I called Sam Darnold. Go back and look. When everyone was writing his NFL obituary in New York, when the Jets moved on and Carolina couldn’t figure him out and the whole league decided he was finished, I said wait. Give him a real coaching staff. Give him time. He figured it out at 28.
I called Daniel Jones, too. Same story. Giants fans booed him out of the building. The internet made him a meme. And now he’s a legitimate starting quarterback in Indianapolis because somebody finally gave him an offensive line and a system that didn’t change every nine months.
The NFL keeps getting quarterback evaluation wrong because it values the wrong things. Fantasy points. Passer rating. Yards per attempt. None of that tells you whether a guy can win when it counts. Winning does. And this list is built on winning.
You won’t like some of these rankings. That’s the point.
1. Aaron Rodgers Can Still Win You a Super Bowl Tomorrow
He’s 42. Nobody cares. The man just spent a season in Pittsburgh going 10-6 as a starter, winning the AFC North, and dragging the Steelers to the playoffs with George Pickens and a handful of replacement-level skill players. Yeah, they lost to Houston in the Wild Card. Doesn’t matter. He got them there at 42.
Four MVPs. A Super Bowl ring. The arm talent hasn’t gone anywhere. The processing speed is still elite. Check the daily QB rankings and tell me who available right now gives a contender a better chance to win 12 games than Aaron Rodgers on a one-year deal.
Nobody. That’s who.
The league would rather give $55 million a year to Josh Allen, who’s never won a Super Bowl, than sign a 42-year-old who actually has. That tells you everything about how the NFL evaluates quarterbacks.
2. Mac Jones at 28 Is About to Make a Lot of People Look Stupid
Jones turns 28 in September. Write that number down.
Baker Mayfield figured it out at 28. Sam Darnold figured it out at 28. Daniel Jones figured it out at 28. The NFL gave up on all three of them and all three became winning quarterbacks somewhere else.
Jones went 5-3 as a fill-in starter for the 49ers in 2025. Five wins in eight starts, on a team missing pieces, in one of the toughest offensive systems in football. Nobody talked about it because he’s Mac Jones and the narrative is already written. He’s a bust. He can’t play. The Patriots ruined him.
The Patriots didn’t ruin him. The Patriots are the Patriots. Jones needed time to develop, and he got it by watching Brock Purdy run Shanahan’s offense from three feet away for two years. That’s called learning. The NFL used to believe in that concept.
3. Daniel Jones Proved Everyone Wrong and Nobody Wants to Admit It
The Giants cut him. I said it was a mistake. Not because Jones was great in New York. He wasn’t. But because the Giants never gave him a fair shot. Four offensive coordinators in five years. A revolving door at offensive line. Saquon Barkley leaving.
Indianapolis picked him up and suddenly he’s a starting NFL quarterback who wins games. Funny how environment works.
Jones has grit. He’s mobile enough to extend plays, tough enough to take shots and keep showing up, and smart enough to run a real offense when you give him one. The Colts know what they’ve got. The team QB rankings tell the story.
Is he Patrick Mahomes? No. But Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL this season, so maybe stop comparing every quarterback to a guy who might not be the same when he comes back.
4. Fernando Mendoza Should Not Start a Single Game in 2026
The Heisman winner. 16-0. National champion. He’s going first overall to the Raiders and he absolutely should. But if Las Vegas starts him Week 1, they’re idiots.
Tom Brady sat his entire rookie year behind Drew Bledsoe. Seven Super Bowls. Joe Montana sat behind Steve DeBerg. Four Super Bowls. Patrick Mahomes sat behind Alex Smith in Kansas City. The Chiefs were 10-6 and had their playoff seed locked, so Andy Reid let the kid start a meaningless Week 17 finale. That’s not playing. That’s a preseason game with a regular season box score. Kansas City handed him the real keys in 2018 and he won MVP. Three Super Bowls and counting (assuming the knee heals). Three of the four greatest quarterbacks in NFL history watched and learned before they played.
| QB | Sat Year 1? | Super Bowls |
|---|---|---|
| Tom Brady | Yes (2000) | 7 |
| Joe Montana | Yes (1979) | 4 |
| Patrick Mahomes | Yes (2017) | 3 |
| Peyton Manning | No | 2 |
But we live in a stupid age where a first-round quarterback has to start immediately, and if he’s not Pro Bowl-caliber by Year 2, the fan base wants him gone and the front office panics. That’s how you ruin careers. That’s how Cleveland ruined every quarterback they’ve drafted since 1999.
Sit Mendoza. Let Kenny Pickett start. Give the kid a year to learn. Run any scenario through the Super Bowl simulator and tell me the Raiders are better with a rookie under center than a veteran bridge. You can’t.
5. Davis Mills Saved Houston’s Season and Nobody Noticed
This one makes people uncomfortable. Davis Mills was 5-19-1 as a starter coming into 2025. That’s an ugly number. I get it.
Then C.J. Stroud went down with a concussion and Mills stepped in and won three straight games, including a Thursday Night Football upset over Josh Allen and the Bills. His teammates started calling him “Money Mills.” He finished his fill-in work with five touchdowns and one interception across six games. Not flashy. Steady. Low-mistake. Winning football.
Mills is under contract in Houston through 2026 at $7 million. Seven million. Tua Tagovailoa costs $53 million a year and threw 15 interceptions. Tell me again who’s the better value.
6. Tua Tagovailoa Is a Six-to-Nine Win Quarterback and That’s His Ceiling
Here’s where I lose the fantasy football crowd.
Tua led the NFL in passing yards in 2023. Great. The Dolphins went 11-6 and lost their first playoff game. He led the league in completion percentage in 2024. Great. Miami went 8-9 and missed the playoffs.
Then 2025 happened. Fifteen interceptions. Benched for Quinn Ewers, a seventh-round rookie. Mike McDaniel shipped him to the third string. The $212 million man couldn’t beat out a kid who’d never taken an NFL snap before December.
Tua’s a fine regular-season quarterback when everything around him is perfect. Tyreek Hill healthy, Jaylen Waddle running free, the offensive line holding up, no pressure in his face. When any of those things break down, he breaks down with them. That’s a six-to-nine win quarterback. It has been since he got drafted.
Somebody will trade for him because of the talent. And that team will go 7-10 and wonder what happened.
The Bridge QBs, the Busts, and the Unknowns
7. Kenny Pickett Is 28 in June and He’s Been Watching
Three teams in two years. Pittsburgh, Philly, Cleveland, Vegas. He’s got a Super Bowl ring from Philadelphia (didn’t throw a meaningful pass, but he was in the room). He’s seen winning up close. He’s seen losing up close.
Pickett’s a free agent this spring. He turns 28 in June. There’s that number again. He was the 20th overall pick for a reason. He set Steelers franchise rookie records for a reason. And he hasn’t had a stable situation since the day he was drafted.
The Raiders should re-sign him as the bridge starter while Mendoza develops. It’s the obvious move, which means the Raiders probably won’t make it.
8. Russell Wilson Shouldn’t Start but Can Still Help
Wilson went 0-3 in New York. He’s lost eight straight as a starter. He completed 58% of his passes for 831 yards and looked every bit of 37.
But as a backup and mentor? As a guy who sits behind a young quarterback and teaches him what a Super Bowl ring and 13 years of starting experience taught him about the position? There’s value there. Just not as a starter. Not anymore.
He hired a new agent and says he’s “not blinking.” Respect the confidence. Don’t roster him as your QB1.
9. Kyler Murray Has the Talent to Win and the Track Record of Losing
Six seasons in Arizona. One playoff appearance. Zero playoff wins. Three different years cut short by injury. And the Cardinals just went 3-14 in their worst season since 1959.
Murray played five games in 2025 before a foot injury shut him down. Five games. The Cardinals went 2-0 in his first two starts and then 1-14 the rest of the way. Jay Glazer reported Arizona is treating him like Denver treated Russell Wilson, which is a polite way of saying they’re done.
The talent is ridiculous. The dual-threat ability is rare. And in six years, it’s translated to one Wild Card appearance and a 3-14 team. At some point, talent without winning is just highlights on Twitter.
10. Ty Simpson Sat and Learned and That’s Why He’ll Be Good
Simpson waited three years at Alabama. Behind Bryce Young, behind Jalen Milroe. When he finally got his shot in 2025, he threw for 3,567 yards and 28 touchdowns with just five interceptions. Led the Crimson Tide to the SEC Championship Game and the College Football Playoff.
One year of starting experience. People say that like it’s a bad thing. Brady had one year of meaningful starting experience at Michigan. Montana bounced around the depth chart at Notre Dame. Simpson learned by watching. He developed. He waited.
Whatever team takes him late in the first round is getting a quarterback who already understands what patience looks like. That matters more than arm strength at the combine.
11. Trinidad Chambliss Is the Wildcard Nobody Saw Coming
From a $6,000 partial scholarship at Division II Ferris State to the Sugar Bowl MVP. That’s not a football story. That’s a movie.
Chambliss led Ferris State to a D-II national championship, transferred to Ole Miss, took over in Week 3 after an injury, and went 13-2 while throwing for 3,937 yards with 22 touchdowns and three interceptions. He beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. The NCAA denied his waiver for a sixth year, so he’s draft-bound whether he planned for it or not.
He’s 6-foot, 200 pounds. The arm isn’t elite. But Chambliss wins everywhere he goes. D-II titles. SEC games. Playoff quarterfinals. At some point you stop calling that a coincidence and start calling it a quarterback.
Day 2 pick. Maybe Day 3. And three years from now somebody’s going to ask why he fell that far.
What This List Really Says
Look at the top five. A 42-year-old free agent. A former Patriots bust turning 28. A guy the Giants cut. A rookie who shouldn’t play. A career backup who won three straight for Houston.
Now look at the guys the NFL is paying franchise money to. Tua at $53 million a year, benched for a seventh-rounder. Kyler at $46 million, shut down after five games on a 3-14 team. The league keeps paying for potential and stats. The guys who actually win cost a fraction of that.
I was right about Darnold. I was right about Jones. I’ll be right about this list, too.
Bookmark it.
AI-Assisted Content (AIAC): Human ideas, drafts, and final edits—enhanced by AI.