I should open by saying a couple of things that may bias me:
1) I like stats and I hate when people use short, dismissive statements about single games or super bowls to dismiss the amount of hard work and dedication it takes to be great year in, year out. One or two Super Bowls does not invalidate what a guy does in the regular season. Dan Marino is still one of, if not the greatest QB of all time without having won a Super Bowl. Sinning the Super Bowl for a QB is about luck and how good the team is around you then it is your individual will. The fact that Joe Montana won multiple Super Bowls and Marino didn't win any does not automatically make him better.
Terry Bradshaw won 4 super bowls while throwing only 2 more TD's then INT's for his career. Joe Namath won a Super Bowl in a year he didn't even complete half his passes. Bob Griese, Jom Theisman, Bart Starr and Ben Roethlisberger won multiple Super Bowls and none of them can even touch Marino. Getting to the Playoffs is a sign of greatness, winning in the Playoffs is about greatness but its also about luck.
2) I'm from Long Island and I'm a Giants fan. I absolutely despise the Eagles and Cowboys and I really, really don't like the Jets.
3) Dan and Dominic are the only people in the league I know personally.
That all having been said, these are my top picks for the best QB's in the NFL.
Tier 1 - (Elite)
1) Peyton Manning
Manning is having his worst year in seven years and still has a 91.2 passer rating, almost exclusively because of picks he's throwing. Those picks probably wouldn't be as much a factor is he wasn't passing 50 times a game to compensate for all the injuries on his team, as well as the mediocre run game and defense he's been handed. If he was able to pick his spots like he should there's no way he'd be throwing this many picks.
2) Phillip Rivers
This will be his third straight year with a passer rating over 100. Tom Brady has never had 3 straight years with a passer rating over 90. Is probably at this moment the best QB in the league but Manning has been so good for so long its hard to unseat him at #1
3) Tom Brady
Having his best year since that nuts year he and Moss had in 07. Controlled, consistent, solid.
4) Aaron Rodgers
Probably the most consistent, unshakable scrambling QB of all time. He;s thrown a few more picks than last year but has fumbled only 1 time against 8 last year. Combine that with average of a little more than 10 picks per year and Rodgers may be the QB least likely to hurt you in football.
5) Drew Brees
Brees is the least solid but also most spectacular of the elite QB's. My guess is this is Brees last year at elite production
Tier 2 - (Very Good)
6) Tony Romo
Romo has been the Cowboys QB for five years and he has performed very, very well for all five of those years. He is a model of consistency which is, ironically, why its so easy to take him for granted. During the five years he's started, the Cowboys have had a top 5 running attack 0 times and a top 5 defense 0 times.
7) Ben Roethlisberger
Which brings us to why despite his rings (for the love of God, stop counting rings to tell me how good a QB is - Jeff Hostetler, Trent Dilfer and Doug Williams have all won a Super Bowl) Roethlisberger has had a top 5 defense 4 of the last 5 years, including the #1 defense in 07 and 08. In addition, he has always had better RB's than Romo. And while he has put up individual seasons better than anything Romo has done, he has peppered in some mediocre ('08) ones and some outright bad ones ('06). Roethlisberger has been very good but an argument could be made, especially since he's such a pain in the ass off the field that on most teams (like Oakland, for example), he'd be a bottom 1/3 QB.
8) Matt Schaub
Schaub is like Romo lite - he's been very good consistently over a long period. He's also 29 years old and seeing as how he has the best WR in the league (and with the emergence of Foster) one of the best RB's in the league, this year is probably as good as he's ever going to be.
Tier 3 - (Rising Stars)
9) Michael Vick is obviously a very special case. People don't say it this way much, but Vick was out and out bad as a passer in Atlanta. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me logically that he would go away to prison and come back with a change in attitude and improved football IQ to the tune of a 30-35 point increase in his passer rating. He's been phenomenal this year, obviously, but after only 9 games this year I'm very hesitant to declare him an elite QB. He could be great or he could be a novelty. I'm guessing after this season he settles into a top 10 spot but does not ever again replicate this years off the charts production
10) Joe Flacco
Flacco is improving steadily in a town where defense rules all. Something about the history of the Ravens makes it seem like a truly elite QB in B-more in unlikely, but that could just be a dumb stereotype. Regardless, at 25 Flacco looks to be a future perennial top 8 QB, even if he never cracks that upper echelon
11) Matt Ryan
I do not understand why people fall all over themselves talking about how great Ryan is, especially on ESPN. He's the same damn player as Flacco. Like, literally, they've put up almost identical stats so far and Ryan is treated as a Tom Brady in the making and Flacco is like the next Kerry Collins or something... solid and unspectacular, they're the same player!
Tier 4 - (Merely Good)
12) Eli Manning
The guy just throws way too many picks and doesn't pay enough attention. It's worth mentioning that he has had way more than his share of tips right into the defenses hands so his 17 INTs this year so far are a bit of an abberation, but in all seriousness, he's had all the tools to succeed (good WRs, great pass rushing Ds, a solid running game, his own talent) and just seems to stubbornly refuse to take that last step into the elite
13) David Garrard
Garrard is one of those guys who's always better than you'd think but still not that great. He's never really had a great WR but he has, in fairness had a consistently great running game and special teams. And he's definitely not consistent. But he's better than a lot of QB's who get a lot more hype than him, like...
14) Jay Cutler
Holy jeez, I can only imagine Cutler has incriminating pictures of the heads of ESPN, CBS as well and FOX sports because what in the world has this guy done to merit all the attention he gets? He has a 92 passer rating this year. Do you know how many times he's had a passer rating higher than 90 before this year? Let me be the first to dispell the myth - Cutler was NEVER good AND he's a pain. Winning combination if ever there was one.
Tier 5 - (Average)
15) Kyle Orton
Did you know over the past 3 years Orton and Cutler have put up very similar number? Their progression has mirrored each others nicely, actually and both are doing better with their new teams than they had been. I only have Cutler a tier up because I'm assuming that the guys who make their living at this must know SOMETHING I don't know
16) Matt Cassell
Cassell is a pretty simple guy to describe, when his team is good, he's very good and when his team is bad, he doesn't quite have the talent to raise them up. This year, he has a good running game and emerging WR's so, he's having a great season. Next year? Who knows.
17) Josh Freeman
If he has two more years as good as this one then I will declare Josh Freeman "good." I'm very skeptical he will, he just seems wild and uncontrolled. It seems like he's been very lucky this year. On the other hand, these are just my impressions and I might be underrating him.
Tier 6 - (Over the Hill)
18) Carson Palmer
He can still make plays and he still scores a lot of TD's. He just throws too many picks, plain and simple. He doesn't see the field as well anymore and he doesn't move around as well as he used to, but he still has the ability to be good. I wouldn't be shocked if there was a year in the future where he surprises us by returning to the top 10
19) Donovan McNabb
McNabb is another guy who as recently as last year would have been a tier or two higher. This might be the year of his descent into mediocrity but I'm sort of having a hard time believing he's really THIS bad all of a sudden.
20) Matt Hasselbeck
I do not see a similar possibility for a late-career upswing for Hasselbeck. Even at his best he did not have elite capability. This may very well be his last season
21) Brett Favre
Who the hell knows anymore? I'll just stick him here. He's obviously capable of greatness, he would have been in the 2nd tier last year. He's not even really worthy of this high a ranking based on this years performance but the guy was in the MVP conversations last year. A 3 tier fall is pretty sharp. Luckily he's gone for real next year, finally.
Tier 7 - (The Folly of Youth)
22) Sam Bradford
As far as rookie seasons go, he's had a very good one. An 81.0 rating is nothing to sneeze at. I would not be shocked to see him join Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco in that 9-12 QB ranking range next year. On the other hand, I wouldn't be shocked if he fell off the face of the planet either.
23) Chad Henne
It's a little on the early side to say Miami should pack it in and call it a day on Henne but with 3 years, no demonstrable signs of improvement and no winning record to lean on to say he's got "intangibles," his day of reckoning will be soon.
24) Mark Sanchez
Most of you guys don't live in New York so I'm guessing you don't have to deal with this as much as I do but... did you know he had 64 passer rating last year? Did you know he has a 77 passer rating this year? Weird, I didn't either since the media are falling all over themselves describing how amazing a job he's doing with the Jets.. My recipient for the Vince Young/David Carr Memorial Supremely overrated Young QB Award.
25) Colt McCoy
He hasn't exactly set the world on fire with 3 TD's against 3 INT's in short work but he definitely hasn't been bad either. I think he has the highest ceiling of out he, Stafford and Bradford and for the time being, he and the Browns are ok to grow together
Tier 8 - (Huge Question Marks)
26) Vince Young
I kinda think Young should be done. He has really never been that good as a pro and he only ever shows signs of improving in short increments before regressing to his mean which is about a 75-80 passer rating and a guy who kills you in big moments as often as not. He's going to get more time since he seems to have won the Great Young-Fisher clash of 2010 and in fairness he has put up a solid performance this year but I guess I just don't buy it
27) Ryan Fitzpatrick
I completely reserve judgment until next year. For the moment, though, I am very, very skeptical he will ever be as solid as he's been so far this year again.
28) Matt Stafford
He's here on his draft pick and nothing else. While strictly speaking there's nothing to specifically say he won't be good, I can't put him ahead of any but the worst starters in the league
Tier 9 - (Not Good Enough to Start in the NFL)
29) Jason Campbell
Another guy who the media is always saying is right on the precipice of greatness. I really have a hard time believing that at this point. I would guess he gets another half a year, tops as a starter when the Raiders inevitably fall apart next year after thinking 2010 will have been the year where they turned the corner
30) Jimmy Clausen
Clausen is really not looking good. He's young but Carolina has not yet shown any ability to develop good young quarterbacks. It's a troubling trend for Jimmy. Clausen's <60 passer rating is way below replacement level and he's only THIS high because of how young he is
31) Alex Smith / Troy Smith
He showed signs of being a league average QB last year and honestly, I really think that's his ceiling. Given that, it might be time for the Niners to end the Alex Smith era. Troy Smith has not been very good in the short amount of play he's gotten. It's still way to early to tell but the early returns are that he might be a great college player turned pretty bad pro
32) Derek Anderson
Anderson's trevails have been well-documented. He's been riding the coattails of one Pro Bowl season that really wasn't even that good to begin with to become one of the worst QB's in recent memory to have started multiple seasons. I can't imagine he'll be a starter anywhere again next year but I've been wrong before.
