Month: November 2022

2022 Quarterback Madness: The Madness Concludes

/ Jason / Leave a comment

Miss Round 2? Read that here. Miss Round 1? There’s a handy link at the top of the Round 2 page. Click often! It’s all about the page views in 2022.

THE MOSTLY ELITE 8

1. Josh Allen (BUF) vs 13. Trevor Lawrence (JAX)

I showed my hand last round when I said that Joe Burrow would beat either Lawrence or Zach Wilson. Obviously Trevor Lawrence isn’t winning this matchup today. Maybe in five years, when Allen crosses into his 30s, Lawrence will be better than him. Right now though, he’s all projection. Allen is real. And he’s really good. 

3. Lamar Jackson (BAL) vs. 2. Patrick Mahomes (KC)

This was the championship match in the 2019 iteration of this exercise, a matchup that Mahomes won. Since that time, Jackson’s statistics have regressed. His completion percentage has dropped each season. He’s throwing for fewer yards. Until this season, he was even averaging fewer yards per carry. If most of the other NFL franchises hadn’t locked up a player of Jackson’s incredible ability, I’d think they were completely insane. Baltimore has earned the right to be regarded as only mildly insane. There is no better QB out there who will be readily available this offseason, next offseason, etc. Especially given how Balitmore’s offense is set up. In a hypothetical world, Aaron Rodgers isn’t moving into this offensive scheme and experiencing a career renaissance. As for Mahomes, the clear winner here, Kansas City traded away his most explosive receiving option, replaced him with Marquez Valdez-Scantling, and he hasn’t missed a damn beat. He is so absurdly consistent. Every single year as a starter, his completion percentage has finished between 65.9 and 66.3%. He’s on pace to throw for over 5,000 yards this season. He turns absolutely nothing into something every single time he steps on the field. And yes, sometimes he does too much and gets caught. But more often than not, he’s doing something we’ve never seen before. He doesn’t have the strongest arm, the biggest frame, the fastest sprint speed, the height, etc etc. He’s just the best. Plain and simple.

1. Jalen Hurts (PHI) vs. 5. Dak Prescott (DAL)

Hurts is a good example of how a QB can develop when there’s talent around him. I know that’s a “well duh” comment, but it seems like a lot of player personnel people in the NFL think you can just will a QB to be good. Hurts was inconsistent last season. There were some Eagles fans who were hoping for Gardner Minshew to take over the team. A lot can change in a year! Philly swung a huge draft night trade for Tennessee’s superstar WR AJ Brown. It’s hard to say that Brown’s presence alone accounts for Hurts’ wild ascension to MVP candidate. But it doesn’t…..oh god….hurt……… Hurts has actually regressed as a runner, averaging 2 fewer yards per carry. Where he hasn’t regressed is in passing. He’s completing 68% of his passes with a 6:1 TD:INT ratio. He’s on pace to throw for over 4,000 yards and he’s not dinking and dunking. He’s averaging 8.5 yards per completion. He has been very, very good. But is he better than Dak Prescott? I don’t think Jalen has done enough to surpass Dak. This was, by far, the closest quarterfinal matchup (and the de facto NFC championship matchup). Hurts’ half season of exceptional play isn’t enough to overtake what Dak has done in his 7 seasons, which statistically speaking is basically Hurts’ 2022 season. 

14. Justin Fields (CHI) vs. 2. Kirk Cousins (MIN)

Kirk Cousins is the only QB over 30 to reach the quarterfinals. Truthfully, this says a lot more about his path here and about the youth movement at the QB position than it does Cousins. You could, theoretically, argue that Justin Fields and Trey Lance are in a similar position and given that Cousins has beaten Lance already, he should advance to the NFC championship. My counterargument goes like this: No. Fields has been in a really unforgiving situation in Chicago, for any QB, nevermind a 23 year old. I shudder to think what Kirk Cousins, a QB with 1/10th the running ability of Fields, would produce with the cast of characters Fields performs with every week. The most troubling thing for me when evaluating Fields is that his accuracy has not improved from his first season. In fact, he’s completing a marginally lower percentage of his 2022 passes while only passing for a marginally higher yard per completion number. It’s not like the Bears are running the Mike Leach Texas Tech offense. Quite frankly, I wish they were, because I think it would be easier to tell what Fields can be as a QB. If he’s a sub-60% accuracy QB with mobility, is that a franchise QB? By contrast, Lamar Jackson completed 66% of his passes in his second season, when he won the MVP. And I don’t think Fields is quite the runner that Lamar is. Working in Fields’ favor over Trey Lance is that he’s a season and a half into his career. We’ve seen flashes of what he can be. And he can be very good. Working in Fields’ favor over Cousins is that he’s 11 years his junior and so much more dynamic. 

AFC CHAMPIONSHIP

1. Josh Allen (BUF) vs. 2. Patrick Mahomes (KC)

For as long as both guys are in the AFC, they’re going to find each other. In terms of profile alone, Allen is Super-Sized Mahomes. Bigger, faster, stronger arm, stronger in general. I mean, he’s 6’5”, 240 LBS and he’s a QB. The reason why I lean Mahomes over Allen in this, the marquee Final Four game, is that he’s more accurate with the football and when he reaches into his bag to make a highlight play, he more often than not hits. Meanwhile, Allen has the tendency to turn makable first downs into interceptions. I’m certainly picking nits here. These two are far and away the two best QBs in the NFL and number 3, whoever that is, isn’t close.

NFC CHAMPIONSHIP

5. Dak Prescott (DAL) vs. 13. Justin Fields (CHI)

This is the early Final Four game. 6:09 p.m. EST tip-off. This is another case of Prescott winning because he’s been consistently good and that matters more, at this point, than potential. 

CHAMPIONSHIP

Patrick Mahomes (KC) vs. Dak Prescott (DAL)

It’s Patrick Mahomes. It was always going to be Patrick Mahomes. Dak Prescott is a good, almost underrated quarterback. When he’s healthy, he’s an absolute Top 10, probably Top 7 NFL QB. And we’ve seen runs from Dak where he hits another gear. But he’s not Mahomes. No one is. Time will tell if Joe Burrow finds another gear or Justin Fields grows into his immense potential or Justin Herbert gets an offensive coordinator who isn’t scared of him. Even when that happens, I’m not sure that any of those guys are better than Mahomes. He’s the Stephen Curry of the NFL. He’s doing things that others will mimic but no one will replicate. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime talent.

Quarterback Madness: Round 2

/ Jason / 1 Comment

Did you miss Round 1? Why do you have more important things in your life? Why do you hurt me so much?

Sorry! It’s hard to find a good therapist in Los Angeles. On to the matchups:

AFC

1. Josh Allen (BUF) vs. 9. Joe Burrow (CIN)

Gut reaction is to immediately take Allen. So you go searching for edges that Burrow might have. Youth? Well, despite being drafted two years after Allen, Burrow was actually born in the same year as him. Burrow does have a Super Bowl appearance, while Allen has yet to reach the conference championship. But Josh Allen wasn’t part of the Buffalo defense that allowed Kansas City to drive into field goal range in 13 seconds in the greatest game ever played. Tools? Well, every tool that Burrow has, Allen has even more of. Burrow can scramble a bit. Allen, meanwhile, can truck free safeties across the Canadian border in the open field. Arm strength is a check for Allen too. Accuracy is the one area where Burrow has the decided advantage. Allen, I think, is at best a 65% accuracy guy in the career aggregate, whereas Burrow is a 70%er.  I think this is not quite as clearly and obviously Allen as it might seem. That said, now that he has mostly harnessed his traits and abilities, I give him the slight edge in a seriously unfair second round matchup for Burrow.

5. Zach Wilson (NYJ) vs. 13. Trevor Lawrence (JAX)

To be clear, Joe Burrow would unquestionably win against either QB here. I’ve already stated that Trevor Lawrence is head and shoulders beyond the other QBs in his draft class. That includes the guy selected right after him, Zach Wilson. Wilson and Lawrence have a lot of the same problems (silly mistakes), but Lawrence looks like he’s got things more figured out at this point in the process and as I’ve said before (in my 2021 mock draft) I don’t think Wilson ever figures it out.

6. Tua Tagovailoa (MIA) vs. 3. Lamar Jackson (BAL)

I did not believe my eyes that Tua was the highest rated QB in ESPN’s Total QBR metric this season. There appears to be two camps with Tua: 1.) Miami Dolphins fans who interpret any criticism of him as a slight to them personally and 2.) Rational people. I’m in the second camp. The Dolphins offense is entertaining as hell. Believe it or not, if you pair two of the NFL’s most dynamic wide receivers with one of the most creative offensive minds calling plays, the results will be fun! Wow! Now, in Tagovailoa’s defense, Miami looked a different team with Skylar Thompson and Teddy Bridgewater helming them. Mike McDaniel uses Tua’s strengths (short and intermediate accuracy) so well. Tua’s biggest weakness is, well, his weak arm. No matter what the first camp says, an underthrow is an underthrow. And Tua is prone to the underthrow. Tyreek Hill is able to hide some of the ugliness with his unrivaled ability to twist back for bad passes. In a Sunday night game against Pittsburgh, the Steelers dropped four clear and clean interceptions. I think Tua’s status as the league leader in QBR has a lot to do with the system and the skill players. Meanwhile, in Charm City, Lamar Jackson is quietly leading an offense of Mark Andrews and assorted randos towards the playoffs. And I can’t help but imagine how incredible Jackson would be in the McDaniel system that Tua is in. Lamar is absolutely frustrating at times. His accuracy is not elite and frankly, it’s not even close to elite. There will come a time where he will slow down and when he loses that elite speed, I wonder what he becomes. However, he’s 25 years old. That time isn’t nigh. Much like the Allen vs. Burrow matchup, talent and attributes win out here.

7. Justin Herbert (LAC) vs. 2. Patrick Mahomes (KC)

I think there’s a case to be made that there are five AFC QBs who are better than the best NFC QB. Justin Herbert is one of those five. His detractors, amplifying in size and volume as they are, will point to his statistical regression in 2022. I would simply remind them that he’s playing in the most conservative passing offense in football and that he’s been playing through a rib injury. He’s still on pace to throw for a hair under 4,500 yards and 30 TDs. If that’s regression…cool? He’s still 24. He’s still 6’6”. And he’s far from playing in the ideal offensive scheme for his abilities. All of this to say, I’m still a Herbert stan, I think he’s the third or fourth best QB in the AFC and he gets absolutely boat-raced by Patrick Mahomes in this matchup.

NFC

1. Jalen Hurts (PHI) vs. 8. Desmond Ridder (ATL)

Here, we are comparing a person who has never taken an NFL snap against the QB of the League’s only undefeated team. This is not a particularly interesting matchup. Until we have any idea what Desmond Ridder is, he can’t beat out a dynamic weapon like Hurts.

5.  Dak Prescott (DAL) vs. 13. Kyler Murray (ARI)

This is the only truly compelling 2nd round matchup in the NFC. I touched upon Kyler Murray’s bad coaching in Round 1. But let’s look at Murray. This is his fourth NFL season, all of them with the same offense. He’s on target to finally, albeit barely, eclipse the 4,000 yard passing mark. In Dak Prescott’s fourth NFL season, he hit 4,900 passing yards. “But Kyler is such an electric runner,” you say to your phone. Sure. Other than Lamar Jackson, no other QB has as much pure speed as Kyler. That said, he’s a bit reckless with the ball. In 33 fewer NFL games, Murray has fumbled 8 more times than Prescott. And Dak is no slouch when he needs to run, averaging about a yard per carry less than Kyler. The only question mark with Dak, for me, is his health. Since 2020, he’s played in just 24 of Dallas’ 41 games.It’s a risky gamble, but I’m willing to take it on a guy who has been a more consistently good performer in the NFL. Give me Dak.

11. Jameis Winston (NO) vs. 14. Justin Fields (CHI)

There’s enough about Justin Fields that is deeply intriguing that it’s hard to give up on him just 1 ½ seasons into his career. He has at times looked maddingly poor, but how much of that is to blame on bad coaching, shoddy offensive line play, and the worst set of skill position players in the NFL? He’s shown enough flashes of brilliance that I’ll take that over a Jameis Winston 30/30 season. 

7.  Trey Lance (SF) vs. 2. Kirk Cousins (MIN)

The answer is Kirk Cousins. You know the answer is Kirk Cousins. You don’t want the answer to be Kirk Cousins because he’s not terribly athletic, he’s dorky, he manages to throw a dozen avoidable interceptions every season, and he is paid very handsomely. You are inclined to loathe Kirk Cousins, the patriarch of all mediocre white men. Everyone rags on Kirk. I rag on Kirk. Trey Lance would be fortunate to provide the production that Kirk Cousins has over his career. The 49ers took a massive swing on Lance. I’ll stand in the box and take my walk with Kirk to the 3rd round. 

Tomorrow, we’ll wrap up the whole thing. Patrick Mahomes will win, but swing by anyway please.

2022 Quarterback Madness: Round 1

/ Jason / 2 Comments

Welcome to the 6th Edition of Quarterback Madness, a March Madness-style bracket that I invented, like Thomas Edison, back in 2010. The rules are simple and entirely arbitrary. Essentially, it boils down to which QB, given each matchup, I’d prefer to start my NFL expansion franchise with. Previous winners include Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes. And that’s it. They’re the only previous winners.

I’ll be breaking this into a series of posts rather than one long one. Like and subscribe and comment below etc etc.

All seedings are based on team records, by conference, entering Week 10 of the 2022 season.

AFC

1. Josh Allen (BUF) vs. 16. Davis Mills (HOU)

Sure, I could spend a lot of time here comparing Allen’s stats to Mills’ stats. But that seems like an undervaluing of your time. Do I think that Davis Mills can be an effective NFL QB? Yeah, probably. But that’s about it for his ceiling. As for Allen, the last time I did this exercise in 2019, I lambasted him up and down about his lack of passing accuracy. And to be fair, at that time, he did look like a really fancy tool shed filled with tools that the owner wasn’t capable of using. But now, in 2022, Allen is consistently sawing through defenses. I wish Buffalo would let him use his size more and give him 5-7 designed runs per game, but that’s more a quibble with Ken Dorsey’s philosophy and their desire to keep Allen healthy. Josh has figured out how to pass at an elite level. He still makes an inaccurate, boneheaded throw once a game. But more often than not, he’s an unstoppable wrecking machine. 

8. Mac Jones (NE) vs. 9. Joe Burrow (CIN)

The troll in me desperately wanted to make Bailey Zappe New England’s representative here. Let’s just say I’ve matured a bit. Mac Jones has regressed immensely in 2022 from his rookie season. He’s second-to-last in QBR among qualified players (only Baker Mayfield is worse). Most troubling is Jones’ decision-making. He’s thrown nearly twice as many interceptions as touchdowns and while he’s still one of the most accurate passers in the league (66%), you can’t make the mistakes he’s making and hope that short-field accuracy will equate to winning football, especially with the total lack of weapons he has on offense. Burrow is the clear choice here. He’s also stalled a bit in 2022. And he’s still taking way too many sacks. And sure, he has perhaps the best 3 WR set in football to work with. All of those caveats aside, he’s simply a better QB than Jones right now and there’s no reason to believe that will change in the future. 

5. Zach Wilson (NYJ) vs. 12. Russell Wilson (DEN)

It’s matchups like this that make me love this exercise. Look, there’s no winner here. Russell Wilson looks absolutely washed and every day shows himself to be more and more of a dislikable weirdo. Zach Wilson has youth on his side. Youth can be quite the folly though, because it can make you believe you’re Josh Allen when you’re actually a lot closer to Joshua Dobbs. Wilson’s arm strength is not the question. It’s his absolute penchant for making the dumbest possible throws that is. He’s completing just 58% of his throws and he’s throwing more interceptions than touchdowns. Every week, Z. Wilson will escape the pocket to his strong side, stop along the sideline, and fire a flaming meatball into the middle of the field. It would be fun to watch if he hadn’t been the second overall pick and he wasn’t wasting some legitimately talented skill position players. And yet, after all of that, I’m taking him over Russell, who is also completing under 60% of his passes and is also wasting some legitimately talented skill position players, AND is 11 years Zach’s senior. He’s almost old enough to be in Zach’s dating range, in fact. 

4. Ryan Tannehill (TEN) vs. 13. Trevor Lawrence (JAX)

One guy is probably towards the end of his career (at least as a starter) and the other is just getting started. Has Lawrence underwhelmed thus far? A little bit. He’s been perfectly league average in this, his second season. He’s certainly shown progress in 2022, due in no small part, I’m sure, to having a healthy Travis Etienne Jr. and an exiled Urban Meyer. He’s still making young QB mistakes with regularity, but his arm strength and his extremely fast release are still elite. Do I think he gets to the Andrew Luck level that I predicted? Eh. But I think of all the QBs from the 2021 Draft, Lawrence is still the best and I don’t think it’s close. Tannehill has done his job during his career, but at this point, he’s really just a live body to hand the ball off to Derrick Henry. That said, you will notice that he’s here and not Malik Willis, who Tennessee drafted in the 3rd round in the 2022 Draft and has made two NFL starts. I said in my 2022 Draft preview that I didn’t think Willis would be ready to start at all in his first season and that has absolutely proven to be true. He has looked totally overmatched in the NFL, similarly to how he did in college when he faced Power 5 defenses. It’s two games in a rookie season and the last time I did this exercise, I was highly critical of Josh Allen. But Willis’ 6.5 QBR and 40% completion percentage in his two starts says enough at this point. Tannehill gets the nod over Willis here, but it’s Lawrence who trounces either Tennessee quarterback.

6. Tua Tagovailoa (MIA) vs. 11. Deshaun Watson (CLE)

I’m inclined to just say “to hell with Deshaun Watson and the Cleveland Browns” and just move on entirely. But lets look at this whole thing from a football perspective before we do that, while acknowledging the two dozen sexual assault claims against Cleveland’s self-selected face of the franchise. Watson hasn’t played an NFL game since January 3, 2021. It will be nearly two calendar years between starts when he suits up against Houston on December 4th. When last we saw him on a football field, he was an elite (perhaps Top 5) talent. He was smart with the football, but also fully willing to throw deep, even without DeAndre Hopkins. And he was startlingly accurate. On a football-only level, what Cleveland gave up to get him and what they committed to him financially was good business. However, given the totality of the situation, we know it’s not. Watson sat out the 2021 season of his own accord because, I don’t know, he’s a baby? He then showed no understanding at all of the gravity of which he was accused. Unless you’re one of those weirdos who defends your sports team like it’s your life’s purpose or you’re a men’s rights activist, it’s pretty easy to see that Watson is a really bad person. So we’ll talk about Tua in the next round when he faces Lamar Jackson.

3. Lamar Jackson (BAL) vs. 14. Derek Carr (LVR)

“Just wait until Derek Carr has weapons to throw to,” they all said (me included). Well, have we seen enough? Look, he wasn’t going to beat Lamar Jackson in a debate of “who is the better QB” even if he didn’t look like a shell of himself. But yikes, he looks awful. Meanwhile, Lamar is Lamar. In 2019, he was a semi-finalist in this exercise. While some of that shine has worn off, he’s still a franchise-building piece (in the final year of his contract, inexplicably).

7. Justin Herbert (LAC) vs. 10. Not Applicable (IND)

This is the first time I’ve ever just listed N/A as a team’s quarterback (and I’ll do it again with Carolina later). I haven’t the slightest idea what Indianapolis is doing right now, especially at the QB position. They’ve seemingly committed to a deeply flawed strategy of bringing in a new veteran QB every offseason. This year’s version, Matt Ryan, has been the worst of the bunch, so much so that he was benched in favor of Sam Ehlinger, a player with no future in the NFL. There’s truly nothing there with Ehlinger. He’s not big. He’s not fast. His arm strength is okay. He isn’t even accurate in the short game. He’s just not the kind of QB you hitch your wagon to six games into a season when your expensive offseason acquisition fails. As for Herbert, he’s got quite the matchup waiting for him in the next round.

2. Patrick Mahomes (KC) vs. 15. Kenny Pickett (PIT)

To an extent, I kind of like what I’ve seen from Kenny Pickett. There’s a lot to work on certainly. But I can see the outline of a decent QB. Think a smaller Ryan Tannehill. And that’s about all we need to say about this matchup. 

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NFC

1. Jalen Hurts (PHI) vs. 16. Not applicable (CAR)

Not applicable making their second appearance. Truly a prolific year for teams with confounding QB situations. Carolina’s QB room is an absolute mess. In a perfect world, they finish the season with the NFL’s worst record, draft Bryce Young or CJ Stroud first overall (right now I prefer Stroud but that’s not etched in stone), and move on from the Sam Darnold/Baker Mayfield/PJ Walker carousel of misery that they have now. In an even more perfect world, the Ravens somehow don’t offer Lamar Jackson a legitimate long-term contract and the Panthers give him the most guaranteed money in NFL history. They then use that high draft pick as leverage, trade down, acquire a slew of picks, take Notre Dame TE Michael Mayer, and by 2024, they’re an NFC contender. Until then, Jalen Hurts wins this matchup.

8. Desmond Ridder (ATL) vs. 9. Carson Wentz (WAS)

This was as close to a third “Not Applicable” as we got and frankly, you can’t even tell for certain which team I’m talking about! The Washington Football Team can move on from Wentz after this season with zero dead cap space. That is good! The bad part is that they gave up two 3rd rounders and a 2nd rounder for X number of games of horrific QB play at $28 million. For Atlanta, I’m still on the Ridder train. Yes, it’s troubling that we’re nearing the halfway point in the season and Atlanta is still running the same offense as the Naval Academy with Marcus Mariota, even though they could conceivably make the playoffs with one of the worst defenses in football. I firmly believe that Desmond Ridder can be an NFL QB and a good one at that. When it comes to what Wentz is, I think we can all agree that it is NOT a good QB.

5. Dak Prescott (DAL) vs. 12. Aaron Rodgers (GB)

What a super competitive, intriguing matchup this is in the year 2019. In the year 2022, it’s Dak. Rodgers has more than worn out his welcome, to the point that I think he’s actively harming the growth and development of Green Bay’s young skill position players. The Packers would be wise to move on from Rodgers and see what they have in Jordan Love before the Draft and free agency. There’s even a good chance they can convince a very bad GM to trade for Rodgers. When Dak is healthy, he’s a top 10 QB. I don’t think Aaron Rodgers gets into that top 10 ever again. 

4. Tom Brady (TB) vs. 13. Kyler Murray (ARI)

“Surely,” you think, “there’s no way this idiot is going to pick 45 year old Tom Brady over Kyler Murray.” And I’ll calm your nerves right away. No, I’m not going to. But I could be convinced to do so. At some point, one has to wonder how much of Kyler Murray’s mediocrity is on the shoulders of Kliff Kingsbury and his continued unjustifiable employment as Arizona’s head coach. I would love to see Kyler Murray in the Mike McDaniel system. Heck, I’d like to see Kyler Murray in a system. Arizona’s offense seems to be built off of bizarre gadget plays with Rondale Moore four yards behind the line of scrimmage and tossing the ball up to DeAndre Hopkins 10 times a game and hoping for the best. Murray himself is not without his flaws. Our Call of Duty King will always be very short and as he ages and has to rely on the pocket more, I fear he’s going to have a lot of trouble completing passes. All of that said, Tom Brady is indeed 45 years old, in the middle of a divorce, and has the body language of both a 45 year old and a divorcee. This is the first year that Brady has looked truly mortal and, in fact, beatable. And I don’t foresee him finding some kind of new, mystery gear. I think this is finally the end of his long, incredible road. And I think that’s good for everybody. 

6. Daniel Jones (NYG) vs. 11. Jameis Winston (NO)

Have you ever been out on a run or a bike ride without a prior plan and you get to a point where you’re totally unsure of where to go next? That was basically me when I got to this matchup. I’m just standing there at an intersection weighing whether I continue on or just go home. There is an extremely high chance that neither of these guys are starting QBs next year. Jones is having a career year with first year head coach Brian Daboll. For Jones, that means he’s averaging well under 200 passing ypg and a 58.2 QBR. Daniel Jones is going to be a very good backup QB in his career. I am, for whatever reason, going to go with Winston here. He’s the QB equivalent of a classic car with no seatbelts. 425 HP and you’re probably going to sever your spine because of him. But I still have a glimmer of hope that he can check up a little (maybe 280 HP) and install a nice harness system. (Jameis Winston is not a car.)

3. Geno Smith (SEA) vs. 14. Justin Fields (CHI)

I have this “fun” bit early in this NFL season. It goes like this: Geno Smith should be the NFL MVP. And I’m only partially serious. A lot of the pundits I follow really like to overlook how bad Justin Fields can look at times because he’s also extremely dynamic and can do things that only about five QBs can do. Geno Smith, on the other hand, is Geno Smith. Fields has shown enough flashes that I’d bet on him in this matchup over Geno who is a good pocket passer and nothing more. But I am absolutely not convinced (at least not yet) that Fields can be consistent enough to make the Bears competitive.

7. Trey Lance (SF) vs. 10. Matthew Stafford (LAR)

What, really, is Trey Lance? Here’s what I know: He is fast. He is big. He was the third overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. I know that he *was* extremely accurate. I also know that in two seasons in the NFL, he will have thrown 102 passes. San Francisco gave up a boatload to acquire Lance and it’s clear why. You can’t teach his size. But the jury is absolutely still deliberating on him. On the other side of this matchup is Matthew Stafford who is 34 years old. We’d be looking at Stafford a lot differently if not for a dropped INT in last year’s NFC Championship game. As the starting QB for a team coached by history’s greatest offensive mind (sarcasm font), Stafford sits behind such luminaries as Jared Goff and Andy Dalton in Total QBR. He looks bad. His counting stats are aided immensely in having Human YAC Machine Cooper Kupp at his disposal. In this matchup I’ll take the uncertainty of Trey Lance over what I’m pretty sure we know Matthew Stafford to be, which is a flawed and aging QB with a lot of miles on the tires. 

2. Kirk Cousins (MIN) vs. 15. Jared Goff (DET)

It is at this point that I realize that the NFC is some kind of QB graveyard because I just thought “Is Kirk Cousins going to win the NFC?” (We’ll see). I am history’s greatest Jared Goff detractor. He’s not good enough to win you games, but he’s certainly bad enough to lose you some. I just have no use for him and it’s quite frankly disappointing that Detroit didn’t draft Desmond Ridder before Atlanta did because they have the skill position players to be competitive and, dare I say, fun. Kirk Cousins is both good enough to win you games and bad enough to lose you some. But he’s more good than bad despite his reputation. 

Keep your eyes peeled for the next installment of QUARTERBACK MADNESS…right here!