2024 NFL quarterback rankings: Breaking 34 starters down by tier, from Patrick Mahomes to Danny Dimes

The top quarterback on this list won't surprise you. Patrick Mahomes has played in four of the last five Super Bowls. He's won three NFL championships. He's only 28 years old.

That's made him one of only three active quarterbacks to have won a Super Bowl as a starter, joining Aaron Rodgers and Matthew Stafford. But while his place at the top is currently unquestioned, there's a hungry cache of young passers capable of demoting him -- just maybe not in 2024.

Fortunately, years of on-field performances and numbers have created a topographical map to help us figure out who is closest to Mahomes' lofty plateau. There are 33 other quarterbacks who we can consider likely to start games in 2024 -- Drake Maye, sitting behind Jacoby Brissett in New England and Justin Fields, behind Russell Wilson as a Pittsburgh Steeler, give us our two extras among the league's 32 teams.

While ranking them 1-34 would be a subjective battle quickly undone by on-field results, a breakdown of these passers by tier offers a bit more utility. Let's dive right in and argue about some quarterbacks.

1. THE EATER OF WORLDS

• Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs

Mahomes is 15-3 in the playoffs and has never had a season as a full-time starter in which he hasn't advanced to the AFC title game. Plus, you know:

2. Elite quarterbacks. Just not "give you a legitimate chance to three-peat as Super Bowl champion" elite.

• Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens

• Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills

• Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals

• Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers

Each of these passers, when healthy, is expected to make an impact beyond the Wild Card round of the playoffs. While that hasn't resulted in Super Bowl wins, it's led to big numbers, MVP awards and perennial Pro Bowl consideration.

The one lingering concern is whether Purdy belongs here after 1.5 seasons as a starter and the kind of supporting cast capable of covering up any young quarterback's mistakes. But he won the NFC last season while emerging as one of the league's most efficient passers, so he lands right on the fringe… for now.

2.5. The veterans who may not be declining, but are at least at a point where it's reasonable to question their age

• Aaron Rodgers, New York Jets

• Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams

Here's the thing about Rodgers; he's a quarterback who relies heavily on his scrambling and is now 41 years old and coming off a torn Achilles. His last full season in 2022 was his least efficient as a passer.

But he was also saddled with a low-wattage receiving corps and no one plays better spiteful football than the man who serves as kindling for some of daytime radio's hottest flames. He firmly needs to prove he still belongs here. After four MVP awards, however, he's earned the benefit of the doubt (even if all signs point to decline).

Stafford may have fallen off his peak but he's a reliable veteran presence who keeps his offense rolling and has a Super Bowl ring to prove it. He's got young playmakers around him after helping the Rams stave off a rebuilding year last fall.

3. Very good... but not yet trustable on the biggest stage

• Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers

• CJ Stroud, Houston Texans

• Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys

• Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins

• Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles

• Jared Goff, Detroit Lions

• Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers

• Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars

Do you have one of these players on your roster? Congrats! You've got a franchise quarterback! Two members of this group have been to the Super Bowl and each has started at least one playoff game. A trip to Super Bowl 59 (or, for the Roman digit enthusiasts that like numbers that sound like KISS albums, LIX) would likely propel one or two of these guys up a full tier.

Prescott, Love, Tagovailoa, Goff and Hurts all recorded top 10 expected points added (EPA) marks in 2023. That group all finished in the top 10 in either passer rating or QBR last fall as well.

The question facing this group is how Herbert and Lawrence fit. Herbert's ascension has been denied by terrible coaching, awful injury luck (particularly to his offensive line) and now a rebuild that's decimated his wideout room. But he's a smart decision maker with plus arm talent who has 14 game winning drives in 14 regular season games despite the Chargers of it all.

Lawrence remains more potential than production and heads into 2024 with an unsettled wideout room. But like Herbert he shined in 2022 (even leading a 31-0 comeback over his AFC rival in the Wild Card round) and has value as both a downfield passer and a pressure-escaping scrambler. There's still plenty to prove here, but the talent is undeniable even if the Jaguars' outcomes are not.

3.5 KIRK COUSINS

• Kirk Cousins, Atlanta Falcons

Cousins has the numbers to take a place on Tier 3. But he's also 36 years old and coming off a torn Achilles. He has eight seasons as a full-time starting quarterback but only three playoff appearances and a single postseason win. Over the last two seasons, his 0.112 EPA adjusted EPA ranks 16th out of 40 starting quarterbacks -- and that includes a 13-win campaign in 2022.

Now, if you cut out garbage time -- any snaps taken when either team's win probability was greater than 80 percent -- and that EPA drops to 0.106, 22nd-best in his cohort:

Still! Cousins takes risks downfield and maintains a sparkling completion rate. He's moved to an offense buoyed by recent first round picks. He had eight fourth quarter comebacks in 2022!

So yeah, a place on an island feels like the right place for Kirk at the moment.

4. Veterans who can get you through a season (and maybe into the playoffs)

• Derek Carr, New Orleans Saints

• Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

• Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks

• Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals

Oh, hell yeah. Let's get into what's likely the most divisive tier in this group. Carr plays efficient football (even after getting repeatedly thrown at the ground as hard as possible in an injury-riddled Saints debut) but his game film fails to reflect those solid numbers (as does an 0-1 career playoff record). Mayfield shined in 2023 despite the Bucs' lack of interior blocking because he was smart enough to default to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin whenever pressured. That led to a playoff win last winter, but he's still 18 months removed from being the NFL's worst starter.

Smith backslid from 2022's breakthrough, but the criticism that came with some empty stats dissipated after he led four fourth quarter comebacks in 2023 -- tied for the league lead. His EPA/play rose from 0.086 to 0.162 when you filter out garbage time. Postseason success could bump him up a rung.

Murray has landed in quarterback limbo after the early stage of his career was waylaid by a torn ACL and a bombed-out receiving room. But he was ascendant in 2021, completing nearly 70 percent of his passes despite a steady diet of shots downfield. He ran less than he had his first two seasons as a pro and his commitment to the pocket paid off.

But he backslid in 2022 even before his knee injury. He wrapped up Arizona's lost 2023 season on a high note but struggled with consistency upon his return. Now he gets to play with Marvin Harrison Jr.. No one in this group has the capacity for upward mobility Murray does.

5. Young QBs with the capacity to jump a two tiers with one big season

• Anthony Richardson, Indianapolis Colts

• Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears

• Bryce Young, Carolina Panthers

Williams has yet to take an NFL snap. Richardson's rookie season lasted four games. Young's rookie season was the kind of snuff film Eli Roth could only dream of making.

But Richardson has too much Josh Allen in his game to be boring, and even though the Colts will likely tone down his running after suffering multiple injuries last year, he's a dynamic dual threat quarterback (his 64.0 success rate on run plays was second in the NFL last season to only... Josh Allen). Williams treats broken plays as a loom, using them to weave spectacular gains with pinpoint accuracy on the run.

And Young... well, I'm sorta leaning into the preseason hype. Panthers head coach Dave Canales redeemed Baker Mayfield's value, albeit with a much better receiving corps than Carolina currently has. But if Diontae Johnson or Xavier Legette can be the middle-of-the-field targets this offense needs, Young may finally live up to his status as a former No. 1 overall pick.

5.5. Young QBs who aren't quite at that level

• Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders

• Drake Maye, New England Patriots

• Bo Nix, Denver Broncos

• Will Levis, Tennessee Titans

Three of these guys are starting in Week 1 and the fourth, Maye, will eventually be slid into the starting lineup once his offensive line is no longer considered an OSHA violation. The only one with meaningful game film is Levis and, honestly, a lot of it is the passing equivalent of this:

Now he's got Calvin Ridley in the lineup in hopes of molding him into a franchise quarterback.

Daniels is the most intriguing member of the group -- a guy who you could easily convince me belongs a tier up right now and who could finish the season in tier three. But Washington has not charted him a path to success thanks to a top-heavy receiving corps and an offensive line whose pass protection underwhelmed last season.

6. Yeah, maybe we can talk ourselves into it. Or maybe these guys are 2025 backups

• Gardner Minshew, Las Vegas Raiders

• Russell Wilson/Justin Fields, Pittsburgh Steelers

• Jacoby Brissett, New England Patriots

• Sam Darnold, Minnesota Vikings

• Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns

• Daniel Jones, New York Giants

The 2020 version of Watson belongs in tier three (and maybe higher, despite a lack of postseason success). In the three seasons since, he's:

a) sat out a season due to a trade demand

b) but he also sat out because he was facing more than 20 accusations of sexual misconduct and what the league itself would later describe as "predatory behavior"

c) played 12 total games due to injury and suspension related to the above, and

d) been the league's 42nd-best quarterback out of 50 to play at least 400 snaps since 2021 in terms of EPA:

He's stuck here until further notice. He's also stuck on the Browns roster through 2026 unless Cleveland wants to eat $73 million in dead salary cap space (or more) before then.

Darnold played genuinely nice football in 2022, then we hardly saw him as Brock Purdy's backup. He'll get the chance to prove he's a legit starter with JJ McCarthy out for the year. Wilson put up solid numbers, but struggled when asked to go off-script for the Broncos and now will play with a Steelers WR corps headlined by George Pickens and not much else. Jones came through with his job on the line in 2022 and could do so again, but his putrid pre-injury 2023 performance lands him here.

Brissett and Minshew are ... fine.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: 2024 NFL quarterback rankings: Breaking 34 starters down by tier, from Patrick Mahomes to Danny Dimes