QB Stock Market: Ranking all 32 starters before Week 1 of 2024 season
Let's rank the starting quarterbacks.
It's simple, isn't it? It's just 32 names, from first to worst.
You start with Patrick Mahomes and you finish with Gardner Minshew.
But … I've already made things complicated. Because you might not agree that Minshew is the worst starting quarterback. Heck, you might not agree that Mahomes is the best quarterback. (You'd be wrong. But you're entitled to be wrong.)
Here is the philosophy behind my rankings, which I'll be doing weekly this season.
I don't believe in evaluating a quarterback in a vacuum. I don't want to imagine what Brock Purdy would look like in the New England Patriots offense — or what Justin Herbert would look like in the Kansas City Chiefs offense. I'm most concerned with how the quarterback is playing in his current situation, which — by the way — was set up around him with tremendous intention. (The coaches, general managers and scouts build their teams with their quarterbacks in mind, after all.) This process is already complicated. Let's not confuse things further.
That doesn't mean context is irrelevant for quarterback evaluation. But we shouldn't let context blind us from what's obvious. Looking at the end of last year, Purdy was playing like one of the league's best quarterbacks — and Herbert wasn't. And it's easy to imagine things will continue upward for Purdy. For Herbert, it might continue to trend downward.
Every week, you'll see plenty of movement, based upon weekly swings of momentum for each quarterback and his team. No one is safe. No one is buried.
It's all about, what have you done for me lately?
With that in mind, it's time to dive in. Here is the first quarterback ranking of the season, mixing in what they did at the end of the season with