Top-10 QBs Going into 2023

[Danger]

18 hours ago, BayRaider said:

After 2019 everyone clearly disrespected Brady and barely listed him as a Top 10 QB. He was listed 11-13 by most fans when we made these threads. When that was completely inaccurate. He was still a Top 3 QB if you watch his 2019 tape. It was probably the worst offensive talent he has ever had, and I would say the worst in the NFL. I had Brady still listed as my #3 or 4 heading into 2020. 

While everyone is likely correct about Brady this time (7-12 range), they are likely wrong on Rodgers. Rodgers is still a Top 5 QB going into 2023. Quite easily. Probably Top 3 to 4. 

That was different, there was a clear void of talent all around him in New England at that point. That's not the case here. Brady doesn't have that excuse anymore. Have you even watched him throw this year? He's not the same. He LOOKS cooked. Could he be average for another year or two? Probably. But in the top 10? No chance.

[Soggust]

14 hours ago, Dr LBC said:

I think with the respect to those two (and just this metric in general) it really depends on how much someone weights a QB's ability to succeed within and/or transcend an offensive scheme that really doesn't fit him... and inversely, how much you weight a QB seeing a spike in performance due to (finally) being in a system that is best-fit for him?  It's not quite the "he's a system QB" argument, but it seems futile to me for a person to make a stance that scheme has no factor in the argument unless the QB has demonstrated that they are capable of transcending scheme (and these are really outliers - of the modern group we're really talking Mahomes, Rodgers, and, I'd argue, Allen).

Absolutely. But do you think next year TL is going to improve or regress? I agree he could improve his overall season stats, but he certainly has to regress from his last 9 games, or whatever, right? I can honestly see arguments for both, so I'm putting him on hold until I see more.

Like, for me, part of the reason I'm SO stat-heavy is that there are simply so many variables that come into play every year that aren't related to ability.

Let's take Justin Fields, for example. If Justin Fields was drafted into the Chiefs offense, with Andy Reid + Tyreek + Kelce, mentored by Alex Smith for a year, etc - I think he could easily be a top 5-10 QB. But as of right now? I'm not sure dude will be in the league in a few years. We can talk about his flashes and skill and talent all day, but he hasn't produced in two years and does anyone REALLY think the Bears are going to stack him with weapons and hire some genius coach and turn him into having some Lamar MVP season next year? How about in 2024? Is Chicago EVER going to have a solid QB with the wind conditions? Is he going to turn a corner in year 5 or 6? And he's not going to get hurt during any of these years? My point is only that - A lot of players bust for reasons other than lack of talent. 

I have no question TL has the talent to be a top 5 QB. But I don't like projecting as much as other folks seem to. I want production before I anoint him, because even Wentz looked like an MVP for half a season under Doug P. And currently, his production this season is about equal (slightly better imo) to Cousins, but Cousins has 7 more years of doing this and this is one of Cousins' worst years lol. Also - my list is fluid, so if TL continues to produce next year it's not some "Haha told you so" moment to me, it's just at that point he will have solidified himself as a top 10 QB, in my mind. 

But I've also come to accept I'm in the minority with this perspective and most others look at it as "Who would you want in a vacuum to lead your team next season?" or even "Who will have the best year next year", so I'm okay being wrong here.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Soggust

[Dr LBC]

8 minutes ago, Soggust said:

I have no question TL has the talent to be a top 5 QB. But I don't like projecting as much as other folks seem to. I want production before I anoint him, because even Wentz looked like an MVP for half a season under Doug P. And currently, his production this season is about equal (slightly better imo) to Cousins, but Cousins has 7 more years of doing this and this is one of Cousins' worst years lol. Also - my list is fluid, so if TL continues to produce next year it's not some "Haha told you so" moment to me, it's just at that point he will have solidified himself as a top 10 QB, in my mind. 

But I've also come to accept I'm in the minority with this perspective and most others look at it as "Who would you want in a vacuum to lead your team next season?" or even "Who will have the best year next year", so I'm okay being wrong here.

Hey, I'm the one who has been fighting the "we realistically don't have a big enough sample-size to make that determination" fight for 10 years here.  I mean, I get it, people want to gravitate towards the new hotness... and we also live in a culture that's come to celebrate hot takes.  I've always been the one throwing cold water on peoples' "Top 5 ___" lists noting that Top 5 in a given time period sometimes doesn't have as much to do with a particular players actual accomplishments as it does other players who had previous occupied that top echelon falling off - be it temporarily or permanently; thus the player is sort of a Top-whatever by default.

I do think Lawrence should continue to progress, but one half of a season doesn't disprove what we saw in that first half.  It might, but it hasn't yet and will need to be demonstrated as that switch staying switched on moving forward into and through next season to really substantiate the claim.

In a way, I'm of the opinion that the QB crop in the league is relatively akin to where the state of the safeties in the league were roughly 10-ish years ago: You have a fairly clear-cut subset of 3-4ish outstanding players (with a standard deviation of ~1.5) and a whole lot of average (which is much more of a fluid spectrum than a finite percentile-score on a sliding scale) guys; and the term average get over-sensitized by people because those same people, whether they're aware of it or not, go to  more extreme pole of what constitutes truly "bad/poor/terrible," and thus that affects their interpretation of "average" as a mid-point from that pole.