey Lance or 7th round wunderkind Brock Purdy. But there is also talk of bringing in someone else, first thought to be Tom Brady until he announced his retirement. Now Brady might have worked because of his uncanny ability to simply win, but both he and Carr were, statistically, not as good as Garoppolo was last season. Now maybe the Stafford/Rams solution might work in San Francisco but I don't see an improvement here based on just a QB change. Then again, the 'Niners proved last year quite effectively that they could win regardless of who their QB was.....but we still don't actually know if they could have won the NFC Championship OR the Super Bowl had Purdy remained uninjured. And, frankly, I don't think that Kyle Shanahan is questioned enough about his past playoff failings while everyone is ready to lay all of the blame on Garoppolo. Shanahan may be the football equivalent of Bobby Cox, a guy who could always get the best out of a team in the regular season but almost always gacked in the playoffs.
The Jets are an up-and-coming contender that could make massive strides with a different QB. They would benefit greatly from getting Rodgers. Or Garoppolo! In fact, they would probably benefit from any free agent signing short of Baker Mayfield. And, according to the rumors, they seem to be in play for almost EVERY QB that may be available this offseason. Derek Carr seemed to be the odds-on choice right up until 3/6. Frankly, I am not so sure why everyone wants Rodgers.....we all seem to forget that A-Aron actually had a pretty mediocre campaign last year. Yes, according to my analysis, Carr and him weren't very different last year, but Carr's QBR was a full 16 points higher than Rodgers'. And another thing I keep wondering about is why everyone impugns Rodgers' ability to win in the post-season and yet they all keep positing that he automatically makes the Jets a Super Bowl winner. That makes no sense. Garoppolo's QBR is comparable to Carr's and he rated much higher in my rankings. In fact, Jimmy G. would be the wisest choice left this offseason among the high dollar free agents for a team looking for a QB, based on recent performance. Rodgers is most likely a possible, but is that a possible to sign or retire? And what happens if none of the big names pan out for the Jets? Again, here is another place that the sneakily good Jacoby Brissett (extrapolated numbers, 4031 yds, 64% completion percentage, 19 TD and 9 INT) might be a better (and cheaper) solution than most people realize.
Then there is Tampa. Brady has, supposedly, retired. At the very least, he isn't likely to come back to the Bucs. And let's be frank.....the Bucs weren't very good last year, even with him. So, do they make a QB splash and try to sign another high dollar free agent, or do they go the placeholder route? The Bucs first pick is at 19, well after all the projected first round QBs in this draft are projected to be taken. Is this QB draft class good enough to trade up for? Personal opinion, they should sign an interim guy or work with Kyle Trask and rebuild for the future. According to the most recent reporting, they are going to start Trask this coming season, who's sum total stats are from last season's final game at Atlanta..... 3/9 for 23 yards.
The Giants were able to resign Daniel Jones at a hefty $40 million per year although he has started out asking for $45 million per year, which may seem ridiculous but from his point of view makes sense. After all, he got beaten up for three years on a bad football team and still played passably well and then he measurably improved as the team improved this season. Best bet for the Giants was signing him and then franchise tagging Saquon Barkley since THAT tag only costs $10 million versus a minimum $32 million tag for Jones. And that is the exact move that the Giants made.
In addition to all those mentioned above, the Raiders, Colts, Commanders, Texans and Panthers all have big time needs at the position this coming season. All of those teams, minus the Commanders, are positioned to draft a QB early in the first round without having to trade up, with the Texans being in the best position with the #2 and #12 picks. All of them could just draft and look to the future and the Commanders may be content to just go with last year's QB pick, Sam Howell, who, by the way, is another NFL QB that you didn't know could run!
Sam Darnold was actually pretty good for the Panthers last year in limited action. His biggest problem has always been staying ahead of the 60% completion percentage standard. That said, he ranked 19 out of the 40 QBs on my ranking and his QBR was 48.3, which puts him lower down in the 20s. Among the free agents the Panthers could sign who scored better that are not in the Carr/Garoppolo/G. Smith group would be Brissett or Dalton. Truthfully, Carr's numbers weren't really that much better than Darnold's. But, stigma is stigma, after all, so I am sure that the Panthers would have wanted Carr ina choice between him and Darnold and, truth be told, last year notwithstanding, Carr IS a better QB.
As of 2/27, Carson Wentz has been released by the Commanders, thus becoming another signable asset for the teams in need. Early indications seem to suggest a trio of NFC South teams, Atlanta, New Orleans and Tampa as possible landing spots for Wentz as an interim starter or backup.
The point to all of this is, actually, pointless. Until things get sorted in the Franchise Tag period, nobody knows who is really going to end up where. That said, what I see is a lot of teams that are going to reach too far for the platinum unicorn who would be just fine with something far less expensive. The Jets have a great young roster with terrible QBs and they are probably going to go too far for Rodgers or Jackson when the middle path could take them just as far and keep them there longer. As we have already seen, the Rams got their Super Bowl win but will pay for it going forward while the Lions got similar talent but knocked 7 years of age off going forward. It is reminiscent of the Atlanta Braves letting Freddie Freeman go and trading for and then signing, for much less money, Matt Olson, a player of similar talent.
THE RANKING METHODOLOGY
I decided to make a few changes this year because, as the league turns more to mobile quarterbacks, my ranking method last year left out rushing yards, yards per attempt and sacks taken. Mobility is not just about pure running, it is also about a QB who can, in effect, turn himself into a sixth offensive lineman by protecting himself from sacks with his footwork.
Last year's method divided the stats into 10 categories - Overall passing yards, winning percentage, total TD passes thrown, total interceptions thrown, TD/INT ratio (along with completion percentage, the best dividing line between good and great), yards per attempt, yards per completion, yards per game, number of completions and completion percentage.
One major difference this year over last year is that the scores didn't reveal clear lines of demarcation between the groups. Last year's Elites were separated from the solids by a 2.3 point gap between the top of the latter category and the bottom of the former.
This year I eliminated winning percentage (I never liked that stat AND it was problematic because Brock Purdy was 5-0 and that couldn't accurately be extrapolated - he WASN'T going to go 17-0!) and added the three above to make 12 categories, and then assigned a comparison score against the others, between 40 (league leader) down to 1 to get an aggregate score, which was then divided by 12 to get a category average score, which is the final statistical comparison rating for each. In case of ties, I added the scores and then divided to get an average which was given to each. For example, if QB 1, 2 and 3 all threw for 33 TDs and that score would be good for sixth in the league (35 points), I would average the added scores of 35 + 34 + 33 (the scores for 6th, 7th and 8th place) and then divide by 3, giving each player a score of 34 for that category. The next QB down would then earn the score of 32, which would equate to the 9th place score. I also decided to compare the ESPN QBR score to mine. And, lastly, I used 40 QBs in this comparison, as with injuries and personnel decisions, that number could have been considered "starters". Some QBs, as will be notated, also truly made too few starts for a real analytic comparison. Their scores are tabulated, but buyer beware as the statistical sample is small.
The very best part of all of this is that my score represents a direct comparison average score rating each QB against his peers for the season completed. The higher rated you are across a wide range of statistics, the higher your score, obviously. But this method also allows a player who is exemplary in many categories but maybe not so great in a few (think Matt Ryan and mobility or Josh Allen and completion percentage) to be able to mask that deficiency within the aggregate.
THE RESULTS
Name Score QBR
Mahomes 32.23 77.6
Goff 30.35 61.1
Hurts
29.92 66.3
Allen
29.65 71.4 The Elites
Tagavailoa 29.50 68.8
Burrow 28.50 58.7
G. Smith 28.19 60.8
Lawrence 27.00 54.6
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Garoppolo 25.73 54.4
Herbert 25.5 58.3
Brissett 24.88 59.9
Prescott 24.07 57.9
Brady 23.23 52.5
*Purdy 23.15 65.5
D. Jones 22.73 60.8
L. Jackson 21.50 59.0 Acceptable Starters
Cousins(tie) 21.46 49.9
K. Murray(tie) 21.46 51.7
*Darnold 21.13 48.3
Carr 20.80 55.6
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Tannehill 19.46 49.2
Mariota 19.07 55.5
Dalton 18.80 50.7
R. Wilson 18.73 37.0
Heinecke 18.65 44.5 Low level starters/high level backups
*Winston 18.46 32.7
Rodgers 18.38 39.3
Fields 18.03 54.0
*Bridgewater 17.80 47.5
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Ryan 16.23 43.1
Stafford 15.23 50.3
Wentz 15.07 33.0
*Ridder 15.00 49.6
*Trubisky 14.92 56.4
Pickett 14.84 51.6 Probably Need a New Starter
M. Jones 14.11 36.1 Unless He Is A Rookie
Watson 13.00 38.3
Z. Wilson(tie) 12.65 36.4
Mills(tie) 12.65 33.2
Mayfield 10.69 24.5
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So, we ALL know who the elites are, right? Well.....maybe not. Yes, Burrow, Mahomes, Hurts and Allen are there, of course, but did you expect Goff? Or Geno Smith?
And who is NOT there that you did expect? Lamar Jackson, surely. Brady, Rodgers and Justin Herbert are not either. So, there are some surprises and perhaps some one-year anomalies. The surprise to me is that by changing which statistics I was using to better reflect the modern NFL QB somehow managed to NOT elevate Jackson into elite status while at the same time cementing Allen as an elite QB despite his passing numbers being a setback from the 2021 season.
One thing that is clear is that, statistically speaking, the group of hot QB prospects available either via free agency or trade is NOT among the elites, at least this year. Geno Smith had an elite year and Jimmy G. and Jacoby Brissett (not a hot prospect, but worth a definite look) JUST missed, but Aaron Rodgers may have had his worst year as a pro and Lamar Jackson and Derek Carr were somewhat underwhelming considering their status as two of this year's potential biggest trade or free agent prospects. As usual, it is all about perception and expectations. Carr has never been so highly sought after as a potential savior and Jackson has already won an MVP and is the QB to get on EVERYONE'S list, with the possible exception of the team he already plays for! Which is telling in and of itself.
Patrick Mahomes is the clear winner this year for the league's best QB, statistically. He finished in the top 5 in 8 of the 13 categories used in this survey, finishing an almost 2 full points ahead of (surprise) Jared Goff. Mahomes was #1 in the league in yards, yards per game, TDs and QBR. Oh, and his team won that Super Bowl thing, in case you didn't notice. He was also fourth in my favorite category, TD/Int ratio. And his QBR was a full six points higher at 77.6 than runner up Josh Allen's 71.4 score.
Our surprise #2 is Jared Goff. Somewhere in the tempest that surrounded the astounding second half the Lions had, Goff's very fine season got lost. He was only top five in 3 categories (Interceptions, Ratio and number of sacks taken) but was solidly in the top 10 in 4 more stats, including QBR.
Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen and Tua Tagavailoa were the next 3 in line and all finished within 0.42 points, which is kind of a statistical dead heat. Allen was hurt most by his completion percentage and the number of INTs, but otherwise was very solid in most other aspects. The number of TDs he threw also buoyed his ratio versus those 15 INTS. Hurts was solid across the board although his times sacked numbers belied his overall mobility and his number of completions were decidedly mid-pack. Tua was also weak in number of completions and completion percentage (a strong suit of his in 2021) and he was the opposite of Hurts in that he showed NO mobility but was sacked only 27 times in 2022. Ironic when you consider that his concussions all stem from plays in which he was sacked!
The final 3 in the "Elites" category are Joe Burrow, Geno Smith and Trevor Lawrence. Smith is easily one of the most intriguing NFL stories in years. An early second round pick in 2013, Smith nonetheless became the Jets starter and managed to finish 8-8 despite 20 interceptions thrown to go along with only 12 TD passes. In year 2, he was on the plus side of the TD/Int ratio, barely, but after 10 losses in 13 games, the Jets moved on. Geno got his jaw broken by a teammate and was supplanted as the starter by Ryan Fitzpatrick in year 3, on IR for much of year 4 and then he was gone. Not to resurface until 3 teams and 4 years later. In 2021, he filled in very capably for the injured Russell Wilson and, all of the sudden, looked like a very capable NFL starter. Pete Carroll certainly seemed to see it, as Wilson was let go, Geno won the starting QB job and PRODUCED! Produced at a level that made him the seventh best QB in the league.
Trevor Lawrence showed what a year of bad experience with a bad coach and a pretty mediocre team and then getting a good coach and better teammates can do for a player. Last year, he finished LAST in this comparison. This year, he is eighth out of 40 rated! And Joe Burrow, what can we say about him? He is just that rare QB (like Justin Herbert) that starts out great and just keeps the ride going. The Bengals window will indeed stay open for the length of his career.
The next group of QBs are the "Acceptable Starters" and among the 12, one has "retired" (Brady) and 5 of the other 11 will be playing for a new team this coming season, which I guess goes to show that being an acceptable starter doesn't necessarily mean being a valued one. The most notable starters to move were Derek Carr, who was let go by the Raiders (who apparently didn't like long term quality from the position) and signed by the Saints as their new starter, while the Raiders signed Jimmy Garoppolo to replace him. Strangely, Jimmy G. just missed out on the elite category while Carr was at the other end of the 12, just squeaking into the bottom of the category.
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