It is hard to believe that the 2026 NFL season is already a third of the way through the regular season already. It feels as if kickoff day was just a few weeks ago. Remember when Drew Lock had to take over for Sam Darnold just a few plays into the game?
Well, I do, and it got me thinking. What other backup quarterbacks have we seen this season, and how does their play stack up to one another? That is the question we are trying to answer today in these tier rankings.
For a bit of maintenance before we get into the tier rankings, here are some of the rules that will be used today. A backup quarterback must have played at least one half of football this season (anything shorter is either too small or too skewed of a sample size to rank, depending on when the guy got into the game), so sorry to J.J. McCarthy, Fernando Mendoza and guys of that ilk, but we have not seen enough of you yet for you to qualify for these rankings.
Additionally, the order is from top to bottom, meaning that the first player mentioned on a particular tier is the worst one on it, and the last guy on it is to be considered the best on the tier.
The Worst
Cooper Rush
Remember when Cooper Rush provided the Dallas Cowboys with competent quarterback play in 2022 and 2024? That feels like such a bygone era for him at this point. This year has been nothing short of a disaster for the veteran backup.
To be fair to him, he was named the starter halfway into the first week of practice for the Atlanta Falcons in Week 1 when the named starter, Tua Tagovailoa, got injured. In a way, he can be forgiven for that outing. However, he had a full week of practice in Week 2 and did even worse against a beaten and demoralized Carolina Panthers defense, resulting in Rush getting benched during that game for someone we will discuss a bit later on in the tier list.
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