The first three weeks of the season are like a game of two truths and a lie. There might be one performance in the mix that serves as an outlier. But in many case, we’re starting to confirm what the season holds for this crop of quarterbacks.
Welcome back to the QB Stock Market.
These aren’t your typical QB rankings. I’m focused on monitoring the fluctuations of starters’ performances throughout the season. No one — not even Josh Allen — is safe at the top. No one — not even Cam Ward — is stuck at the bottom. There is room for quick ascent — and rapid decline. One question holds the most importance: What have you done for your team lately?
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It has been nothing short of astonishing to see Drake Maye dissolve into a puddle of piss-poor performance.
Over roughly seven games (four postseason performances in 2025 and three games in 2026), he has gone from being one of the five best quarterbacks to one of the five worst quarterbacks.
Maye is on pace to throw for 3,315 passing yards, six touchdowns and 34 interceptions. That’s immediately following a season in which he threw for 4,394 passing yards, 31 touchdowns and eight interceptions. It’s a total box-score reversal.
It would’ve been one thing if Maye simply regressed. But he looks like a different person.
Maye ranks 29th in EPA per dropback (-0.21) this year after leading the NFL last season (0.28). That’s the biggest slide for a QB in the history of Next Gen Stats.
So what has gone wrong?
From my vantage point, coach Mike Vrabel explained it perfectly on WEEI on Monday.
“We need to stop trying to choke the life out of every single play. We need to relax,” the Patriots coach told the Boston sports radio show.
But therein lies the problem. You cannot simply tell someone to relax. That usually only instigates more stress. Vrabel can’t simply tell Maye to chill out and expect it to work.
Because the more you watch all six of Maye’s interceptions, the more you can see that there’s nothing wrong with his throwing motion or his footwork. Any speculation that he’s dealing with a lingering shoulder injury from last year is just that — speculation.
The pattern in Maye’s interceptions is just awful, overly aggressive decision-making. It’s a pattern the Patriots will have to reverse this season. And if the Patriots want to make the playoffs, Maye will have to make big changes quickly, because New England heads to Buffalo this week — before hosting the unbeaten Raiders in Week 5.
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It took all of Sean Payton’s offensive superpowers to help the Broncos overcome Bo Nix’s stinker of a game. Nix was throwing the ball into harm’s way for the entirety of Monday night against the Rams.
It’s a miracle he finished with only one interception. It’s an even bigger miracle the Broncos finished with a win. I counted three additional turnover-worthy passes on top of the interception. And then there was the interception that the officials (errantly) negated. That throw was probably the most egregious given the situation. Nix heaved the ball recklessly in the direction of Pat Bryant, who flopped to draw pass interference. If not for the officials falling for Bryant’s flop, Nix would have been credited with throwing a game-sealing interception. The results belied a bad process.
Nix was overthrowing his receivers with regularity in Week 3, and his two touchdown passes were on carefully schemed routes and play designs that got the pass-catchers wide open. Even Nix’s best throw — a gorgeous deep ball along the sideline to Courtland Sutton — preceded one of his worst: a pass to Jaylen Waddle in which the receiver broke one way and the QB threw the other. Rams CB Josh Wallace easily got in the way of the throw for an interception. (At least that one counted.)
The Broncos are making up for Nix — no one more than Payton.
Nix has got to grow. Maybe Denver will keep winning games in the regular season like this. But it’s not going to get it done in the postseason.
Sometimes it’s smart to feed your WR1 until the defense stops him. And in the case of Drake London, the Packers never figured out how to do that. Michael Penix Jr. may be a quick passer and a quick thinker on the field. But London took all the thinking out of it.
The QB and WR linked up for nine completions on 10 attempts for 194 yards. That accounted for the majority of the Falcons’ passing attack, with Penix going 18 for 25 with 256 yards, one touchdown and an interception in his season debut.
He came out shaky, perhaps a bit rusty from his offseason recovering from yet another season-ending injury. Penix’s early mistakes included an interception, an intentional grounding penalty and a few dangerous throws. It all left me initially concerned about what he might have to contend with in the game, especially considering how putrid Cooper Rush looked in this offense. But Penix began to feed London as a complement to Bijan Robinson going off for 194 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
There’s no doubt that Robinson can go off on any given week. But London? He’s not the class of receiver who can dominate for the next 14 weeks of the season. Penix will have to give up his safety blanket and distribute the ball to all his weapons. And there are many, from Robinson to Kyle Pitts to Jahan Dotson to Austin Hooper to rookie receiver Zachariah Branch.
Falcons ‘HAVE AWOKEN’ after dominating ‘BAD’ Packers | FTF
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It’s sort of a good thing for Matthew Stafford that Drake Maye has been such an abomination, because the Patriots QB has provided cover for the Rams QB following their tight MVP race last year.
It’s not like Stafford has been outwardly bad. As you can see, I still think highly of him. But he’s definitely not in the discussion with the QB elites this year. Not even close.
Among quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks, Stafford has regressed to .02 expected points added per dropback (7th) — down from .19 in 2025, per Next Gen Stats. His completions over expected is just 1.7% (9th). He’s thrown for six touchdowns but also four interceptions. And of course, the Rams are now 1-2 after their messy and embarrassing loss to the Broncos.
This is a season where there hasn’t been a lot of consistency at the quarterback position across the league. It was easy to give Stafford a pass for his performance in Australia. But in Denver, he had to do way too much, throwing 30 of 55 for 390 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. He saw pressure on 39.3% of his throws, per Next Gen Stats. Against pressure, he was 6 of 20 for 81 yards and an interception (a pick-six, no less).
I don’t want to say he looked old. But … he did.
It’s likely that Puka Nacua will cure basically many of the Rams’ offensive ills. It’s not just that Nacua is always open. It’s that he gets open quickly, providing an easy and explosive option for Stafford in the quick game, particularly against — you guessed it — pressure.
But the Rams aren’t the superteam we thought they were. And that’s, in part, because Stafford hasn’t looked like the MVP that he was last year.
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Danny brings out MEATBALL SUB for Herbert-Chargers, Cowboys’ issues, Rams will NOT win NFC | FTF
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We’re beginning to forget that Trevor Lawrence was once touted as the best prospect in a decade.
And that’s actually a good thing.
Lawrence has a profound (and newfound) reliability to his game that he’d lacked before head coach Liam Coen arrived in Jacksonville last year. The former No. 1 overall pick actually had a ho-hum performance in a thorough walloping of the Patriots, completing 19 of 29 passes for 182 yards and three touchdowns with an interception. He took just one sack. But most impressive, he was totally unaffected by pressure, finishing 6 of 8 for 64 yards with a +20.1% completion percentage over expected. And that’s because the game keeps slowing down for him.
My favorite play of the day wasn’t one of his touchdowns. (Though, his beautifully shaped score to Jakobi Meyers was awesome.) It was a simple 5-yard pickup on first down. And that’s because it showed why things ran so smoothly for Lawrence in Week 3.
Before the snap, Lawrence sniffed out New England’s blitz. That comes from good film study and strong awareness at the line of scrimmage. So Lawrence moved the members of his backfield into a different position to help with pass protection. Lawrence then got the ball out quickly for a short gain — and, most importantly, he avoided the potential for a disastrous surprise, which must have been what the Patriots had in mind with a seemingly random all-out blitz on first down.
Lawrence wasn’t good against the Broncos in Week 2, so I’m not ready to crown him an MVP candidate. But with Justin Herbert and Jordan Love struggling this year, Lawrence is the clubhouse leader for the Nerd’s Choice Award Winner in 2026. It’s an award I just made up that honors the QB whose stats don’t properly represent the massive impact he’s having on his team.
There often seems to be something special brewing in Baltimore around Lamar Jackson. This year is no exception. Offensive coordinator Declan Doyle — the first apple to fall from the “Ben Johnson Tree of Coaching” — has delivered upon the hype.
Doyle is dressing up the Ravens’ offense nicely to get Zay Flowers the windows he needs to get the ball. If not for Flowers’ hamstring injury, I don’t think it’s crazy to wonder if he might be leading the NFL in receiving yards. He currently sits at 11th with 234. He’s been that good on his 26 routes run, a minuscule number. He has roughly the same number of receiving yards, for example, as Garrett Wilson (243), who has run four times the number of routes (102).
But it’s not just about Flowers. It’s about the way Baltimore is using Rashod Bateman. It’s about the way it’s using rookie tight end Matt Hibner. And even old reliable Mark Andrews. Just wait until training camp star receiver Jakobi Lane returns to the lineup. The rookie should be a high-impact player.
How many times have we wondered if the Ravens have the playmakers to help out Jackson?
(Countless times.)
Turns out it wasn’t the playmakers. It was the play designer.
Jackson is playing as well as any QB in the NFL. We saw him exchange punches with the Cowboys all the way to the final second, where he exposed Dallas’ idiocy on defense. With only seven seconds remaining, Jackson dropped the ball into the perfect spot on the field and with perfect timing. I haven’t pulled punches with my criticisms of the Cowboys, but let’s also give credit where credit is due. It’s no coincidence that Jackson exposed the defense.
It’s because he’s still really, really good.
