We’re in business. The New Orleans Saints are signing free agent quarterback Derek Carr to lead their offense, and he might already be a top-five quarterback in his new conference. He’s certainly the best passer in his division. But where exactly does Carr rank among the other Week 1 starting quarterbacks around the NFC?
To start out, I eliminated Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray owing to last year’s season-ending injury, which is going to keep him on the shelf for at least the start of the 2023 season (if not longer). I also sidelined the other NFC South teams due to their unsettled quarterback situations — Kyle Trask is an unknown with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, while neither the Atlanta Falcons nor the Carolina Panthers have anyone to speak of right now. That was also the case for the Washington Commanders and Green Bay Packers, who have uncertainty under center as well as horrific vibes. No one knows what Aaron Rodgers is doing, right this minute nor this time next year. Until those setups clear up, we’ll just work without them.
That left us with ten teams (assuming Geno Smith re-signs with the Seattle Seahawks and Daniel Jones hammers out his extension with the New York Giants, as is expected for both of them) and ten quarterbacks to throw against each other. I didn’t plan on this being a very scientific project, but that didn’t stop me from overcomplicating it.
I found where each quarterback ranked last season in a couple of commonly-used passing stats: adjusted net yards per pass attempt (from Pro Football Reference), NFL passer rating, and the less-renowned Pro Football Focus passing grades, as well as The Ringer positional rankings from Steven Ruiz. I averaged the various placements together to spit out an initial list which I then tweaked to my liking, based off the eye test and vibe check for each situation, and ran the list past our staff writers Ross Jackson and Dylan Sanders, who smartly edited it into something more rational. Here’s what we came up with:
10
Trey Lance, San Francisco 49ers
9
Justin Fields, Chicago Bears
8
Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams
7
Daniel Jones, New York Giants
6
Jared Goff, Detroit Lions
5
Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys
4
Derek Carr, New Orleans Saints
3
Kirk Cousins, Minnesota Vikings
2
Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks
1
Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles
