2026 QB Tiers: Every NFL Starting Quarterback, Ranked

**Warren Sharp** (0:00)
Training camps are open, and it's time to break down the starting quarterbacks around the league, from the best to the worst. We're gonna use a tiering system. We're gonna get into it right now.
All right, what's going on, guys? 2026 training camps, well underway. We're in the month of August. The calendar is turning. The football season is going to be here before you know it. So let's break down some of these starting quarterbacks around the NFL. First, I wanna remind you guys, if you haven't picked up your copy, it is a perfect time to do so. The 2026 football preview book here. This version you can find on Amazon. 619 full color pages, breaking down all 32 teams. My predictions for what all of them are going to look like this season, how they're gonna perform, some of the futures that I love this year. You can get it up on Amazon if you want the print copy, or if you want the PDF, you can use code SharpQB and you're going to save $10 over at sharpfootballanalysis.com. You can grab the PDF as well. So do not forget that an outstanding resource took months worth of work to pull this thing together. But it's football season. You guys need to know what futures to bet, what players to draft on your fantasy squads and what I think about the NFL season is all in this book. Okay, let's get down to the nitty gritty here and break down the quarterback around the league. And I've got them tiered as follows. I've got, can we win the Super Bowl because of you? Can we win playoff games because of you? Now there's a difference in those two tiers. There are some quarterbacks that have had playoff success, but they haven't been able to carry their team on their backs to the Super Bowl. And so I'm going to separate those two types of quarterbacks out in my opinion. Can we win playoff games in spite of you? Is the team good enough? And just bear in mind, this is not the rest of your career. This is not the next 10 years. This is the 2026 NFL season. What I believe of you, your coaching staff and the talent surrounding you. Are you a fine quarterback? Will we lose games because of you? And then do we need to replace you because you're just not good enough? You're a bridge quarterback, whatever the case might be. So, let's break it down. It looks like these guys are placed here in team order. So, Arizona is first. We'll get down to Washington last. All right, let's start with Jacoby Brissett.
I think Jacoby Brissett is a little bit better than what most people think. His opinion around the league is that Jacoby Brissett is a bridge quarterback. Quarterback is not very capable. Now, I don't view Jacoby Brissett as a franchise quarterback by any means. I do not view Arizona Cardinals being good enough to win games in spite of Jacoby Brissett. But if you look at the statistics last year, like 45 qualifying quarterbacks with 150 plus attempts, Jacoby Brissett was above average across the board. So, I think Jacoby Brissett is a fine quarterback. Many people might have him in the bottom two tiers. I'm sticking him right here in the fine tier. All right, we've got Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix Jr. We don't know who's going to win. This tier maker thing happened to put Tua Tagovailoa here in the starting position. We'll see if he actually earns that role. I think he probably will. He's favored to right now in the betting markets.
I think the combination of Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix Jr. These guys are fine as well.
I'm borderline willing to put them here, lose games because of you. I don't know how he's going to look in the Kevin Stefanski scheme. I don't know if he's going to be that much better than he was. I don't think it's possible to be much better than he was with Mike McDaniel and Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddle. They don't have that talent. They don't have that offensive play calling mentality. So I'm contemplating sticking him here, but I haven't seen what he's going to look like in this offense with Kevin Stefanski. So for now, we're going to stick him in the fine tier.
Lamar Jackson.
Lamar is obviously a hot button quarterback. And a couple of years ago, I absolutely would have stuck him here. But I don't think it's fair to the rest of the quarterbacks around the league to do that right now. I think we're going to stick him here in the second tier. We can absolutely win playoff games and the Ravens can this year because of Lamar Jackson. He is capable of doing things that most quarterbacks around the league are not. Do not look too deeply on the 2025 NFL season. In 2025, prior to week five, he got hurt. He hurt his hamstring in week four. He missed a month from week five through week eight. Prior to that, the first four weeks of the season, here's some of Lamar's stats. Number one in yards per temp around the whole league out of 45 qualifying quarterbacks, 9.1. Number three in EPA per drop back, his 72% completion rate ranked number five. His touchdown rate ranked number one. Explosive gain rate, number one. Touchdown interception ratio, 10 touchdowns, one interception. That was the fourth best in the NFL. I know what you're going to say. Those are regular season stats. Absolutely, 100% agree. But I'm just saying Lamar, he needs to have his legs to run and he got banged up and he had hamstring injury, knee injury, ankle injury, toe injury. I'm just looking at the injury report, wrote about it a lot in this 2025, 2026 NFL preview book.