3. NFC West (Sam Darnold, Matthew Stafford, Brock Purdy, Jacoby Brissett)
The NFC West comes in at No. 3 in our power rankings. Starting off with Sam Darnold; he helped lead the Seattle Seahawks to the Super Bowl this past season. While Darnold was playing some great football at times, he did turn the ball over more times than you would like, and I am not sure anyone would mistake him for being an elite player at the position.
Darnold has won 28 total regular season games the past two seasons, but he's definitely in that 10-12 range, as he also only has these past two seasons to really look at. Matthew Stafford won the MVP award in 2026 and enjoyed the best season of his NFL career, flirting with 50 touchdown passes.
If it wasn't for some bad defensive performances by the Los Angeles Rams, they likely would have won the Super Bowl. Stafford is probably entering the Hall of Fame one day and is the league's best quarterback at the moment.
Brock Purdy is kind of just there for the San Francisco 49ers. He's efficient, a good player, but he isn't really a player-elevator. The best quarterbacks in the NFL are able to make their teammates better, but Purdy definitely falls more into that tier right below.
We've seen him put up some awesome seasons, but we've also seen some regressions in situations where there's been injuries on offense. He's also struggled to stay healthy at times, too. He's played in just 24 regular season games the past two seasons, and in that period, has thrown 40 touchdowns against 22 interceptions, so he's not really a special player at the position.
Jacoby Brissett is likely the Arizona Cardinals starter in 2026. Quite obviously a backup-caliber player, Brissett might end up being a fine placeholder until 2027. He'll play OK football for the team and will rack up some stats in garbage time, but that's really it for the veteran backup.
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