Top 10 Quarterbacks Entering 2023
We’re only 9 Sundays away from the NFL being back in our lives. To pass the time, we thought it would be fun to do everyone’s favorite summertime activity: subjectively rank players and then argue about it. Over the next four weeks, we will rank the top 10 quarterbacks, running backs, weapons rooms and defenses. We’re interested in hearing where we went wrong, so let us know by commenting on this blog on Twitter at @FourthandShort1.
1. Patrick Mahomes
This might be the only thing people can’t debate about. Patrick Mahomes is the clear cut, number one quarterback in the league. He’s been to three of the last four Super Bowls, winning two of them and he’s not even 28 yet. His ability to make plays outside the pocket is unmatched. Mahomes can read defenses like Manning and Brady, while still having the arm strength of Marino and Favre. He’s already got two MVPs, two SB MVPs, five Pro Bowl appearances, and an Offensive Player of the Year award. It will be fun to look back on his career in ten years and see all he has accomplished.
2. Joe Burrow
Burrow is the most accurate passer in the NFL currently. Similar to Mahomes, he’s still very young and has already led his team to a Super Bowl showing. He didn’t come away with a trophy, but he still played excellently on the nation’s biggest stage. His nickname is Joe Cool for a reason. Nothing ever gets him rattled. Burrow has put up insane numbers while having one of the league’s worst offensive lines. In his three-year career, he’s already been sacked 124 times and one of those years he only played ten games. Just think what he could do with some decent blocking.
3. Justin Herbert
We go from the most accurate arm to probably the strongest. Just look at this throw from the 2021 season. Herbert was on the run, had one second to plant and then launch a ball 63 yards to hit his receiver on the run in the endzone. If it wasn’t for the terrible offensive coordinator he’s had his career, we would probably have been seeing more of this. Now that Kellen Moore is in the building, we think Herbert is primed to break out even further.
4. Josh Allen
If you don’t think Herbert has the biggest arm, then your money is on Allen. It has to be one of the two as Allen has an absolute cannon too. He’s been getting better every year and his biggest flaw is that the Bills don’t have a run game. Allen has had to be the entire offense for the Bills the last few seasons and it’s come back to bite them. His outing in the playoffs last year against Cincinnati was a stain on his career, but if you look at the two playoff runs in the prior seasons, he’s more than made up for it. In a five game playoff stretch, he had 1,454 yards, 14 touchdowns, 1 interception and was thirteen horrible seconds away from being in the AFC Championship game. He’s balled every year, he’s just ran into a couple quarterbacks above him on this list.
5. Jalen Hurts
After a tough Super Bowl loss, in which his play wasn’t the problem, Jalen Hurts secured a massive contract. I wrote about how I didn’t think the Eagles should do it, but to say he hasn’t earned it would be a lie. His passing has improved tremendously each season and we all know what he can do on the ground. Between the 2021 and 2022 season, he increased his passing yards by 557, touchdowns by 6 and decreased his interceptions by 3. Last season he more than likely would have been MVP had he not missed a couple games at the end. It remains to be seen if he can keep up his play style without getting hurt. No one in the recent history of the NFL has run as much as he has between college and NFL and not had extensive injury problems. If he can avoid the bug though, the weak NFC looks to be his territory for the foreseeable future.
6. Trevor Lawrence
As Nick Wright would say, we are finally getting the Prince that was Promised. After dealing with a terrible coaching situation in his rookie year, he’s finally found a great mentor in Doug Pederson. He ended 2022 on a 5-game win streak to secure a playoff spot. Then he came back from the largest playoff deficit to beat the Chargers in the Wild Card round. Now that Calvin Ridley is back from injury/suspension and Lawrence has had a full season and offseason with Pederson, this might be a team that could lock up the one seed.
7. Lamar Jackon
When healthy, Lamar is definitely higher on this list. No one is denying how great he is when he’s on the field, he just hasn’t done that the last few seasons. He’s the most elusive quarterback to ever play the sport and an absolute cheat code in Madden. Every fan is sweating bullets as soon as he breaks the pocket against their team. The only thing he’s missing is playoff success and with a tough AFC and stacked AFC in general, his chances of finding it are shrinking every year.
8. Aaron Rodgers
If we’re only talking about last season Aaron Rodgers, he isn’t on this list, but I think he still has a year or two left in him, especially given the fact he now has at least a fringe WR1 in Garrett Wilson. Rodgers’ accuracy in his career is unmatched and the 4 MVPs speak for themselves. His touchdown/interception ratio will most likely never be touched. Patrick Mahomes is second, but even he is half a touchdown behind Rodgers and has played a lot fewer games. Like a lot of quarterbacks on this list, the playoffs have not been kind to him. He has a chance now in New York to make up for it with a great defense and better weapons than he’s had in a while to back him up.
9. Dak Prescott
This is the part of the list where I believe it starts to get difficult as there are a few different names you could put in this spot. Say what you want about Dak, but he knows how to win and doesn’t care what it looks like. Something a lot of quarterbacks in this league could learn from him. In the five seasons he has played every game, three of them have been double digit winning years. Dak is a great leader and an excellent guy to have in the locker room. He makes the right decisions in the pocket and doesn’t try to do more than his skill set allows. We aren’t fans of his head coach and think that will ultimately hurt his career in the long run, but up until this point Dallas fans couldn’t have really asked for much better.
10. Kirk Cousins
I know, I know, everybody hates Kirk Cousins. They hate how he doesn’t win in primetime, how he melts in the playoffs and how he uses tin foil on the grill. There’s no arguing that the dude is a pretty good quarterback though. He’s thrown for 4,000+ yards in a season 7 times, tied for 8th all time. In each of the last 8 seasons, he’s registered 25 or more touchdowns, with a few campaigns seeing him reach the 30+ range. Does he need help to win? Yes, but so does every other quarterback on this list. In another fairly weak NFC North, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kirk and the Vikings repeat as division champs.