It has already been a very eventful week in the NFL for quarterback news:
- New England rookie Drake Maye is set to get the start in Week 6 against Houston, sending Jacoby Brissett to the bench.
- Gardner Minshew may lose his job to Aidan O’Connell in Las Vegas after getting benched on Sunday.
- Russell Wilson (calf) is going to be a full practice participant in Pittsburgh, putting pressure on Justin Fields after back-to-back losses for the Steelers.
- Colts coach Shane Steichen had to acknowledge that Anthony Richardson is still his starter ahead of Joe Flacco when he’s healthy, and we don’t know exactly when he’ll be healthy enough to return.
- Derek Carr left Monday night’s game in Kansas City with an oblique injury, and his status is up in the air for the Saints, so we could end up seeing rookie Spencer Rattler start soon.
Then there’s the case of the Jets, who became the first team to fire their head coach in 2024 when they surprisingly let go of Robert Saleh on Tuesday morning after the ugly loss in London. Saleh getting fired isn’t surprising, but the timing was. This has people believing that Aaron Rodgers played a part in the move after Saleh reportedly was going to relieve offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, Rodgers’ guy, of his play-calling duties.
Always drama surrounding Rodgers.
Each Wednesday at 365Scores, we are going to rank all 32 NFL quarterbacks from top to bottom. The methodology is to start with our preseason quarterback rankings from July, which was based on a mixture of career value and emphasis on recent play. Then each week, we will adjust the rankings to account for the latest game to get a sense of which quarterbacks are performing the best in the 2024 season. Injured starters will be replaced.
Note: Many statistical references will be made to data from Next Gen Stats (NGS).
Table of Contents
1. Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders
Week 5 rank: 1 (0)
Has there ever been a season where a rookie quarterback was the best in the NFL that year? You could probably look at 1945 with Bob Waterfield on the Cleveland Rams. They were 9-1, he was MVP, had a league-high 14 touchdown passes, and they won the championship. But that’s a long time ago in a much different league.
But I’m loving Jayden Daniels so far in 2024. Even though he only completed 56% of his passes and threw an interception against Cleveland, it still led to an easy 34-13 win. He still averaged 9.5 yards per pass attempt against a solid defensive front, and he ran the ball 11 times for 82 yards.
His improvement from just Week 1 is already impressive as he’s shown he understands how to slide and run out of bounds to avoid hits, and he is very elusive. He also has been great at completing the short passes, but he’ll show he can still nail a deep bomb for a 66-yard gain on 3rd-and-13 to Terry McLaurin as he did in this game.
He’s the full package right now, and it was very hard to see this coming. But what an opportunity this week in Baltimore for him to get a high-profile win against a Super Bowl contender with some award contenders in Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry, and that Baltimore defense looks vulnerable right now. We’ll see if they can humble the rookie, or if he’s going to be the front-runner for MVP next week given that the odds leader is on a bye week.
Daniels deserves the hype for doing this as a rookie. He’s been nothing short of incredible.
2. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs
Week 5 rank: 3 (+1)
While Patrick Mahomes did not throw any touchdown passes on Monday night, it was the most complete performance by the Chiefs as a team this season. The offense moved the ball very well with some unlikely help from Kareem Hunt and JuJu Smith-Schuster, reinforcements that helped the team in the past.
This is the situation now in Kansas City with Rashee Rice officially out for the season after he had surgery on his knee. Hollywood Brown was already out for the season and running back Isiah Pacheco is going to miss about two months. By still making this work, that’s why you still see Mahomes ahead of everyone in the MVP odds (+250 at FanDuel).
I don’t think he’s the best pick for it right now with just six touchdown passes and six interceptions, but my pick (Jayden Daniels) has only thrown four touchdown passes so far too. It’s just been that kind of 2024 season for the league.
At the end of the day, do you trust Mahomes or do you trust a rookie to finish the job? The Chiefs are 5-0 going into the bye, but they’ll definitely need to work on the red zone problems. Mahomes threw a pick on a play that was eerily similar to the Russell Wilson interception to Malcolm Butler in Super Bowl 49. Burn that play.
But the Chiefs have converted just 7-of-18 red zone trips for touchdowns this season, including 2-for-7 on Monday night. Travis Kelce still doesn’t have a touchdown in 2024, but he looked spry against the Saints.
The Chiefs keep winning without Mahomes playing his best ball by any means, and that should be a scary fact for the rest of the league. Headed into the bye, the three-peat is still very much on track for Mahomes even with all the injuries around him.
3. C.J. Stroud, Houston Texans
Week 5 rank: 5 (+2)
C.J. Stroud is second to only Mahomes in the MVP odds now, but he had a disastrous fourth quarter after such a good start in building a 20-3 lead over the Bills. Nico Collins going out with an injury did not help, but it was a good thing the Texans had Stefon Diggs on their side in this game.
Still, the Texans nearly blew it after Stroud had a string of three drives where he threw a pick in Buffalo territory, lost the ball on a strip-sack, and had a costly intentional grounding penalty to knock the team out of field goal range when it was 20-20.
Fortunately, Stroud’s defense had his back and forced a quick three-and-out by the Bills to get him the ball at midfield. He threw one little pass to set up a long field goal, which was good to give the Texans a 23-20 win. They are 4-1 despite being outscored by 12 points on the year thanks to that Minnesota rout.
Stroud is doing well in his second season, but something has just been off with this offense so far. Collins may miss time with that injury too, which won’t help things, but it can bolster Stroud’s MVP case if he plays well without his best wideout.
4. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
Week 5 rank: 7 (+3)
Don’t look now, but Lamar Jackson is posting better numbers in 2024 than he did last year when he won a second MVP. Granted, I said all along that he won MVP by default in 2023 and it was one of the worst seasons ever for that award. But Jackson is legitimately outdoing himself this year to this point, and he had to put the team on his back in Cincinnati, a team he generally plays very well against.
But Sunday was one of Jackson’s best passing games as he completed 26-of-42 passes for 348 yards with 4 touchdowns, including this gem:
Derrick Henry and the running game were getting shut down, and the defense was getting shredded by Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. Lamar had to keep scoring, and he did it very well with 17 points in the fourth quarter alone to force overtime.
But where I always get nervous with Jackson is when it’s time to go win the game, can you trust him to do it with his arm? Down 38-35, he saw a drive stall at the Cincinnati 38, forcing Justin Tucker to deliver on a 56-yard field goal to go to overtime. Then in the extra session, Jackson was in scoring territory again and misplayed a snap that led to a fumble, which set the Bengals up for what could have easily been a game-winning field goal.
Jackson was fortunate the Bengals got conservative and missed their long kick. Then Henry came to life with a 51-yard run, and the Ravens instantly sent Tucker onto the field for the short field goal to win a 41-38 game.
Jackson didn’t lead a single game-winning drive in the 2023 season despite winning MVP. He won a game in overtime against the Rams where he played very well in the fourth quarter, but it was a punt return touchdown that won the game for Baltimore. This time, he had what should have been a devastating fumble, then relied on Henry and Tucker to finish the job.
Jackson is going to be in the MVP mix again with the way this offense is humming right now. But Henry deserves a lot of credit too for taking this offense to a new level with big plays.
5. Sam Darnold, Minnesota Vikings
Week 5 rank: 2 (-3)
The Vikings improved to 5-0 going into the bye, but Sam Darnold played his worst game of the season. In fact, his 19.6 QBR was the lowest among any quarterback to get a win in Week 5. The Vikings only scored 16 points on offense with Darnold not throwing any touchdowns this week against the Jets in London.
That happens even to the best of quarterbacks, but Vikings fans will be extra nervous coming out of the bye as Darnold will face a hot Detroit offense. Minnesota fans may recall the 2016 season when the team was 5-0, had their bye, then Sam Bradford and the offense regressed, and the team missed the playoffs with an 8-8 record.
Let’s hope the 2024 Vikings don’t have a similar faceplant in their future.
6. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills
Week 5 rank: 4 (-2)
This Josh Allen season has a chance to fall apart very quickly as he would have been the MVP had they given out the award after three weeks. Fortunately, seasons are longer than that and there’s a good reason awards aren’t won in September.
The Bills have now dropped back-to-back games after playing another contender in the Texans, but Allen had a most peculiar stat line in the 23-20 loss. He only completed 9-of-30 passes for 131 yards, giving a new meaning to 30 for 30.
You have to go back to Stan Gelbaugh and the pathetic 1992 Seahawks to find the last time an NFL quarterback completed no better than 30% of his passes in a game with at least 30 pass attempts. According to NGS, Allen’s CPOE was -22.1%, the worst game this season.
But the attention is on the fourth quarter where it sure looked like Allen was temporarily knocked out with a concussion after his head banged the ground. He only briefly left the game before getting cleared to return and finishing it. That feels fishy, especially since independent neurologists are supposed to be more careful about these things since the Tua Tagovailoa incident in 2022 spurred new protocol. There is speculation that this was the second head injury in the last two games for Allen as he also was shaken up on that ill-fated trick play in Baltimore in Week 4.
Upon returning, Allen sure played like someone who just suffered a brain injury. The Bills had the ball in a 20-20 game in the final minute, but they were backed up inside their own 5-yard line. Allen proceeded to throw three straight incomplete passes, including some risky throws that were more dangerous than anything, and the Bills had to punt without forcing Houston to burn any timeouts. The Texans had enough time to gain some yards and hit a long game-winning field goal.
A total mismanagement by the Bills, which happens too frequently under coach Sean McDermott. But he should have understood his quarterback’s situation better as Allen just didn’t have it on Sunday.
Now you just hope he’ll be okay from a health perspective with these big hits adding up quickly. The Bills will be in New Jersey to take on the Jets on Monday night in a big one.
7. Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals
Week 5 rank: 9 (+2)
This is starting to feel like déjà vu with Joe Burrow and the 2024 Bengals. He’s having arguably the best season of his career, and yet the team is 1-4 with poor defensive play the main cause. But Burrow also has not done a good job of closing things out.
We saw him fumble for a go-ahead touchdown by the Chiefs in the fourth quarter in Week 2. Then in this game against Baltimore, despite the five touchdown passes, Burrow did not close things out after admitting before the game he needed to play a “perfect” game to get the win. He threw an interception while in scoring territory with a chance to ice the game or at least extend the lead. Just a bad throw.
Then when the Ravens tied things up at 38, he had a chance to march for a game-winning field goal. As is all too common in his career in those moments, he immediately took a sack and had a three-and-out drive.
In overtime, Lamar Jackson’s fumble was actually going to gift Burrow the win, but the Bengals stayed conservative and ran the ball three times before settling for a long field goal, which was missed. Burrow never touched the ball again.
I said after the Washington loss that that was probably the best game Burrow’s ever played in a losing effort. This one against Baltimore was right up there with that. But he is going to have to start closing games out better, and he probably could stand to not rely so heavily on Ja’Marr Chase for all the big plays in this passing game. But you can clearly see why Chase wants the largest wide receiver contract after another stellar game by him with those long touchdowns.
8. Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Week 5 rank: 10 (+2)
Even though his team took the loss in Atlanta, it wasn’t Baker Mayfield who fumbled with a chance to ice the game as his rookie back Bucky Irving did. He also didn’t give up a game-tying field goal and a game-losing touchdown in overtime.
Mayfield played very well in leading a balanced attack that scored 30 points on the road on a short week. He only took one sack and was 19-of-24 passing. Mayfield’s 137.5 passer rating is the highest of his career in a game he lost.
Just an unfortunate loss for the Buccaneers in an important NFC South game.
9. Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers
Week 5 rank: 6 (-3)
Sunday was no doubt Brock Purdy’s roughest game since last Christmas against Baltimore. He had some bad luck with a deflected pick and a game-ending interception after he was hit in motion, but he also completed just 54.3% of his passes, his worst game at home and his second-lowest rate in any start.
But they probably still win the game if Jordan Mason doesn’t fumble in the red zone in the fourth quarter while they could have extended to a two-score lead again. That’s the second time this year the 49ers blew a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter, which has become the Kyle Shanahan specialty. But Purdy is going to get the blame with the pick being the last play from scrimmage.
The 49ers need to rebound in a hurry at 2-3 with a trip to Seattle this Thursday night for first place in the NFC West. Purdy has usually done well against the Seahawks, who can’t seem to stop anyone right now.
10. Kirk Cousins, Atlanta Falcons
Week 5 rank: 15 (+5)
In Week 1, it didn’t even look like Kirk Cousins could move after coming off an Achilles injury suffered last season. But to start Week 5, he turned in perhaps the most epic performance of his career with 509 passing yards in a thrilling 36-30 overtime win against the Buccaneers.
Cousins has already led the NFL in game-winning drives twice before in his career, including a record-tying eight of them in 2022 with the Vikings. He’s leading the league again with three game-winning drives this season as the Falcons are the most improbable 3-2 team in the NFL.
Can they keep things up? It’s Cousins, so floating around .500 with a lot of close wins and close losses is his calling card. But Thursday night was a special game for him.
11. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys
Week 5 rank: 13 (+2)
Without question, Dak Prescott had some frustrating moments in a 3-turnover game in Pittsburgh on Sunday night. The Cowboys should not have been in such a desperate spot late in the game after outgaining Pittsburgh 445-226 in yards. But the turnovers happened, the blocked field goal happened, and Prescott still found a way to redeem himself by throwing a patient game-winning touchdown on fourth down to Jalen Tolbert with 20 seconds left.
The Cowboys survived that one with Prescott’s 24th game-winning drive, and it was the eighth time he had to put Dallas ahead multiple times in the fourth quarter to get the win. In updating our study from this summer, that gives Prescott 33% of his game-winning drives where he took the lead multiple times, moving him ahead of all active quarterbacks.
12. Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks
Week 5 rank: 8 (-4)
It was a big step back for the offense against the Giants. Geno Smith took 7 sacks, including one on 4th-and-1 early in the fourth quarter that led to a two-score deficit. The Seattle offense was sitting on just two field goals nearly up to the 2-minute warning before a late flourish that almost saw them win the game. However, the game-tying field goal was blocked and returned for a touchdown in a bad 29-20 loss.
Smith ended up as his team’s leading rusher with 72 yards on some long scrambles. The offensive line was outmatched, and we’ll see if Smith and his offense can put up a better effort in a huge game with San Francisco this Thursday night.
13. Jared Goff, Detroit Lions
Week 5 rank: 12 (-1)
The Lions had a bye week to prepare for their big game with the Cowboys next week. We’ll see if Jared Goff can keep his hot hand going after completing 19-of-19 passes against Seattle, the only 100% completion game in NFL history on that many attempts.
14. Derek Carr, New Orleans Saints
Week 5 rank: 11 (-3)
The Chiefs are often a bad opponent for Derek Carr, who is now 3-15 against them in his career. From the opening drive, you could see how uncomfortable he is against Steve Spagnuolo’s defense as he threw a terrible interception that he looked like he was trying to throw away deep.
From there, nothing really went well for this offense outside of a nice 43-yard touchdown strike to Rashid Shaheed. But Carr left the game with an oblique injury and his status is very much in doubt for Week 6 (and perhaps Week 7), a big game with Tampa Bay that only gets bigger after the Saints just dropped their third game in a row after that incredible start.
15. Joe Flacco, Indianapolis Colts
Week 5 rank: N/A (Anthony Richardson was No. 26)
Joe Flacco’s late-career gunslinging has been a sight to behold. In a league where passing and scoring are down, Flacco seemingly can step into any situation and produce right now. He did it with the Browns last year, and he’s doing it again for the Colts with Anthony Richardson injured.
Flacco has now thrown multiple touchdown passes in seven straight regular season games. There was no quit by Flacco in Jacksonville where he threw for 359 yards, leading his team back to a late 34-34 tie before the Jaguars won the game on a field goal.
The offense looks better with Flacco than it did Richardson in Indy, and while the team contends that Richardson will be the starter when he’s healthy, we know he lacks the durability to keep making starts week after week. We’ll probably see Flacco a fair share this year.
16. Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals
Week 5 rank: 20 (+4)
The “fun” version of Kyler Murray has been missing the last few weeks, but we saw him show up in San Francisco in Week 5’s biggest upset win. He let us know early when he put his hand up to signal a coming touchdown when he was more than 40 yards away from the end zone, and he wasn’t wrong.
But opening drives have been no problem for the Cardinals. In fact, they’re reportedly the first offense since 1991 to start a season with five straight opening-drive touchdowns. It’s the rest of the game that’s been the problem for Murray, and that was happening again in this one as the Cardinals trailed 23-10 at halftime.
But Murray’s defense pitched a second-half shutout, and he used his legs again to make some plays and eventually wind up with a 24-23 upset. You’d like to see the Cardinals play more efficiently than this as they did in Weeks 1-2, but this was a very good win for Murray, who rushed for 83 yards.
17. Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers
Week 5 rank: 14 (-3)
The Chargers had an early bye week, but Justin Herbert absolutely needed it after trying to play on a bad leg against the Steelers and Chiefs in games that were winnable. Let’s hope the rest serves him well this week against Denver.
18. Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers
Week 5 rank: 21 (+3)
Few quarterbacks have been as frustrating this season as Jordan Love, who keeps mixing terrible plays with big plays. In his best Will Levis impersonation, Love may have pulled off the worst play of the 2024 season when he tried to avoid a safety by throwing up a pass that was intercepted for an easy touchdown for the Rams.
To his credit, Love rebounded and found tight end Tucker Kraft for some well-schemed touchdowns to get his first win this season. But he will need to clean things up in a hurry much like our next NFC quarterback with Super Bowl aspirations this year.
19. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles
Week 5 rank: 18 (-1)
The Eagles had their bye week, which will hopefully give Jalen Hurts some time to reflect on all his turnover-worthy plays this season as he needs to get that under control. He also will hope for better health from his top wideouts after having neither in Tampa Bay in the team’s last game.
20. Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams
Week 5 rank: 17 (-3)
We’re getting into a Groundhog Day situation with Matthew Stafford on this team that lost Aaron Donald to retirement, then Stafford lost Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp to injuries. The result is every week sees him with the ball late in the fourth quarter, needing a touchdown, and the game hinges on that outcome.
Lately, it hasn’t been going well as Stafford’s rally attempt came up short again in a 24-19 loss to the Packers where the offense wasn’t very good again. There may be better days ahead for Stafford, but right now, he’s struggling on a team where he is the only true star left.
21. Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars
Week 5 rank: 24 (+3)
Trevor Lawrence treated himself to the best 25th birthday gift with a career-high 371 passing yards and a win to snap his 9-game losing streak. Lawrence was fantastic in the 37-34 win over the Colts, but I’d be cautious to think this will turn his season around.
Lawrence completed 82.4% of his passes on Sunday. The only two games higher in his career were also against the Colts in 2022, so this is a familiar division opponent thing, and the Colts have been playing putrid defense this season. They won’t all be this easy.
But at least Lawrence is no longer winless this year, and he looks to have a stud in rookie wideout Brian Thomas Jr.
22. Daniel Jones, New York Giants
Week 5 rank: 23 (+1)
Wait, is Daniel Jones actually having his best season? He’s up to No. 12 in QBR (61.3). It was so easy to write him off after a disastrous Week 1 loss against the Vikings. But as we’ve quickly learned, Minnesota’s defense is playing great and has embarrassed several quarterbacks.
Jones’ numbers have been much better since, the Giants are 2-2 in these last four games, and they’ve always been competitive. You might say he was leaning on rookie Malik Nabers a lot for his stats, but Nabers didn’t even play in Seattle this week and Jones still completed 67.6% of his passes for 257 yards and 2 touchdowns in a 29-20 road win.
I guess the next excuse will be that Seattle’s defense was injured, and this week’s excuse against Cincinnati will be that Nabers came back, and the Cincinnati defense is poor. But for a quarterback who looked like he was certainly on his way out this season in New York, Jones is doing just enough to possibly salvage his job for 2025.
I’m just not sure if that’s something Giants fans should be happy about, but let’s see how things progress with Nabers.
23. Aaron Rodgers, New York Jets
Week 5 rank: 16 (-7)
Aaron Rodgers went to London and came back to soon find out he’d have a new coach for the rest of the season. On Tuesday, the Jets fired Robert Saleh after this disappointing start, but it’s hard to see how that is going to fix the offense, the real culprit in New York.
In London, Rodgers threw three interceptions, which is one more than he had in the entire 2018 season, and one fewer than he had in both the 2019 and 2021 seasons.
The Minnesota defense is crushing it right now, but rarely has Rodgers ever been this careless or inefficient as a passer. He threw two picks in the first quarter for the first time in his career, and he averaged just 4.52 yards per attempt, his second-lowest game ever in a game where he threw at least 35 passes. He threw 54 in this one, took a beating, and his season may not last much longer if he has to recover weekly from games like this as he soon turns 41 years old.
The Jets are linked to trading for Davante Adams to reunite Rodgers with his old No. 1 receiver. But would Adams even want to join an offense that looks this bad? Rodgers needs to do some soul-searching as there’s a big game coming on Monday night against Buffalo for the division lead.
24. Andy Dalton, Carolina Panthers
Week 5 rank: 19 (-5)
It was a disappointing game for Andy Dalton in Chicago, one of his former teams. The scoreboard got out of hand, so Bryce Young actually finished the game for a benched Dalton, who struggled to throw for 75 yards at halftime. He couldn’t get his top wide receivers going against an improved Chicago secondary.
The benching of Young for Dalton made sense when it happened, but at this rate, don’t be surprised if Carolina goes back to Young before Halloween.
25. Justin Fields, Pittsburgh Steelers
Week 5 rank: 22 (-3)
The many shortcomings of Justin Fields were on display in front of a national audience on Sunday night. Even against a Dallas defense that was missing several pass rushers, Fields managed to take 3 sacks on 27 passes, and that’s even with offensive coordinator Arthur Smith trying to hide him on third-and-long situations, calling runs instead of passes at times.
Fields showed little touch on passes down the field, the offense was again very stagnant for three quarters, and the Steelers came up short again in a 20-17 loss. The offense produced just 226 yards, a number lower than the Steelers had in any of Kenny Pickett’s 24 starts in 2022-23.
But there’s no blaming Matt Canada anymore in Pittsburgh. I just wish Russell Wilson’s calf would be declared fine and the Steelers make the change to see what the Hall of Fame-caliber quarterback has left in the tank. Fields is not an adequate enough passer to get this done, and the disparity between him and Dak Prescott in that regard was on full display in this game. The Steelers are going to be in trouble with any team that can reasonably score 20 points against that defense as long as Fields is their quarterback.
26. Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears
Week 5 rank: 27 (+1)
Why are we always so quick to write off a top pick these days after a few bad games? Caleb Williams looked like the real deal against the Panthers, and that’s an ideal team to do so against given the huge trades the Bears have made with that team to eventually land Williams in this draft. He had to shine in this one, and he did with 304 passing yards and 2 touchdown throws.
This was the kind of performance we thought about in the preseason when we concluded that Williams had the best situation for any quarterback ever drafted No. 1 overall. Quality receivers, a good defense, and he got it done in a blowout win to help the Bears to a 3-2 start in the NFL’s toughest division.
27. Bo Nix, Denver Broncos
Week 5 rank: 29 (+2)
We seem to be getting a decent performance every other week from rookie Bo Nix, which means Week 6 will be something abysmal. But his Week 5 win over the Raiders, the first time Denver beat that team in the 2020s, was easily his best game yet as he threw a pair of touchdowns and averaged a season-high 7.6 yards per attempt.
For the third game in a row, Nix did not throw an interception. But he certainly took advantage of a bad performance by the Raiders that led to good field position, and he’ll have to do better on third down to beat a team like the Chargers this week.
28. Gardner Minshew, Las Vegas Raiders
Week 5 rank: 25 (-3)
The Gardner Minshew experiment might be over in Las Vegas. For the second time this season, head coach Antonio Pierce yanked Minshew after his second bad interception in what became a blowout loss to the Broncos despite an early 10-0 lead.
Aidan O’Connell finished the game and may get the start on Sunday against the Steelers. It’s hard to argue with the decision, but the whole problem here is the Raiders should have never come into this season with a quarterback competition between Minshew and O’Connell. That’s just not good enough to win games with. They should have drafted Spencer Rattler, who went in the fifth round to the Saints.
29. Tyler Huntley, Miami Dolphins
Week 5 rank: 30 (+1)
As expected, Tyler Huntley had more success in his second start with the Dolphins. But he largely relied on his running backs to get the 15-10 win in New England as he threw for 194 yards, an interception, and he only rushed for 7 yards this week.
The Dolphins are hoping to get Tua Tagovailoa back by the end of this month, so Huntley’s time should only be temporary here.
30. Jacoby Brissett, New England Patriots
Week 5 rank: 28 (-2)
We are apparently moving on to the Drake Maye Era in New England after the Patriots fell 15-10 at home to the Dolphins after another quiet day from the passing game with Jacoby Brissett. He was close to throwing a late go-ahead touchdown, but his rookie receiver (Ja’Lynn Polk) did not come down with the catch in the end zone.
Brissett has been pressured on a league-high 50.0% of his dropbacks according to NGS, so the offensive line has been a major culprit in the lack of passing success here. However, even when Brissett is not under pressure, he still ranks No. 29 in EPA/dropback, so he just hasn’t been good enough to not give the rookie his shot.
Look at the way Caleb Williams took some bumps for Chicago in September and is already doing much better. There’s nothing like real-game experience for a rookie to start learning how to play this position. The Patriots should just take off the training wheels and see what Maye can do.
31. Will Levis, Tennessee Titans
Week 5 rank: 32 (+1)
Will Levis had a bye week, so hopefully he took the time to go over things with his coaches on where he needs to improve before he ends up losing this job to Mason Rudolph.
A good start would be to not leave your feet and create another meme with a ridiculous turnover.
32. Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns
Week 5 rank: 31 (-1)
Cleveland coach Kevin Stefanski said they’re not changing quarterbacks despite another terrible performance by Deshaun Watson against a Washington defense that was ranked last against the pass.
At this point, we can only assume Stefanski is getting word from the Cleveland brass that he can’t bench their $230 million investment. Any other quarterback playing at this level would get benched, especially when Jameis Winston is a capable backup.
Watson ranks dead last in QBR (21.0) for the season, and his 8.5 QBR against Washington was the worst in Week 5. Only four quarterbacks have ever taken more sack through five games than Watson (26) has this season.
At this rate, maybe injury will finally send Watson to the bench. With Cleveland’s upcoming schedule, it’s hard to find a win with the quarterback play they’re getting out of him.
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