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 September 16, 2025
Data has been updated for Week 2.
This is the landing page for QBERT1, our NFL quarterback rating system. As with our other landing pages, such as our polling averages, it’s best viewed on the web rather than over email or in the Substack App. You can bookmark the web link here. The charts and tables will be updated regularly, and some of the text will change too.
The first thing you’ll always find on the page is our leaderboard of the top five quarterbacks as measured three ways: by their adjusted QBERT rating so far in 2025, by their WAR (wins above replacement), and then by their projected rating for the next week of the NFL season. The projected rating also incorporates data from previous years, and factors related to a QB’s age and experience.
The cream often rises to the top quickly among quarterbacks, and 2025 is no exception with Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen near the top of various lists. Justin Herbert and Jordan Love are also off to good starts, and Love has moved up to #4 in projected QBERT, our expectation of how he’ll perform in future weeks. QBERT was forgiving of Patrick Mahomes’s loss against Philly, meanwhile, because of his rushing performance — and if we’re being honest, that INT was really Travis Kelce’s fault, though QBERT has no way to know that.
In contrast to these top-tier quarterbacks, the top overall leader by QBERT WAR so far is actually … the Colts’ Daniel Jones. We’d be surprised if the stays there: Jones’s projected QBERT is 80.0, meaning exactly league average.
The other thing we ought to talk about is injuries. In the projected ratings chart you’ll see below, we’ve added some additional information in the form of emojis:
✅ Actual projected starter for upcoming week
⚠️ QB1 but questionable for upcoming week
⛑️ Injured and not expected to start
On this page, we’ll update these injury designations once per week. We’ll keep more detailed track of QB injuries and depth charts throughout the week once we launch our ELWAY projections.
The most season-altering injury to date is for the Bengals’ Joe Burrow, who is expected to be out for three months with turf toe. A player’s projected QBERT gradually declines when he isn’t starting games for any reason, and QBERT was somewhat down on Burrow to begin with in part because of an Andrew Luck-like history of getting hurt before a poor offensive line. The one saving grace is that the Bengals do have one of QBERT’s favorite backups in the form of Jake Browning, who led a comeback win over the Jaguars.
Brock Purdy also dropped out of the top five in projected QBERT after being out with last week, also with turf toe. Although we’ve listed Mac Jones as the 49ers’ starter this week, who posted a decent 86.1 adjusted QBERT in relief, Purdy is making faster-than-expected progress.
It continues to be a rough year for rookie QBs, with an awful start from the Vikings’ J.J. McCarthy dipping him into negative WAR for the year despite a Week 1 comeback, but McCarthy is a happy new dad so we doubt he cares too much. -NS, 9/16/25
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.