There are a wide variety of NFL quarterbacks. Let's power rank them in tiers ahead of the 2025 NFL Season. While many QB rankings are just number rankings, we took a different spin here and are going to be ranking quarterbacks across the NFL by tiers.
We've got six clear tiers of the QB hierarchy in this league, and if a team wants to win substantive games in 2025 and beyond, they better hope that their QB is in one of the first three tiers. Finding a franchise quarterback does seem to be the hardest thing to do in all of sports, so many teams are struggling in that department.
Let's rank NFL quarterbacks by tiers for 2025.
Power ranking NFL quarterbacks by tiers for the 2025 NFL Season
Tier 6: We've got a problem
Anthony Richardson, Daniel Jones, Mason Rudolph, Joe Flacco
These quarterbacks are just truly the worst of the worst at this point, but could also have huge concerns due to age and perhaps an extremely low ceiling. We've got a wide variety of passers in this tier, but for multiple reasons, they are the worst QBs in the NFL right now.
You really can't get much worse.
Tier 5: Shaky veterans, not proven franchise players
Geno Smith, Sam Darnold, Justin Fields, Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, Aaron Rodgers
The shaky veteran tier is reserved for QBs who are clearly short-term options - perhaps only one-year options. They absolutely are not franchise passers, and there is a reason why every QB on this list won't start for their 2024 team in 2025.
I mean, I guess Kirk Cousins could remain with the Falcons and potentially get a start, but you get this point here. This is kind of a 'bridge quarterback' tier. No NFL team should entrust these passers for franchise QB ability - they don't have it.
Tier 4: Young passers with optimism
Drake Maye, Caleb Williams, Bryce Young, Michael Penix Jr, Cam Ward, JJ McCarthy
The young passers with optimism have varying degrees of such. Now while Cam Ward and JJ McCarthy have not taken a snap in a regular season game, they have optimism with their teams for different reasons. Drake Maye and Caleb Williams looked encouraging as rookies, and Bryce Young did come along nicely following his benching in the 2024 NFL Season.
There is a scenario where all of these QBs are unquestioned franchise quarterbacks in the 2026 NFL Season.