Most of this article is about how QBs are injured more than they used to be and aren’t as good as they used to be. And that’s funny, because both are wrong.

In 1997, the league passer rating was 77.2. In 2002, it was 80.4. In 2007, it was 82.6. In 2012, it was 85.6. In 2017, it was 86.9. In 2022, it was 89.1.

Objectively, QB play is better than it’s ever been. So why is the perception that QBs are getting worse? I think it’s a few reasons. The biggest is that people outside just don’t remember the shit QBs of yesteryear. Yeah, if you compare Daniel Jones to Eli Manning, maybe he comes off looking bad. But then you go back to 2012 and you see guys like Sam Bradford, Josh Freeman, Christian Ponder, Blaine Gabbert, Jake Locker, Brandon Weeden, and Mark Sanchez all being primary starters and it’s easier to remember there’s always been shit QBs. The other thing is that people tend to remember past QBs at their best, but most of the time, they were not at their best. I could talk about Matt Stafford, Andrew Luck, and Ryan Tannehill playing in 2012, but they all sucked in 2012.

Basically, QBs are objectively better than they used to be. If you think QBs used to be better, your memory is simply playing tricks on you and you need to take off the nostalgia goggles. I know how much people hate when this is brought up, but I also think that for some people, there’s a race component. 8 of the top 15 QBs by passer rating this season right now are black, and while it’s not everybody, there is definitely a subset of people who consciously or unconsciously rate those QBs lower than the white QBs of the past.

In 1997, 16 QBs started 14+ games. In 2002, 18 QBs started 14+ games. In 2007, 15 QBs started 14+ games. In 2012, 25 QBs started 14+ games. In 2017, 23 QBs started 14+ games. In 2022, 15 QBs started 15+ games.

This one’s a little trickier. First of all, I want to point out that this article quotes Trent Dilfer and Rich Gannon, who played during the era when QBs got injured/were benched at the same rate QBs are today. 2022 was also an outlier. 2020 had 21 QBs and 2021 had 19 QBs. 2023 has 23 QBs who have started 10-12 games so far. I don’t have the reasons for every QB missing every game, and I’m sure you could use other metrics, but generally speaking, this again appears to be a case where people simply forget the past. It’s a lot easier to remember the seasons where QBs played. It’s more difficult to remember the seasons they missed. It’s even more difficult to remember the seasons where they missed 4 games or whatever. I’d also point out that citing 8 QBs being out this week is a little weird. Tannehill and Garoppolo are healthy, their teams have just already packed it in for this season and they want to take a long look at their young QBs. 3 of the other 6 (Rodgers, Cousins, Jones) were injured on non-contact injuries. Dilfer saying these QBs are “soft” or “more hurt than ever” just isn’t supported by anything. QBs missing games appears to be directly in line with the past.

The reason it’s trickier is that there clearly was a period from 2008-2017 where there was slightly less QB attrition. 2012, 2016, and 2017 were especially good years for QBs playing a lot, but the average throughout that period was a little higher overall. What’s the reason for that? No idea. Probably a variety of factors.

Anyway, this ended up getting longer than I intended. This is all just a really long way of saying people will always yearn for the better days of the past but the better days of the past were rarely better, and this is no exception.

The post cherry picks a bunch of journeymen to make their point in the photo…

Right now there’s only two real elite guy (a first ballout HOF), Rodgers and Mahomes, and Rodgers is probably at end of his career. If you look at past decade or two, there was probably 4 or 5 at least.

There’s a bunch of players with a lot of potential but that don’t consistent perform at regular season, much less at playoffs. Right now there isn’t a manning/brady in sight. Maybe burrow was supposed to be that guy, but it’s the second time with a major injury in 4 years.

The running game hid a lot of average to bad QB play. Now that “all fans want” is deep passes and shit we are seeing how hard it is and why old dudes used to say shit like “2 out of the 3 things that can happen when you forward pass are bad!”. I still think that survey pushing the pass happy rules onto us was made up or something.

Keep my man Tommy Chicken Cutlets outta the damn thumbnail

i was so excited for this season but it’s been so boring that i don’t care when it ends

Is QB play across the league bad, or are we, as a wise man once said, just regressing to the mean? I say that seriously.

When Brady, Brees, Manning, and Rodgers were all playing their best football at the same time, I remember fans and commentators alike saying we were seeing a once in a generation (or more) amount of incredible talent at QB. Have we forgotten those comments, or did we all begin to expect for someone at the level of some of the greatest QBs ever, including the indisputable GOAT, to just magically appear and take their place?

I’ve been an NFL fan since the mid 90s and done my fair share of looking back on historic seasons from across the NFL’s history, and generally speaking, there being just one or two elite, guaranteed first ballot Hall of Fame QBs at a time and then a few very good, but not historically elite QBs below them is the norm. If you made a list of the 10 best QBs in history, 4 of them played within the last 15 years, while being at their peaks at the same time. Brady, Manning, Rodgers, and Brees. On top of those 4, you had other QBs playing their peak football at the same time that would make a lot of top-20 lists like Roethlisberger, Warner, Eli Manning, and Rivers. So arguably half of the greatest QBs in the 60 year history of the league, played their best football in the same 10-15 year period as one another. It may seem normal to a lot of us because it was the norm for almost 2 decades, but statistically speaking it’s very unlikely to happen again, and I don’t think it’s because the league has gone soft. I just think we had a lot of generational talent in the league at the same time.

The early 2000s to the mid/late 2010s was and will likely remain an unprecedented period for QB talent. It may happen again, but I could also see it never happening again, at least not for a very, very long time.

Of the 8 backups currently starting that article focuses on, only 2 of them have won the job from a former starter that is now healthy: Levis and O’Connell.

Interesting to read Gannon’s comments on those two, especially in the context about his non-player-specific comments that the article featured, which are mostly about the importance of understanding protections:

Levis: “He’s one of these guys that when you’re the youngest kid in the neighborhood he wants to challenge all the kids to see how far he can throw it, he’s that guy. The accuracy and the decision-making and the lack of experience is a problem.”

O’Connell: “He’s got a lot of the intangibles you like — he’s poised, he’s comfortable in the pocket, he’s got good feet, good mechanics, he makes all the throws, he doesn’t get rattled, when he makes a mistake he’s able to quickly turn the page and come back. I think that kid’s got a chance.”

Below average offensive line play is leading to QBs with bad fundamentals

I don’t feel like QBs have been that this season.

It’s just that the guys who get hyped ( Mahomes, Allen, Burrow, Lawrence…basically the AFC QBs) have not been good and it’s actually clouding the excellent play of NFC guys who perennially never get ANY credit.

Purdy, Dak, Cousins, Stroud ( I know he’s in AFC but he’s a an OSU rookie people said would bee a bust) and Hurts have generally been good-great this year.

QB play is not as baad as people think…it’s jusst that the guys media generally push down our throats have not played up to the standard people expected…and so the general consensus has become “QBs are bad this year” when it’s not true

Defenses are way more complicated than they used to be. Everyone is running hybrid and trap coverages that adapt to what the offense is running. A lot of mid to lower tier QB’s used to rely on the presnap read to give them their first and second look, and that just doesn’t work the same way anymore

Brock Purdy.

As a titans fan I can’t let this detail slide—Someone should tell the writer that Will Levis isn’t a backup…he won the starting job

Where’s Carr in that pic?

There’s always been QBs in the league that looked like trash…maybe its a testament to how good defenses are lol