QBERT NFL quarterback ratings
Who's the best QB in the NFL? And the worst? Our advanced statistical ratings on every passer's past, present, and future.
🕒 The latest NFL QB ratings
Updated January 26, 2026
QBERT will continue to update throughout the playoffs.
This is the landing page for QBERT1, our NFL quarterback rating system. As with our other landing pages, it’s best viewed on the web rather than over email or in the Substack App. The charts and tables will be updated regularly, and some of the text will change, too.
Here’s our leaderboard of the top five quarterbacks as measured three ways: by their adjusted QBERT rating so far in 2025-26, by their WAR (wins above replacement), and then by their projected rating for their next forthcoming start. The projected rating also incorporates data from previous years and factors related to a QB’s age and experience.
QBERT accounts for the playoffs, but only two quarterbacks still have the opportunity to change their rating. Those are, of course, Drake Maye and Sam Darnold, the starting QBs for the Super Bowl-bound Patriots and Seahawks.
Maye was QBERT’s choice for MVP and has the opportunity to be the youngest starting QB ever to win the Super Bowl. And no, he hasn’t been particularly good in the playoffs, although he’s faced some of the league’s toughest defenses. Yesterday, he was only 10-for-21 with 86 yards passing. But guess what? QBERT sort of liked it, giving him a 96.9 rating for the game, significantly above the designated league average score of 80.
How’d he do it? With his legs. Maye was officially listed at 65 carries on 10 attempts, including 6 first downs, a TD, and a naked bootleg to clinch the game. Back out kneels (as QBERT does) and the numbers are even better: 68 yards on 7 carries. Against a very good defense in a blizzard, when sometimes it almost seemed like you’d rather the other team have possession of the ball, that’s highly valuable and it’s why the Patriots are proceeding to Santa Clara. (QBERT adjusts for both defense and weather, although statistics like “temperature” and “wind” don’t fully capture the conditions in the second half yesterday.) Not to be overlooked is that Maye didn’t turn the ball over. It’s not a conventional way to win a football game, but it’s what New England needed.
Jarrett Stidham, making his first start of any kind since 2023 in place of injured Bo Nix, was no better and no worse than you would have expected given the circumstances. Stidham’s QBERT prior to start the game (71.1) was the worst ever for a starter in a conference championship game in the Super Bowl Era. But that’s certainly not Stidham’s fault. A rating of 71.1 isn’t even that bad — replacement level is 68 — it’s just that teams with a replacement-level QB don’t usually make it to the conference championships, so mostly the only way to get something like this is with a late-season injury.
Matthew Stafford was very good, even running for a first down, something he didn’t do even once during the regular season. He is now 19th on our lifetime list of WAR generated during the playoffs, not bad for a guy who spent most of his career playing for the Lions during a very rough era for the franchise.
Darnold was excellent too, meanwhile, logging his best QBERT rating since Week 9 against Washington. His projected QBERT rating going into the Super Bowl is 86.6, which is 14th in the league — in other words, slightly above average. However, this ranks 108th of 120th Super Bowl starters all time. We’ll have some sort of Super Bowl preview out soon, and we’ll cover this in more detail then. —NS 1/26/26
See also: ELWAY NFL team projections.
QBERT in a nutshell
QBERT2 is both a rating system and a projection system. It evaluates virtually everything that a quarterback does on the field:
Along with more traditional statistics, it incorporates components like rushing, generating first downs and even comeback wins that other systems may ignore.
By accounting for pass pressure, yards after catch, and the performance of a team’s running backs, QBERT also attempts to allocate credit between the QB and other offensive players.
QBERT ratings place past and present quarterbacks on a level playing field by adjusting for overall leaguewide trends, as well as the strength of the opposing defense, home-field advantage and even the weather.
But QBERT also projects every quarterback on a forward-looking basis, based on a rolling rating of his performance in recent games and recent seasons, with some assumptions3 baked in based on his experience, the aging curve, injuries and — for young quarterbacks — college performance. Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes can survive a rough week and still rank in our top 5 in projected QBERT, but the rating system is more sensitive for less experienced quarterbacks.
For a thorough description of QBERT as well as our historical ratings, see our feature on the best quarterbacks of all time. The scale is designed to be similar to traditional NFL passer rating: 80 is average, 68 is replacement level, and anything 100 or above is great.
In addition to the leaderboard you saw at the top of this page, we have a lot of numbers to show you:
QBERT ratings for each QB so far in 2025
Projected QBERT ratings for each QB’s next start
A breakdown of each QB’s weekly ratings for 2025, allocating credit between his passing performance, his rushing and other factors
A series of charts with historical career tracking for each current QB14
An updated lifetime leaderboard of the top QBs of all time
Lifetime QBERT playoff leaders
A spreadsheet of week-by-week ratings for all QBs since 1950
Other than the first table, the rest of this data is an exclusive for paying subscribers.
Who are the best QBs in the NFL?
Let’s see how that distinction between empirical QBERT and projected QBERT plays out in practice. Here’s our 2025 leaderboard based on performance for the season to date. It’s sorted by WAR, which accounts for adjusted QBERT ratings relative to the replacement-level line of 68 as well as the number of plays5 each QB makes. You can also see each QB’s unadjusted QBERT, which is nearly always higher than his adjusted QBERT because we’re living in a QB-friendly era. Except where otherwise specified, we’re almost always referring to adjusted QBERT when we describe a player’s rating.
In comparison, here are our projected QBERT ratings for the upcoming week. They incorporate performance prior to this season, as well as long-term factors like aging, experience, injuries, and college stats. Although we’ve listed projected QBs for every quarterback currently on an NFL roster, it’s important to note that the projections assume the QB starts the next game; projected QBERTs gradually deteriorate if a guy is sitting on the bench or the IR.