Aaron Rodgers has joined the New York Jets with high hopes of winning a Super Bowl. But by swapping the NFC for the AFC, he has given himself a tough task. Not since the merger has one conference had such a concentration of quarterback talent as the AFC does heading into the 2023 season. And the conference could add another couple of stars if rookies CJ Stroud and Anthony Richardson prove to be hits.
Let’s hop around the AFC and sort the quarterbacks into tiers (the rookies are excluded: we’ll wait to see them in the league before passing judgment).
Tier 1
Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs. The reigning MVP continues to lord over the conference. The hardware is enough to close any argument: two Super Bowl titles and two MVP awards in five years as a starter. But that’s not fun. What is fun: Mahomes’ style. The arm angles. The no-look passes. Throwing on the move. He has redefined what is expected from a quarterback. They can’t just execute the scheme; they need to be able to create offense all by themselves.
Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals. It’s hard to separate Burrow and Mahomes at this point – a testament to how great Burrow has been in less-than-ideal circumstances in Cincinnati.
There are no holes left in his game. Every time a defense exposes a supposed flaw, Burrow conquers the thing within 12 months. Issues against certain coverages? No problem. Struggles versus the blitz? Easy work. Too eager to hold on to the ball? Watch this: I’ll get rid of it in double time. Burrow doesn’t just beat back issues either, he goes on to be the very best in the league in the areas where he struggled just a year prior. Defenses are left chasing their tails until they realize there is no solution.
Burrow has mastered every element of the position at just 26. The Bengals have continued to invest in offensive line help this offseason in the hopes they can finally offer him the kind of protection that will allow him to take the team to a championship.
Tier 2
Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills. Allen remains an MVP in waiting. 2022 was a strange year: an elbow injury changed the trajectory of his season. He started to play increasingly recklessly, and as the Bills’ offense disintegrated around him, Allen was pushed to indulge his worst instincts. But when healthy, Allen has a combination of size, arm talent and smarts that only a trio of other quarterbacks can match – and none of them equal his threat as a runner.
Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers. There is nothing that Herbert cannot do: he can hit throws that only Allen and Mahomes are capable of; he can bounce and move and create on his own; he can run over or around defenders; where others fold under pressure, he remains steady. In his rookie season, he was better under pressure than when he was not – and he was under pressure constantly.
The Chargers’ Charger-ing – lackluster roster decisions; bad injury luck; strange in-game decisions – has robbed the franchise of the advantage Herbert afforded them early in his career, that short window when a quarterback on a rookie contract plays like an All-Pro. His greatness from the get-go has been offset by a constipated scheme and a lack of dynamism at wide receiver. That will change this season. Kellen Moore, architect of Dallas’ offense for four years, joined as the Chargers’ new offensive coordinator and they selected Quentin Johnston, an explosive play waiting to happen, in the first-round of the draft.
If his supporting cast stays healthy, Herbert will deliver the kind of drive-to-drive consistency that has so far separated the likes of Mahomes, Allen and Burrow from the rest of the conference.
Tier 3
Aaron Rodgers, New York Jets. There has been no sharper upgrade this offseason than the Jets moving from Zach Wilson to Rodgers. By the end of last season, Wilson was unplayable – and not in a good way. A year ago, Rodgers was the reigning back-to-back MVP.
But there are plenty of concerns that come with Rodgers these days: His deep ball, his arm, his attitude. Those concerns are valid. Rodgers will be 40 in December. The record of quarterbacks who hit that mark, except for Tom Brady, makes for grim reading. His deep ball, long the hallmark of his game, has started to slide. The dance-and-create style that came so naturally to him in years past vanished for much of last season. Rodgers’ supporters will point to a thumb injury last season. Detractors will note that taken together they’re the classic signs of a quarterback in decline.
Does Rodgers have one more great season in him? With a quality supporting cast, it would be hard to bet against Rodgers, barefooted or not, delivering a return-to-form, revenge tour.
Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens. When healthy, Jackson sits comfortably in the top tier. He is a one-man offense, still unlike anything else in the NFL. Health is the only concern. Jackson has missed five games in each of the past two seasons, including the final stretch of 2022.
With a new offensive coordinator joining the Ravens and the team looking to refashion a stale offense with new weapons, Jackson should return to form. The contract drama that followed him around last season is now out of the way, and with a new crop of receivers in tow it’s time for him to produce another MVP-caliber season – provided he can stay on the field.
Tier 4
Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars. Lawrence’s rough outing in last year’s playoff game against the Chargers still lingers in the memory. But that opening half shouldn’t cloud the progress the second-year quarterback made throughout the season, or the comeback he helped stage in the final two quarters. The former No 1 overall pick delivered on his pre-draft promise. Like Herbert, there is nothing he cannot do: he has the athletic chops to create with his legs, and he can hit every throw you can imagine – and some you cannot.
Trevor Lawrence just gonna *boop* that throw over Kyle Van Noy pic.twitter.com/SxiL298sN6
— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) January 19, 2023
Lawrence made big strides under Doug Pederson in his second season in the league after the debacle of a campaign with He Who Shall Not Be Named in 2021. With another year of comfort in the Pederson offense, Lawrence should be ready to make a Herbert-esque leap toward the upper tiers of quarterback talent.
Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins. Tagovailoa’s breakout season in 2022 was long overdue. He was finally in an offense that played to his strengths, where he could serve as the point guard distributing the ball to a batch of dynamic players. When Tagovailoa is healthy, he is the ultimate conductor.
But he is more than a mere distributor. In a conference filled with big-armed bombers, Tagovailoa, with a good-not-great arm, is the best deep ball thrower of them all. He topped the NFL last season in accuracy on throws of 20 yards or more, finishing with a 58.2% adjusted completion percentage on more than 400 attempts. No other quarterback came close to that level of accuracy at that volume. By comparison, Mahomes finished on 46%, Allen on 44%, Burrow on 43% and Herbert on 37%.
Whether he can sustain that pace is a fair question. But there was nothing about his performance last season that is not replicable moving forward. It was the second successive year that Tagovailoa finished with the best mark in the league on deep throws, and it doesn’t look as if Tyreek Hill or Jaylen Waddle will be slowing down any time soon.
Tier 5
Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns. When Watson finally entered the Browns’ lineup last year after serving his suspension, it felt like something was fundamentally broken about the team’s offense. Maybe it’s rust. Maybe it was something more philosophical. Kevin Stefanski was insistent on using Watson as a runner as the bedrock of the offense, grinding everything to a halt. Watson looked slow on his return, both with the ball in his hands as a runner and processing defenses as a passer. Nick Chubb, Cleveland’s best weapon, was neutered by the shift – he averaged 5.1 yards per carry before Watson’s return and 3.8 yards afterwards.
The Browns will argue it was always going to take time for Watson to get up to speed. They’ll argue that over the final two games there were signs of the old Watson returning. But something certainly felt different. There was not as much fizz on his fastball or the same creativity within the pocket compared to his best days in Houston.
If the Browns cannot figure out how to best use Watson’s skills in 2023, or if he is unable to rediscover his old form, the franchise will be looking at a $200m sinkhole.
Tier 6
Ryan Tannehill, Tennessee Titans. The Titans are staring down a long-term reset. That will mean moving on from Tannehill – if not this season, then next offseason, when they’re able to eject on his contract pain-free. But if you dropped him in the NFC today, where would he rank? After Jalen Hurts and Dak Prescott, it’s a free-for-all. Your success with Kirk Cousins will vary. Ditto with Derek Carr. Matthew Stafford’s elbow injury makes it tough to know where to slot him in. Will Geno Smith’s breakout year sustain? Do you believe in Daniel Jones? Or Kyler Murray?
It’s not hard to fashion an argument that Tannehill would be in contention for the fifth spot in the NFC before you get to the high-upside, yet-to-fully-prove-it youngsters. At this stage of his career, however, he is no longer enough for the Titans to compete deep in the AFC playoffs.
Jimmy Garoppolo, Los Vegas Raiders. Garoppolo has long been the league’s barometer of ‘average’. He is smart. He plays within the scheme. He hits the open throws. He’s not a playmaker. If the scheme doesn’t spring it for him, then he sputters. In the NFC, that may be enough to make him the fifth- or sixth-best starter. In the AFC, it’s no longer close to good enough.
On a loaded team, that’s fine. Garoppolo has shown, consistently, that he can guide a playoff-caliber roster into the postseason and win once they get there. But the Raiders do not have a playoff-caliber roster. They have the fourth-best roster in their own division and the division’s third-best quarterback. Speaking of which …
Tier 7
Russell Wilson, Denver Broncos. What to do with Wilson? Last season was such an unmitigated disaster it’s hard to know where to rank him. Is he cooked for good? Was last season a one-off, a bizarre cocktail of inept coaching, a lack of self-awareness and a change of scenery?
Wilson is ageing poorly. His inability to evolve from a scramble-around-and-create quarterback into a rhythm-based passer puts a cap on his potential. New head coach Sean Payton has built an offense over the offseason that should better play to Wilson’s strengths, if the 34-year-old is still able to tap into them. And perhaps a year of embarrassment will convince Wilson to ditch any notion that he can Drew Brees his way through the final portion of his career.
A resurgence isn’t out of the question, but it feels more likely that the Wilson of 2022 is the Wilson we will see moving forward: not quite good enough to operate solely from the pocket, but not athletic enough to consistently play outside it.
Tier 8
Mac Jones, New England Patriots. Jones was dealt a dud hand in 2022. During his rookie season, he showed flashes that he could be a league-average starter, and perhaps develop into more than that over time.
And then Bill Belichick set to work sabotaging his young quarterback. He hired a defensive coach to be his offensive coordinator. He reoriented the offense around a style that didn’t match up with Jones’s natural game. The relationship became frosty, with Belichick non-committal on Jones’s future. “Everyone will get a chance to play,” Belichick said last month when asked whether Jones would be the starter this season.
The rift appears real. But the Patriots punted on trying to acquire an upgrade this offseason, despite shopping Jones around prior to the draft. Instead, they’re banking on the return of Bill O’Brien as offensive coordinator and a remodeled receiving room, tight end group, and offensive line to get the most out of Jones.
Kenny Pickett, Pittsburgh Steelers. Pickett’s rookie season followed a traditional arc. There were growing pains. He struggled early in the season with poor decisions and sloppy mistakes. At times, it looked like everything was happening too quickly for him. But as the season progressed, he got better. Over the second half of the campaign he ranked 10th in EPA/play, a measure of down-to-down efficiency. Much of that was due to his exploits breaking the pocket and creating on his own. Whether he can maintain that pace in his sophomore year will come down to whether he can learn to play on-time within the Steelers’ offense.
