NFL is right around the corner, so let’s rank the QBs!

So, Will Brinson, our friend, senior NFL writer, CBSSports.com, Picsics Podcast host, moderator, creator, Bon Vivant, did something silly and he wrote an article listing ranking the quarterbacks. Not really a ranking, you put them into groups.

And the top group is easy. And that's Will, by the way, if you're watching on TV. There he is, right there with the number four. I don't know if that has anything to do with Ted Lasso or not. It's a Pinehurst. It's a Pinehurst hat. By the way, if you can, if you're watching on television, you can actually see a pretty cool trophy.

The City of Raleigh Athletics, the champions, the Lakers. If you know, you know, really, what'd you do? We can't see it.

I didn't do anything. I see a helmet with an M on it. That's my, that's my alma mater, McCauley.

There you go. You played football there? No, but because I talk about football, they gave me a helmet. Fantastic. I have an NC State helmet here.

I didn't play football there either. Okay. And, and then, you know, I think I have a doctorate from NC State, maybe.

Do you? It's beautiful. All right. So we know that the top tier is Mahomes and Burrow and Allen. Boom.

That's what we're done here. The big three, the big three. And I know there are a lot of people who want to put other quarterbacks into that group. And I appreciate that you didn't, but are we still at this point in tier two, do we really look at Justin Herbert and Lamar Jackson in the same class of NFL quarterback? Cause you have them grouped together.

Also Jalen Hurts. Yes. Trevor Lawrence. Hmm. I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know. Explain. Well, so tier two and then here, so here's the problem with the tiers concept. I didn't rank the quarterbacks in order of best quarterback to worst quarterback. They're grouped in tiers. Now, if one of my colleagues happened to take a screenshot without the actual tier names and tweeted out, and that's what Kyler Murray saw, and we'll get to that in a minute, then you would lack some context involving, and if you didn't read the article, you would also lack kind of, and I'm saying you did, I'm saying like in general, people didn't read the article. They will be lacking the necessary context for understanding the tiers.

Tier two is they could join them next year. Meaning, I think those four guys, Lamar, Justin Herbert, Jalen Hurts and Trevor Lawrence have the possibility given their age and their skillset and the upside they present, they present as well as like Jalen Hurts did it last year, but I want to see him valid. You know, I want to see him back it up with another great season after he lost his offensive coordinator.

There's all the tape out there. Lawrence played, Lawrence played really good football. I think his entire career, people got way too down on that to urban Meyer, dude, urban Meyer's urban Meyer's the worst hire in the history of professional football. I'm with you. And I said that at the beginning, I said how much of a disaster that was going to be at the beginning. I'm just, I'm saying, look, I'm, this is not me saying that Trevor Lawrence is a top nine quarterback in the NFL right now. I'm saying, I think after next year, people will look at this list and be like, Oh, you were early on Lawrence and you were right about it.

Um, I don't think all four will make that ascension. I think one of those guys will be in that big, join the big three and make a big four at minimum next year could be Lamar in this new offense. Justin Herbert gets Kellen Moore. Um, and then like, cause he did so well for Dak Prescott.

I'm what am I missing? I mean, I mean, they threw the ball down the field. Herbert, Herbert is like, Herbert might throw the best, the like the best deep ball in the NFL. And Lombardi had him had the lowest a dot average depth of target in the entire league. Like it's crazy to do that with Justin Herbert. Um, and then like people were mad about Aaron Rogers in tier three, Rogers isn't in tier two because of his age. That's that's it.

Like, and there are question marks. So he has entry. Of course he can, he can have an MVP season and I would tear him up to one, you know, like that's, that's not an issue, but he was at a down season last year. The only reason I'm scared of where he is is because he's such a spiteful human being that I'm worried. He's going to light up, light it up with the jets, but just to get back in the Packers. That would happen regardless of where you put him on this list, right? Uh, because this the, the, the way he feels about how everything played out, um, you couldn't, you didn't have to write this.

He already, uh, he already feels that way. But I, I had no problem with Aaron Rogers because I think there are legitimate question marks. I think a lot of last year was due to the thumb injury.

I think there's a definite correlation between the drop-off and Rogers play and the, uh, the injury to his thumb, which made it hard for him to throw the football as accurately, um, and as powerfully really as, uh, as he did. And all these other things, I think there are legitimate, legitimate questions. I don't know what to make it just in fields. Um, so the question marks are in tier three, tier three, to be clear was it's all over the place. Isn't what's intriguing, but like tons of, I said, what was the title? Intriguing question marks.

Intriguing with question marks and tier four is you can win with them. Basically tier four guys have probably hit their ceiling and we are not going to see this, you know, breakout surprise performance. Like if Matthew Stafford came back and played great football, that wouldn't shock me. Russell Wilson is in there and I don't think that Russell Wilson belongs there, but I, I believe in Sean Payton so much that I'm putting Russ there because I think Sean Payton can get that out of him. Oh, Sean Payton will get the most out of Russell Wilson.

And if he can't, that means there's nothing left there in Seattle sold at the absolute right time. Let's talk about real quick about the, uh, the rookies and you, you've got the three guys who figure to play. Um, you, uh, obviously Bryce young, Anthony Richardson at Florida. And I don't know why I just, the Colts, the Colts. Yeah.

That's a, that's a, that's a really good veteran radio host trick. You're like Anthony Richardson. Oh God, I don't know what team he is on. I was actually trying to remember the name of CJ Stroud, uh, who's, who's with the Texans. So I screwed up the whole thing.

I do that. I've done that with those guys. I think I've called him Will Richardson like seven times, but all three are going to play. All three are going to start. And I actually think all three will be to varying degrees pretty good in terms of like, if you were drafting for a fantasy league, I think you could do pretty well, maybe less so with Bryce young. Cause I think Carolina is still going to be a run heavy team where the others I think like to lean on the run in Indianapolis.

Yeah. Didn't matter who's quarterback was, whether it was luck, Jacoby, Brissett, Phillip rivers, two NC state quarterbacks, by the way. Um, and I'm sure Andrew luck at some point, like every successful human being on planet earth, like has claimed he almost went to NC state. I'm sure he did.

Joe Montana almost did. Do you see that Belicheck thing? Like, um, when he was doing the interview with Michael Lombardi, he's like, my first job coaching was going to be, uh, at NC state under Lou Holtz, but he fired me before I could get to, he's like, I never made it to rally.

He was like, what? That's awesome. It's like Devin Hester, Shaq and Belicheck all should have been at NC state.

That's funny. Um, yeah, I think, I think Richardson's really interested in me because, um, Shane Steichen, who's the new Colts head coach was obviously the Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator and Richardson doesn't have a pure passing skill set that's in place. Like that he can, that we know that he can operate. Um, I think he's better in the pocket that people give him credit for a little more nuanced. Um, but physically he can run dude. Like he's like a, you know, it's not as thick as cam, but you know, like a similar, you know, build size, like a, almost like a defensive end or a linebacker, right.

In terms of how big he is. And they're going to use his legs, I would think. And look, Jim Irsay is pulling all the strings in Indy and what Irsay wants Irsay is going to get.

He, you know, he's decided he's just sort of gone. He's gone full Irsay and, and like, I think he's basically saying you're playing Anthony Richardson. And so I think regardless of whether or not he's ready, he's going to start. He actually reminds me a little bit of Josh Allen, uh, in terms, I mean, he's a big kid. He's, he's got a little rangey to him. Uh, and if he can put it together in terms of the throwing and the accuracy, I mean, the Colts could have an absolute monster on the, um, on the, on Fridays we did, we did a Jets thing for Friday's podcast. Um, the Picsics podcast is in the feed now, but it's, um, uh, and we were talking about Allen, like he secretly led the league in turnovers last year with his first year without Brian Dabel and Daniel Jones. I think this is an interesting one too.

This one got people riled up. Daniel Jones in tier three, Dak Prescott in tier four. Does Dak have a better resume and the likelihood of having a higher floor?

Probably, but Daniel Jones has an untapped potential in terms of ceiling. And the coaching thing is so huge. Mike McCarthy literally said this off season, Kellen wanted to light up the score, but the damn scoreboard, Kellen wanted to light up the scoreboard. I want to run the damn ball and get my defense on the field. It's like, did you just accuse your offensive coordinator of scoring too much? Did I catch that right? Mike Jerry, Jerry, Jerry Jones is he refuses to let his team evolve.

Uh, and that is, that is a problem. You need better head coaching. So how long have, I mean, the Cowboys had been stuck in what the, uh, the late nineties when it comes to head coaching or early two thousands now for about a decade, a little bit more than a day. I haven't made the NFC temperature game since like 96. Just it's just like the fifth longest run of any team in the NFL. I think it was like only like the Browns and the lions and the jets have been there twice. Obviously it's, it's, it's pretty crazy how, how, uh, not in that, but like curse they've been when it comes to the post-season. Cursed exactly right. All right.

So final thing, we've got about a minute or so left. I know Kyler Murray took umbrage at your, uh, your research. No, I, no clue, man.

That's the, uh, that's tier six. Cause we don't know about Kyler Murray or Sam Howell or Jordan love or Baker Mayfield. We have no clue what those guys are going to be. I know that Kyler Murray is a great fantasy quarterback and he tours. He, how is he going to play in week one? November. That's right.

He did. How the Cardinals will look like they're tanking. They probably want to move on from Kyler's contract. And if he didn't have that contract, they probably would have moved on from him, but they moved off from cliff.

They moved off from time. They're probably going to move on from Kyler. I think this off season, maybe next off season, if they, if they were bad enough to get that first overall pick, if they play him and he gets hurt again and he can't pass a physical exit, physical, like they're jammed.

I don't think, I mean, he's probably going to place at some point, but if he, if I don't think he knows when I don't think the Cardinals know when, and so I don't know when, and that's why he's in no clue, man. He would be a tier three guy, obviously right now, if he was healthy. If he, if he, if I knew he was playing, we're going to be tier three and Kyler at his peak has been a tier two guy.

Oof. See, I'll, I'll, I'll just, I, I think Kyler gives you wow moments, but maybe he's a tier three max. I don't think, I don't think he is. I don't think he's a great quarterback. I think he's a phenomenal, phenomenal athlete.

Um, I guess, I guess the tier two thing is like, there's so, I'm sorry, I'm not running over, but it's like, there's so elite skillset, like the skillset so elite in certain spots and so athletic that if they, everything clicked, they could make a big leap and that's why I would maybe put him there. I'm shocked that he, I guess he took a long enough break from playing Call of Duty to jump online and find out what Will Brinson was saying about him, uh, in the, uh, on cbssports.com at the quarterback tier. Hey, it was good to talk to you anyway. Nice to see you.

Nice hat. And I'll talk to you very soon. All right, buddy. See you, man. You got it. Will Brinson, senior NFL writer. He's writing again, cbssports.com.