Mike Sando's QB Tiers List

[Jakuvious]

If anything, I just think there should be more tiers, and the breaks are misplaced, as some of the splits are a little inconsistent for me. Like, the gap between Josh Allen and Justin Herbert is definitely larger to me than the gap between Herbert/Burrow/Stafford. Matt Ryan being in the same tier as Matt Stafford definitely isn't right. Same with Cousins and most of the guys in the tier with him. Geno getting his own tier is just super random.

[Soggust]

I just don't understand the hate against Kirk Cousins.

"But he's not a winner" - Yet, people put Murray or Carr (who have worse records and stats) ahead of him.

"But he's had so much help" - Has he? He spent half his career in WAS. The dude's splits are actually pretty similar between WAS and MIN. He has a slightly better TD:INT in MIN (as expected) but he has thrown for over 4k yards every year he's been a full time starter except once - in Minnesota.

I mean, we are talking about a diff of like 7-12 QB rating when comparing to other QBs in his tier. Do we take 7-12 QB rating points from Burrow when comparing him to others for having great weapons? No, so why do we punish Cousins?

"But [some other player] was really good in college and is super mobile" - Why do I care? I want the dude who can read and process the field and make the throws. I don't understand how Murray, Carr, Ryan* etc have proven to be better at doing that, to this point in their careers. Hell, I'd take Cousins over Lamar if Lamar didn't have an MVP.

 

* - Obv Ryan has had a better career than Cousins but that is baked into the cost given his poor stats recently

Edited July 27, 2022 by Soggust

[MikeT14]

1 hour ago, Soggust said:

I just don't understand the hate against Kirk Cousins.

I honestly don't really hate him. Never should have left Washington. I just think in his time SINCE then, the number of QBs better than him has grown. On that list though, he's closer to 11-14 than he is 16-20

[MWil23]

Burrow ahead of Stafford is…something. I love Herbert but if the metric is carrying a team/winning games then he might want to make the playoffs first.

[CP3MVP]

Russell hasn’t done anything in the playoffs since prime Legion of Boom. He has a lot to prove this year. No more Pete caroll to blame 

[The BILLievers]

1 hour ago, CP3MVP said:

Russell hasn’t done anything in the playoffs since prime Legion of Boom. He has a lot to prove this year. No more Pete caroll to blame 

Agreed. Mike Sando was on Ryen Russilos podcast this week explaining the tiers and I thought he brought up a good point. Wilsons best years and games seem to be when the Seahawks had a dominate/good run game (Lynch) that allow Wilson to feed off play action and move outside the pocket. Wilsons finally going to get his wish of slinging the ball around but maybe that's not when he's best. I think he's best with play action and rolling out and not being a pure pocket passer so like you said, he's got alot to prove this year and no Caroll to blame. 

[stl4life07]

Continue to underrate Stafford. He should be Tier 1. He showed that if you put him in a great stable situation like Mahomes, ARod, and Brady that he will thrive. 
 

We know Stafford has a top 5 arm talent at the QB position. The question for him has always been how would he do when the spotlight is bright, the expectations are high, and the pressure is intense? Well he showed that he can win the Superbowl. So he is easily a Tier 1 QB. 
 

As much as I love Burrow he isn’t a Tier 1 QB just yet. Yes I know he led the Bengals to the Superbowl and nearly won but ALOT had to happen. Do I think the Bengals win the division if the Ravens was relatively healthy? No. Do I think the Bengals beat the Titans if Tannehill didn’t lose the game by himself? No. Do I think the Bengals would’ve beat the Chiefs had they collapsed in the 2nd half? No. Do I think the Superbowl would’ve been close had OBJ not gotten hurt in the 1st half? No. Now that’s not all Burrow fault but he didn’t play great in the playoffs. He played ok and made the plays when he had too but his defense was spectacular and the opposing team helped out too by not finishing the Bengals off when they had them on the ropes at times. So Burrow should be in Tier 2 and I’d love to see him play much consistently better behind an improved OL and take the AFCN with a healthy Ravens team. 

[Blackstar12]

Why only have one QB for the backup tier did he run out of QBs to put there lol. Decent list though.

[Dr A W Niloc]

      A good list but it becomes a little frayed midway through.

      Tier 1 is okay.  

      Notwithstanding past glory, Matt Ryan drops to the third, at best, switching places with Kirk Cousins, who is significantly better than the others in the third echelon.

      Wentz, Goff, Lawrence and, perhaps, Baker Mayfield may need to be lowered a level into the fourth.

      The Seahawks don't seem to agree that Drew Lock belongs above Geno Smith.

[SkippyX]

Stafford was on fire the first half of 2021 (118 rating), was ice cold the second half (90.4 rating), then was very clutch in the playoffs.

He does not belong in the top tier yet IMO. If you take Rams QB1 2017, 2018, and 2021 there is not that much difference. ANY/A, rating, record, yards per attempt, etc

If he has a 110 rating year and the Rams win 12+ again then I'm open to moving him up.

[Broncofan]

It was Cameron Poe mode yesterday.  
 

Now this.   
 

 

 

A-Rod locking down the undisputed #1 preseason ranking.  Dude can hold on to his grudges lol.  

[BayRaider]

8 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

It was Cameron Poe mode yesterday.  
 

Now this.   
 

 

 

A-Rod locking down the undisputed #1 preseason ranking.  Dude can hold on to his grudges lol.  

Dude’s gotta sell more jersey’s to the Carr homers… although I’m shocked he said it with a straight face. 

[Tugboat]

Someone like Trevor Lawrence doesn't really seem to fit very neatly into these categories.  He should probably be in the "unproven" category of Tier 4 at this point.  But at the same time, i think he's shown enough that you could safely put him in Tier 3 as a baseline.  It doesn't really fit though, as there's a lot more "upside" than typical for that bracket.  That's more like his "floor" than his "ceiling" as it is for most of those guys.  But again, he's not as "proven" as those guys in that tier either.

 

This is going to be a big year for him, in trying to sift through where he actually falls on this spectrum/tier list long-term.  With an Actual Coach at the helm now, hopefully we get a chance to see what Lawrence can really do.  If he's going to take that next step, or trend toward being more permanently mired in that Tier 3 middleground area.  I'd wager on the former over the latter...but it's totally unproven, so until then, it's hard to even classify him on this scale.

[Dr A W Niloc]

46 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

Someone like Trevor Lawrence doesn't really seem to fit very neatly into these categories.  He should probably be in the "unproven" category of Tier 4 at this point.

Tier IV seems right.  Trevor Lawrence (PFF:32nd, FPPG:33rd, DYAR:32nd) has done nothing at the NFL level to distance himself from other rookies on similarly poor teams:  Justin Fields (29-37-31), Zach Wilson (34-30-34), or Davis Mills (35-35-25).  He is well behind 2019 draftee Daniel Jones (21-18-26), whose 4th Tier status raises no eyebrows.

[Soko]

I would have Tier 1 be smaller (Brady, Rodgers, Mahomes, Allen) and rearrange Tier 2 into two (add Burrow, Herbert & subtract Dak, Carr, Murray, and Allen).

Other than that, hard to really complain about much.