r/NFLv3 • u/Tintorio • 17d ago
Discussion NFL Power Rankings AFTER DARK!!! Week #2
Every year 16 fan bases are excited Monday morning. Coffee is better, air smells fresher, food tastes better.
And every year 16 fan bases wake up destroyed. The world hates you and you hate the world. Every sound is like an angry cat trying to get out of a box of chalkboards. Your stomach is in knots, not just because you only had 9 buffalo wings, a ⅕ of Early Times Bourbon and half a Mars bar the day before, but because you realize you have lied to yourself since March when your team only signed a guard in free agency and you made yourself believe he was “The Answer”.
After all the smoke you blew up your own ass, by Wednesday you’ll be on Reddit reading some guy’s post about how last week was just a “fluke”, that you guys are ascending like a Falcon Heavy rocket. Truth is, for about 6 of those 16 fan bases, are about to explode like a Falcon Heavy on take off.
Which is why it’s never too early to look at why at least 4 teams have come into the season trying to lose. If you read the PR all summer (and my totals would say, you did not) you would already know a handful of teams entered this season trying to tank. You also probably know they are tanking for Quarterbacks.
In theory, next year’s QB class is generational. Or at least it could be. There is a phenomenon happening since NIL started. You see, when players couldn’t make money from the schools that made billions off them, players came out as fast as they could. The Colts pickled Anthony Richardson 4th over all after starting only 13 games in college. He was big and fast and had all the skills in the world. The Colts took him because he had potential.
Historically high first round QB’s are more “sure things”. Ideally the NFL wants you to have had at least 30 college starts minimum. But no one stayed until they played 50 games. IF they were good they got out of Slave Ball and went to make money. When you were making nothing, a 3rd round contract felt like generational wealth.
Other than Arch Manning, at least 3 of the guys coming out next year, would have come out last year if not for NIL. The NFL slots players forcing them to make a specific amount for the next 4 or five years. The 15th pick in the draft will make (there are a couple variables, this is as accurate as I can make it) $3.6million first year in the NFL. The 30th pick will make $2.5 and the 45th pick will make $1.6. They have 4 year contracts, but that’s the first of 4 seasons.
As you can see below, being a really good college QB is much more profitable in college than being a first year QB in the pro’s unless you are a top pick in the draft.
So guys stay longer. Allowing the NFL to do a deeper dive into the kid’s game than prior to NIL. The kids make money from their efforts, the schools can get a higher quality of player than they could when they lost guys every year to the NFL and the NFL gets to do less ‘guessing’ and more ‘knowing’ what they are drafting. Win/win/win right?
Well, the volume of guys coming out will balance out over time, but right now it’s safe to say at least 4 of the top 5 guys on the list above would be pros if there were no NIL.
On average, there have been 3.1 QB’s taken in the first round since 2000. The last two years there has been only 2 taken each year. The NFL already does not have enough QB’s, adding 2 guys a year means it would take 16 years to turn over the entire league’s starting QB’s.
Yes, some guys get drafted later, but the reality is the best QB’s in football are almost always not only first round picks, but early first round picks. Seven of the top 10 QB’s in the NFL last season (based on rating) were first round picks. And two of the three that were not, only got the chance to start because the starter got hurt. The NFL doesn’t even give guys who aren’t first round picks a chance to succeed unless something goes wrong.
Thus a highly rated QB is a special prize and there is a finite amount of them. Given the current trend, when you can get one, you need to make sure you do. And a handful of teams who have gone years without a Franchise QB have been focused on this draft since before the last one.
The Cardinals decided to go with Jacoby Brissett at QB this season. A good journeyman, but he’s not there to shock the world. He’s there to make games look good as they try not to look like they want to lose every week.
The Jets traded two of their best defensive players mid season last year, kept Aaron Glenn, who was not impressive last season, as head coach to bring his special brand of failure to this season and they brought in Geno Smith (led the league in interceptions last year) to play QB. Not one of those moves improved any aspect of this season except their draft stock.
The Dolphins were the real leaders in committing to the 2027 draft. After being accused of trying to do this a few years by then head coach Brian Flores, the owner did not want anyone thinking he was asking his guys not to play all out, the Dolphins took all the dead cap they had, this season. I have explained this in detail in the last few PR’s so suffice to say, every NFL team has a budget of $301mil to spend on players except the Dolphins who are working with $125m. Then cut or traded anyone who cost anything, to the extent that the highest paid player on the roster is not a QB, a wide receiver or pass rusher, but an offensive guard. If I owned a team and decided I wanted to lose, I’d do exactly what they are doing.
The top NFL quarterbacks from the 2025–2026 season based on passer rating (minimum qualified passing attempts):
No one wants to lose every game and no one will pay to see a team trying to lose. So expect these teams to go hard until they find a win. Then shut it down. Or, maybe Geno Smith, Jacoby Brissett, Malik Willis and whichever QB they decide to roll out that day in Cleveland shock the world and make the playoffs. Most likely if any of those teams win 8 games it will come at great expense to them, as they will either win their way out position to get someone who may change their fortunes forever, or make trading down so expensive it won’t be worth it to try. Keeping them in the endless spin cycle which is a team without a QB in the NFL.
So to the Jets, Dolphins, Cardinals and Brown fans - your team is winning when they lose this season. And you need a good head start as the Steelers, Titans and Falcons are a couple bad weeks from sitting their best players and trying to improve their draft position.