RANKING THE AFC QUARTERBACKS

BY ADAM GREENE

Last year I ranked every starting quarterback in the NFL from 1-32, but this season I’ve decided to switch it up. Yep, we’re going by conferences this year, but, let me tell you. After putting both the AFC and NFC lists together, the AFC is significantly better overall than their blue-tinged counterpart. If I was ranking both conferences together, you wouldn’t see an NFC quarterback until No. 5 and the next guy wouldn’t show up until No. 8. Seven of the Top 10 QBs in the NFL right now are in the AFC and I’m not sure who would dispute that.

Still, as with any list such as this, and June is going to be filled with them before training camps open, there’ll be some debates. There’ll be some controversy. There’ll be some outright terrible and dumb takes. I promise to do my best to not contribute to any of those, but, hey, you can always hit me up on Twitter and let me know what you think. Last year the most “damning” criticism I received was that the QB I had ranked No. 2 overall should have been No. 5, and even that group was a tiny minority of readers. But, hey, it’s the internet and there’s nothing as “too small a complaint.”

You might wonder why this list is 18 players long when there are only 16 starting quarterback jobs in the AFC. It’s because some of these jobs have yet to be sorted out and probably won’t until the final weeks of the NFL preseason.

1. PATRICK MAHOMES, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS

Age: 27

Size: 6-2, 225 pounds

2022: 67.1 completion percentage, 5,250 yards, 41 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 358 rushing yards, four rushing touchdowns, 105.2 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 91.3

NFL MVP Odds: +625

I am confident that no one will have an issue with this ranking. Patrick Mahomes is not only the best quarterback in the AFC, he’s the best quarterback in the NFL. Since taking over the Kansas City Chiefs in his second season, he’s reached five consecutive AFC Championship games and three Super Bowls, winning two of them. He has thrown fewer than 37 touchdowns only once, in 2019 where he missed two games with an injury and still made the Pro Bowl, won the AFC Championship and the Super Bowl, bringing his team back from a fourth quarter double-digit deficit in the process.

Last year, he did the same, leading the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns, taking his team to the Super Bowl and, again, bringing them back in the fourth quarter for the game winning TD. He has a 50-touchdown season on his resume and has led the NFL in passing yards per game twice, with 308.8 last season and 316.0 in 2020. He is not only the safest bet for NFL MVP, he’s the safest bet today for Super Bowl LVIII MVP. Furthermore, the Super Bowl will be held in Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev. this upcoming season and Mahomes has never lost there. He’s 3-0 in Sin City.

2. JOE BURROW, CINCINNATI BENGALS

Age: 26

Size: 6-4, 221 pounds

2022: 68.3 completion percentage, 4,475 yards, 35 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 257 rushing yards, five rushing touchdowns, 100.8 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 90.8

NFL MVP Odds: +700

Now, here’s where the first Tweets and emails will get fired my way, so let me just save you the trouble right now. It doesn’t matter who EA picked to make the cover of Madden 24. It doesn’t matter who the punditry picks and who has the most ridiculous highlight reel. Let me write this out one more time so everyone can read it, “The Cincinnati Bengals are the Buffalo Bills you’ve been looking for.”

Joe Burrow has started two full seasons for the Bengals. In those two full seasons he’s taken them to the AFC Championship twice and the Super Bowl once. Burrow was a last second Harrison Butker field goal away from making a second consecutive Super Bowl last season and probably hoisting his first (of many) Super Bowl trophies. Burrow led the NFL in completion percentage with 70.4 in 2021, yards gained per attempt with 8.9 and average yards gained per pass attempt with 9.0, all while leading the league in getting sacked. He went down 51 times that season. 

While everybody is predicting Josh Allen is going to “break through,” Burrow just keeps breaking through and, for whatever reason, just gets ignored. I know Allen produces the more spectacular looking plays, there’s no argument there. And Allen is a specimen, but Burrow is doing the job and doing it better, more consistently and winning. All that did was put seven rings on Tom Brady’s fingers. Burrow is that guy. And, if you needed any more proof, only two QBs in the NFL have kept Patrick Mahomes from winning or appearing in five straight Super Bowls and those guys are Brady and Burrow. It’s time to wake up to reality.

3. JOSH ALLEN, BUFFALO BILLS

Age: 27

Size: 6-5, 237 pounds

2022: 63.3 completion percentage, 4,283 yards, 35 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, 762 rushing yards, seven touchdowns, 96.6 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 91.6

NFL MVP Odds: +650

Now, here’s the thing. It might seem as if I’ve tossed some shade at Josh Allen and that’s not the case. It’s not his fault punditry and fandom has decided that Allen and Mahomes should be this era’s Brady vs Manning. The reality just doesn’t work that way. Allen’s position right now is more like Brett Favre’s in the 1990s. Troy Aikman and Steve Young had the big rivalry in the NFC with Favre and the Green Bay Packers on the outside, looking in, never consistently being able to get by either the San Francisco 49ers or Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs. They finally did and Favre made it to a couple of Super Bowls before he started sending pictures of his mushroom appendage to unwelcome viewers and robbing Mississippi welfare funds.

Now, I don’t think Allen will do any of those bad things that Favre did, but his career is on a Favre trajectory right now. He’s the odd man out in the AFC, but he’ll get his shot eventually. He’ll just always have to go through Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes to do it.

What’s truly remarkable about Allen is that he came in the league as a bad to mediocre quarterback. I didn’t like him coming out of Wyoming and have never been a big believer in the “ceiling” when a guy didn’t show much in college. It’s why you won’t be surprised at who sits at the bottom of this list when you get there, but Allen did it. He sucked as a rookie. He was bottom third of the league as a second-year player and then blew the whole thing up in his third season, proving Mel Kiper, Jr. (of all people) right in the process and making every single draft scout and pundit lose their minds since. He’s now a generational talent, a one-man highlight machine and, as long as he’s healthy, the Buffalo Bills are a legit danger to win any game in which he starts. But for him to move up this list, to jump Burrow or Mahomes, he has to beat them. The Bills, as a team, are just as good as the Chiefs and Bengals. Burrow and Mahomes are outplaying him when they face off and that’s been the difference over the last three seasons.

4. AARON RODGERS, NEW YORK JETS

Age: 39

Size: 6-2, 225 pounds

2022: 64.6 completion percentage, 3,695 yards, 26 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 94 rushing yards, one rushing touchdown, 91.1 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 77.5

NFL MVP Odds: +1400

Our nation’s preeminent Ivermectin spokesperson shows up at No. 4 on the list and I’m feeling him with the New York Jets. I mean, seeing Rodgers at organized team activities, working with his young receivers and offensive line instead huddling in a cave getting South American hallucinogens fired into his anal cavity shows he means business in 2023. Because of a flurry of recent retirements, Rodgers is one of only four current NFL quarterbacks who have won a Super Bowl. That’s as shocking to write as it is to see written down, but it’s true. It’s him, Mahomes, Russell Wilson and Matthew Stafford and, until Nick Foles signs with a team as a back up, that’s the end of the list.

While last year was a down one for Rodgers and we have all, since the COVID-19 epidemic, learned plenty about Rodgers as a human being that gets the thumbs down, he’s still a great quarterback. His 2022 was rough for him, but is better than the year 25 other starting quarterbacks had a season ago. He’s a four-time NFL MVP and deserved every single one of those trophies. He led the NFL in completion percentage in 2020 with a 70.7 mark, to go with an NFL leading 48 touchdowns, and a 9.6 average yards gained per attempt. He’s led the league in QB rating four times, and last year’s 91.1 is the lowest of his career. Two years ago, he posted a 121.5, which is ridiculous and makes it even more crazy he couldn’t push his team to the Super Bowl.

And, really, that’s the knock on Rodgers. More so even than lying about his vaccination status or falling for every single conspiracy theory on the 12^th page of a Google search. He doesn’t show up when it counts in the postseason and has spent plenty of NFC Divisional Rounds and NFC Championships watching other teams win on his field while wearing a giant coat over his shoulder pads on the sidelines. It’s a sight so familiar, the only reason you can’t play it out in your head in New York is there’s probably no chance the Jets can pass up the Bills to win the AFC East. So, Rodgers will just have to wear his big playoff loser coat over his road jersey this winter.

5. LAMAR JACKSON, BALTIMORE RAVENS

Age: 26

Size: 6-2, 212 pounds

2022: 62.3 completion percentage, 2,242 yards, 17 touchdowns, seven interceptions, 764 rushing yards, three rushing touchdowns, 91.1 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 85.2

NFL MVP Odds: +900

Comeback Player of the Year Odds: +2200

One of the most exciting events to happen this offseason is John Harbaugh finally firing offensive coordinator Greg Roman out of the nearest airlock and replacing him with former Georgia Bulldogs OC Todd Monken. The idea that we’ll see Lamar Jackson operate in an actual NFL level offense is pretty much the story of the offseason so far for me. Because we have no idea how good this team can be, how far they can go, because they’ve been so hamstrung during Jackson’s tenure by Roman’s inept Pop Warner play calls and designs.

As I have complained every season since Jackson’s second in the league, the basic idea of most NFL offenses is, at its core, keep your quarterback from being murdered. Roman didn’t believe in that, and while every other NFL OC would design and call plays that limit the hits and damage their QB would take, Roman would send Jackson right into the gaping maw of the defensive megalodon on half his play calls. Wide receivers didn’t run routes so much as run potential blocking patterns and more than once I laughed out loud during a replay, seeing wideouts nearly run into each other on poorly conceived crossing patterns. The fact that Jackson led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes his MVP season and Roman never asked him to throw it that much again, is completely insane.

The Ravens, and what they could conceivably look like with a real attack, could blow up the entire AFC hierarchy and the fact that we might get a healthy Lamar Jackson for a full season and playoff run, something that hasn’t happened since 2019, should excite everybody except the teams he’ll face in the AFC and possibly the Super Bowl. I’m not sure Jackson is a real danger to win the Comeback Player of the Year since he did play in 12 games last season, but MVP? If Monken can get the most out of this offense with some real weapons like Odell Beckham, Jr.? I like those odds a lot.

6. TREVOR LAWRENCE, JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS

Age: 23

Size: 6-6, 213 pounds

2022: 66.3 completion percentage, 4,113 yards, 25 touchdowns, eight interceptions, 292 rushing yards, five rushing touchdowns, 95.2 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 77.4

NFL MVP Odds: +1000

As a Los Angeles Rams fan, let me tell you, few things excited me like the prospect of Sean McVay and Les Snead trading multiple first round picks for Trevor Lawrence after Matthew Stafford retired and then watching the Knoxville, Tenn. Native take the Rams to multiple Super Bowls afterwards. Of course, the Jacksonville Jaguars messed that plan up by hiring a great head coach, Doug Pederson, who immediately rectified everything wrong in Lawrence’s career and got the Jags to the playoffs in his second season. It’s kind of depressing, actually. Now, as someone who roots for the Rams, you have to count on the Houston Texans to screw things up with CJ Stroud or Justin Herbert to get fed up with the Los Angeles Chargers.

If you want to see the normal trajectory of a high caliber NFL quarterback, ignore Josh Allen. That’s not what usually happens. Instead, look at Trevor Lawrence who, like Andrew Luck and Peyton Manning before him, had an up and down rookie season followed by a break out, next level second year campaign. This is what a top QB draft pick is supposed to look like and Lawrence, in every way, fits the bill.

Lawrence’s 2022 season is even more impressive when you account for the disaster of his rookie campaign and the outright cluster eff that Urban Meyer’s tenure brought to the team and his development. The fact that Doug Pederson, in one single offseason, could right the ship and get Lawrence on not only a Pro Bowl trajectory, but help him to a playoff victory is an accomplishment I don’t think we’re appreciating enough. The Jaguars will win the AFC South this season and notch, at worst, nine victories. Lawrence is already a Top 10 QB in the NFL and, after the season, could be ranked even higher.

7. JUSTIN HERBERT, LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

Age: 25

Size: 6-6, 237 pounds

2022: 68.2 completion percentage, 4,739 yards, 25 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, 147 rushing yards, 93.3 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 78.6

NFL MVP Odds: +1000

This is probably the lowest you’ll see Herbert on most of these lists, so I’ll explain why I put him here. I love Herbert. He’s had a fantastic start to his career and the Los Angeles Chargers fanbase, all three of them, should be super stoked that he’s their quarterback and is about to be locked in with a lucrative long-term contract. Here’s why he’s seventh and below Trevor Lawrence — playoff wins.

At the end of the day, we can talk stats and we can talk overall performances, but with two playoff shots in a row, one in 2021 in a Week 18 match up with the Las Vegas Raiders that served as a play in game and one this year against the underdog Jaguars in the AFC Wild Card round, Herbert came up short.

No one, and I mean no one, would claim that the 2022 Jags or the 2021 Raiders had a roster advantage over the Chargers. All those teams have holes and Vegas, now without Derek Carr, is looking at a near complete rebuild. The quarterbacks were the difference in those games and Herbert didn’t get the job done, even if he put up excellent stats.

A team doesn’t draft a quarterback so they can pay him $40 million and he can make the Pro Bowl every year. They draft a QB to win a Super Bowl. The fact that the vast majority of the best quarterbacks (and best teams) are currently in the AFC is a problem, but it’s a bigger problem that Herbert can’t get past that first hump.

No one would be stunned to see the Chargers go to the Super Bowl in this upcoming season. But, to be fair, no one would be shocked to see the Chargers miss the playoffs completely. That’s the war that goes on every week in the AFC and Herbert, to move up this list, has to play his best when it counts the most. So far, he hasn’t.

8. RUSSELL WILSON, DENVER BRONCOS

Age: 34

Size: 5-11, 215 pounds

2022: 60.5 completion percentage, 3.524 yards, 16 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, 277 rushing yards, three rushing touchdowns, 84.4 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 66.2

NFL MVP Odds: +3300

Comeback Player of the Year Odds: +1000

There’s no glossing over the fact that Wilson, given his first shot to take command of a team without the “restraints” of Pete Carroll’s offensive philosophy completely faceplanted into a pile of elephant manure. His numbers in 2022 were career lows across  the boar and Wilson had never led a team to fewer than six wins before last year and that six-win season was his only losing stint as a starting quarterback before he came to Mile High.

So, while acknowledging all that, you can’t dismiss what the man has done in his 11-year career before that. He led the NFL in touchdown passes in 2017 (34) and passer rating in 2015 (110.1). Wilson took the Seahawks to two Super Bowls and won one of them and no one, even people who are all in on Geno Smith, think that team will make it back anytime soon.

His head got a little too big for his helmet a year ago and Sean Payton seemingly has already fixed that. I expect nothing less than a bounce back season from both Wilson and the Broncos in 2023. And while I don’t think they’re any danger of making the Super Bowl, they have a real shot at nabbing one of the three Wild Card spots.

9. DESHAUN WATSON, CLEVELAND BROWNS

Age: 27

Size: 6-2, 215 pounds

2022: 58.2 completion percentage, 1,102 yards, seven touchdowns, five interceptions, 176 rushing yards, one rushing touchdown, 79.1 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 55.3

NFL MVP Odds: +4000

There was a time where you would not only have rightly ranked Watson as the second-best quarterback in the AFC, but probably the second best in the entire NFL. That time? Two years and about 30-plus lawsuits ago. In 2020 Watson led the league in passing yards (4,823), yards per attempt (8.9) and yards per completion (12.6) and promptly asked for a trade from a moribund Houston Texans franchise. The Texans weren’t so keen on that until all of Watson’s dirty laundry (mainly consisting of soiled massage room towels) hit the news. After that, Houston was very open to the idea.

Watson sat out all of 2021 and then missed most of 2022, suspended for the aforementioned conduct. It will be the only punishment he’ll face, outside of court mandated payoffs and the court of public opinion as he begins his first full campaign with the Cleveland Browns. His six starts weren’t great a year ago, but what could be expected after he hadn’t played a meaningful down of football in nearly two years? I expect Watson, if he can keep his head in the game and his body off a massage table, to bounce back this season and the Browns to be real trouble in the AFC.

10. TUA TAGOVAILOA, MIAMI DOLPHINS

Age: 25

Size: 6-1, 217 pounds

2022: 64.8 completion percentage, 3,548 yards, 25 touchdowns, eight interceptions, 70 rushing touchdowns, 105.5 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 81.9

NFL MVP Odds: +1800

Comeback Player of the Year Odds: +2500

I liked Tua coming out of Alabama in the 2020 NFL Draft and I still like him, certainly more than his first head coach Brian Flores. I like Tua so much, in fact, I’m not sure he should be playing football this year. I’m not saying he should never play football again. I’m just saying going a full 365-plus days without taking a hit would probably be a good thing. Sitting out for a long while helped Sydney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins put his concussion issues behind him. Hopefully, it’ll do the same for Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams. I wish Tagovailoa felt as if he could do the same, but in year four of his five-year rookie contract, I can understand why he doesn’t want to.

When he’s on the field, he’s good. He’s everything the Dolphins drafted him to be, even if he’s not putting up Justin Herbert numbers. He does have the exact same number of playoff wins as the Oregon QB who was drafted after him and whose career haunts him currently. Last season, in his 13 starts, he led the NFL in touchdown percentage (6.3), yards per attempt (8.9), yards per catch (13.7) and QB rating (105.5). I hope he can stay healthy this season, because Miami could be right in the mix with the roster they’ve put together.

11. JIMMY GAROPPOLO, LAS VEGAS RAIDERS

Age: 31

Size: 6-2, 225 pounds

2022: 67.2 completion percentage, 2,437 yards, 16 touchdown, four interceptions, 33 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns, 103.0 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 71.4

NFL MVP Odds: +10000

No player has been more successful and done more for a franchise while being absolutely despised by his own fanbase than Jimmy Garoppolo with the San Francisco 49ers. The guy has a career record of 40-17. He took the 49ers to two NFC Championships and a Super Bowl and won most of the games last year that landed them in another NFC Championship. No, he’s not Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes or Matthew Stafford. That’s why you build a team around what he can do. And what he can do, consistently, is win.

And winning is why you have a football team. You want to hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Do I think he’ll do that in Las Vegas? No. The team around him isn’t good enough to catch the top franchises, even in his own division. Still, Garoppolo won’t be a drop off from Derek Carr and, if he’s healthy and his foot is fine, he won’t be the reason they’re watching the playoffs at home. That distinction and albatross will belong solely to head coach Josh McDaniels.

12. RYAN TANNEHILL, TENNESSEE TITANS

Age: 34

Size: 6-4, 217 pounds

2022: 65.2 completion percentage, 2,536 yards, 13 touchdowns, six interceptions, 98 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns, 94.6 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 74.9

NFL MVP Odds: +10000

Ryan Tannehill has experienced an odd career and one I feel is underappreciated. Not everyone is going to be Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes and sometimes is OK to go into battle with an above average NFL starting quarterback and build from there. Tannehill was banged up some last season and I don’t think the Titans are wrong in thinking about the next guy up. I wouldn’t have drafted Will Levis if you’d paid me to, but, hey, that’s all on Mike Vrabel now.

Tannehill got the Titans to the playoffs in three consecutive seasons, making it all the way to the AFC Championship in 2019. He’s posted only two losing records as a starter since he entered the league and currently boasts a 78-65 regular season record. He led the NFL in yards per attempt (9.6), average yards gained per attempt (10.2), yards per catch (13.6) and passer rating (117.5) in 2019.

Tannehill did miss five games last year, but that was his first time out with an injury since 2018. It was a problem that pretty much wrapped up his time with the Dolphins, but hopefully he’s put that all behind him. He’ll be a free agent in 2024 and whichever team that lands him (and I’m looking at you, Atlanta Falcons) will be glad that they did.

13. KENNY PICKETT, PITTSBURGH STEELERS

Age: 26

Size: 6-3, 220 pounds

2022: 63.0 completion percentage, 2,404 yards, seven touchdowns, nine interceptions, 237 rushing yards, three rushing touchdowns, 75.7 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 75.5

NFL MVP Odds: +7500

Kenny Pickett didn’t take the league by storm as a rookie in 2022, but he played pretty well in his 12 starts, going 7-5 and helped keep Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin’s streak of consecutive non-losing seasons alive. Pickett looked good when it counted and appears to be, right now, at worst an average NFL starting quarterback. That means you can win, if you build around his strengths and keep a great defense on the field. If you’re paying attention, that’s kind of what Pittsburgh always does.

How high is the ceiling on Pickett? I have no idea and maybe, because of the era he’s playing in and the other quarterbacks in the AFC, we’ll never know. While I wouldn’t be surprised to see Pittsburgh grab a Wild Card spot this season (they almost had one last year), I have no illusions that they’re a Super Bowl contender and I don’t think anyone outside of the drunkest pub crawling yinzers would disagree.

14. MAC JONES, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

Age: 24

Size: 6-3, 217 pounds

2022: 65.2 completion percentage, 2,997 yards, 14 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, 102 rushing yards, one rushing touchdown, 84.8 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 67.5

NFL MVP Odds: +20000

Why Mac Jones under Pickett? Because I like what I’ve seen from Pickett more and Jones, from what I can tell, looks as if he’s the bare minimum you should expect from an NFL starting quarterback. He’s not a disaster, but he’s not the guy that’s going to elevate the team around him. And, hey, he’s just entering year three and I realize that I could be wrong. But I’ll have to see it first and, last season, I did not.

There’s a real chance that Jones’ regression from his rookie campaign in 2022 wasn’t his fault. The Super Genius Bill Belichick fielded one of the worst offensive coaching staffs  on the planet, with Matt Patricia, Joe Judge and whatever crappy Belichick offspring he put on that side of the ball. The return of Bill O’Brien, a wash out as a head coach but a pretty solid OC, could pay real dividends for Jones. Or for Bailey Zappe, who might be the best QB on the roster. If Jones stumbles early, they won’t hesitate to put in Zappe and there were rumors all offseason that Jones was on the trade block with no real takers.

15. CJ STROUD, HOUSTON TEXANS

Age: 21

Size: 6-3, 215 pounds

2022: N/A

PFF Grade: N/A

NFL MVP Odds: +15000

Offensive Rookie of the Year Odds: +900

CJ Stroud was my favorite quarterback in this draft class and I have a feeling that when I put this list together next year, he’ll be significantly higher. Over two seasons as the starter for Ohio State, Stroud completed 69.3 percent of his passes for 8,123 yards, 85 touchdowns and just 12 interceptions.

Stroud has yet to take a snap in the NFL and he’ll not be playing for a team contending for anything. I also don’t like his odds to win Offensive Rookie of the Year. I think that Bijan Robinson or Jahmyr Gibbs are closer to a sure thing, but I expect this kid to have an outstanding rookie season and take every starting snap for the Texans as long as he’s healthy.

16. GARDNER MINSHEW II, INDIANAPOLIS COLTS

Age: 27

Size: 6-1, 225 pounds

2022: 57.9 completion percentage, 663 yards, three touchdowns, three interceptions, three rushing yards, one rushing touchdown, 83.4 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 55.6

NFL MVP Odds: N/A

Gardner Minshew is a fun guy and, as a back up, he’s about as good as it gets. But we’ve seen what he can do as a starting quarterback in the league and there’s no real consistency there. His best year was his second in the league where he started eight games and played in nine for the Jacksonville Jaguars, going 1-7 and completing 66.1 percent of his passes for 2,259 yards, 16 touchdowns and five interceptions to go with 344 rushing yards.

Where I think the book was settled on Minshew as a starter for good was his two starts for the Philadelphia Eagles last season. That team was loaded, top to bottom, and he went 0-2, completing a career low 57.9 percent of his passes. Even though I have him ranked above Anthony Richardson on this list, all of us, the entire NFL community, will be bummed to see him take the field as QB1 against the Jaguars in Week 1.

17. DAVIS MILLS, HOUSTON TEXANS

Age: 24

Size: 6-4, 225 pounds

2022: 61.0 completion percentage, 3,118 yards, 17 touchdowns, 15 interceptions, 108 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns, 78.8 QB Rating

PFF Grade: 61.9

NFL MVP Odds: +N/A

Speaking of disappointments, I don’t think there’s any chance Davis Mills takes the field with a healthy CJ Stroud on the Texans roster to open the season, but there’s always a chance a head coach, even one as potentially good as DeMeco Ryans, can outsmart himself.

Mills has proven he deserves to be in the NFL as the next Josh McCown or Colt McCoy. He’s got a decades long career ahead of him coming out of the bullpen or working up a Fruit Ninja high score on his Microsoft Surface tablet and that’s OK. If you’re the 40^th best quarterback in the NFL, there’s a good chance you’re the 40^th best QB on the planet. It’s a select club and Mills is in it. He just doesn’t need to start.

18. ANTHONY RICHARDSON, INDIANAPOLIS COLTS

Age: 21

Size: 6-4, 236 pounds

2022: N/A

PFF Grade: N/A

NFL MVP Odds: N/A

Offensive Rookie of the Year Odds: +550

I recognize that the ceiling on Anthony Richardson is sky high. But, as I wrote earlier, I’m not a believer in the “ceiling” at all. Plenty of players, especially highly touted quarterbacks, never get close to that. So that’s why I like to go with is the “floor,” meaning how good do we know, for sure, this guy is going to be? It’s why Stroud and Bryce Young were easily the best quarterback prospects in this draft and it’s why Richardson might be the riskiest.

Richardson’s 2022 season at Florida was legitimately bad. He completed just 53.8 percent of his passes for 2,549yards, 17 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He did rush for 654 yards and nine TDs, but that kind of performance, at the NFL level, is a recipe for a 1-16 finish. I don’t want that. I’d love to see Richardson maximize his potential and as I wrote earlier under Minshew’s listing, I’ll be as disappointed as anyone not to see AR5 take the field to begin the season as QB1. But, right now, he’s at the bottom of the list.

Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan.

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