OverDrive - Sando on the NFL QB Tiers, Mahomes at the top and the notable players on the board

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

The Athletic Senior NFL Writer Mike Sando joins to discuss the NFL QB Tiers, the rankings on the list, Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow leading the tiers, Jayden Daniels' skyrocketing in the league, Josh Allen's skill sets jumping up the board, Aaron Rodgers' ways to succeed on the Steelers, the first-year notables and more.

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I can hear you guys loud and clear. Okay, we can hear you now. Okay, so we're... Great, yeah, thanks for having me. Our pleasure to have you, and we're obviously fascinated by your quarterback tier. So I guess maybe the no-brainer first question is when you're dealing with Mahomes, Burrell Allen, and Jackson, the top four in that order, I mean, how do you separate these guys?

Well, you know, I don't have to do it, fortunately, because I pull the first. 50 guys in the league. And so really, you know, for me, talking to six GMs, six assistant GMs, six former GMs, I think I had eight head coaches, 15 coordinators, some other folks, you know, really all I'm doing is tabulating their results. And so in this case, I think Burrow and Mahomes were unanimous tier one because they're perceived to be probably the best, just purest passers of the top quarterbacks in the league. and I think there's still a, you know, a bias towards the passing component, right?

That's what you really have to have in the end to survive in advance and be a dominant tier one player. And so Josh Young and Lamar Jackson are really good passers, but probably rely a little bit more on their legs. And so I think there's a couple voters, just a few here or there, like three put Josh Allen in Tier 2. And Lamar, I've had four put him in Tier 2. Those are outliers. I mean, I think those four quarterbacks are clearly, you know, the best. And you probably give an edge to Mahomes just on his pedigree and what he's been able to do consistently, even though statistically he hasn't been as good lately.

Yeah, and I've been talking about that for a little bit. The offense has not been nearly as explosive. They've been middle of the pack in terms of yardage over the last couple of years. Like, when you look at what you think the Chiefs could potentially do this season, do you expect much of the same, or do you think there could be something that works or maybe this offense becomes a little more entertaining this year? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that it's going to.

I think we've been waiting on that for a while. So, you know, Travis Kelsey is a year older. You know, the receiving core is somewhat similar. They get Rishi Rice back probably, so that will help them. But I don't think it's going to be super dynamic. I think if they would have had answers to make it look easier, they would have done it. And so, you know, they went 11 and 0 in one score games last year. They had a streak, I think, over multiple.

seasons of 17 straight wins in games decided by a test gen or less. They're uniquely set up to do that. Patrick Mahomes, you know, the head coach in India Reed, they're a well-oiled machine. But that's a smaller margin for error, and it's just hard to keep doing that forever. I think there is an opening for another team in the AFC. Those guys just have to do it. Mike, as you walked through this entire process, speaking to your people in the league, going through your story, I was so interested by some of the comments.

Matthew Stafford was one that I liked hearing the league's comments on, and some of those being tied to McVeigh, of course, but which quarterbacks really surprised you in terms of higher on some, lower on some compared to what the public might think? Yeah, so there's a few, like, you know, Matthew Stafford being in Tier 1, I might not have anticipated that, but he was very high Tier 2, so maybe it's just, I had a slightly different voting panel this year, and maybe you just got a few more votes there.

I thought Goff might drop, even though he's been great. I think, you know, just Ben Johnson being so acclaimed with an offensive coordinator and leaving, I wanted if people would hold that against him or predict, you know, that he might slip. That did not happen. I think, you know, the feedback on Caleb Williams was interesting to me, mostly kind of negative. Now, maybe that's somewhat because he was the number one pick in the draft and was in 2024 and was seen as, you know, a consensus pick. and so maybe he's held to a higher standard.

But I thought there were just a lot of people questioning his ability to process the game quickly that was a little concerning. I think one of the coaches used the word alarming. So you normally wouldn't hear that out of a first season like this. And that kind of stuck with me. So you've got Daniels at number six. So I'm intrigued at what happens when you go into another category. What were they saying about Daniels and how close would he be to moving up?

Yeah. So Daniel's got 17 votes in Tier 1, and look, if this was his second year of doing what he did, he probably would be, you know, solidly in Tier 1. People do want to see more than one year. I think there's a feeling that, you know, we've seen some quarterbacks come in. Shoot just last year, C.J. Stroud, I think, got 12 Tier 1 votes after his rookie year. He only got one this year. You go back maybe four years, Justin Herbert was one of the, I think at that time was the highest ever anyone had debuted.

as a second-year quarterback in quarterback tiers. And he hasn't fallen off the map, but he's, you know, he didn't maintain it and push up into tier one. So I think it's just a little bit more over time. Dayton Daniels, though, is high because not only was he good as a rookie, but he did in the playoffs, had him in the championship game. And by the way, he did not on a team that didn't have a, not only didn't have a top 10 defense, but had a bottom 10 defense statistically.

So there's a lot to like with him after his rookie year. A name that I find really interesting going into the season, and it's Baker Mayfield. You had ranked that at number 11, but there seems to be a lot of discourse surrounding Jared Goff and the Lions and how they're going to take a step back with losing Ben Johnson. Not as much about the Bucks losing Liam Cohen, who's now in Jacksonville. What's your expectations on what Baker and that offense will be able to do without Cohen? I know. Do we just assume because Baker Mayfield did well with Dave Canales when Dave Canales was really not known and then did well with Liam Cohen, who also like Canales had never been a primary play caller in the NFL, that it's going to happen again with their next unproven offensive coordinator under a defensive-minded head coach. I mean, you may be on to something there that they could fall off some offensively. It might be hard. It'll be hard for them to get better on third down. they were almost historically great in that component of it.

But I think at a certain point, too, you have to give Baker Mayfield some credit, which the voters have, for transcending multiple coordinators and really reviving his career. Mike, when you look down the list there as well, Jalen Hertz is grabbing my attention in Tier 2. And if I'm remembering right in your full story, did you have one GM, put him as Tier 3? Is that right? Yeah, so Jaylon Hertz got 12 votes in Tier 3, isn't that something? Super Bowl MVP. Amazing.

I think the voters had a hard to have a hard time with him, and they even said, they like, so a few guys, like, almost apologized for having them so low, because they do like him. They just don't feel like, you know, like, for instance, last year, the Eagles read their best taking the ball out of his hands and having it be a running game, you know, with, uh, Sequin Berkeley. And I think there's a feeling with, with Hertz that while he's improved as a pastor, he's never really been asked to be a high volume passer. and there's some doubt over whether that would look very good if he did that early last year he did you know have some games with 30 plus pass attempts it didn't look as good and so there's a feeling that unlike some of those guys ahead of him he might struggle if they put more in his shoulders from a passing standpoint I think that's why what holds him back from you know pushing into the top tier as the Super Bowl champion and while we're on intriguing names of Aaron Rogers having you know Hall of Fame career no question about that but some I guess trouble or injury problems and bad teams lately what are people saying about him yeah oh my gosh you got votes in four different tiers can you believe that yeah actually he got he got one tier one vote i think it's from a defensive court who's probably has scars from facing him over the years you know and then you got uh 16 in tier two those are the optimists saying hey you know uh he he'll be better the

second year back from uh from his injury right that he'll be a little bit better that's 16 27 in Tier 3 and 6 in Tier 4, those people are kind of saying, hey, look, he may be healthier this year, but he's 41. He showed up in June. He doesn't have familiar receivers, you know, and he doesn't have a familiar offensive coordinator. So there's a lot of ways that this could, you know, not be prolific. Now, I think most of the votes were in Tier 3,

and you can win with a Tier 3 quarterback. You just have to have a good defense, which Pittsburgh usually does, and you have to just not ask him to put it on his back too often. And so from a Steeler standpoint, you know, a lot of people have kind of brushed off, hey, they're not that good of a team, and Rogers is done. But he's better than what they've had, I think. And so if they can play defense and run the ball and just ask him to win a game occasionally, that can be a formula for a pretty good season. Every other seems to be one team that is like the sexy pick for they're going to have a monster season. It feels like everyone's kind of raving about the Denver Broncos.

you jumping on that bandwagon or is there another team that you like that's not getting a lot of notoriety no i feel that too i i feel like you know maybe i'm reading too much into it but you know all of those close game wins by by kansas city you know 11 and oh and one score games i mean history has shown us that you know there's regression in that regards so i don't i think there's a path for denver to you know win 11 12 games and win the division i do think there's a past to that. Now we'll believe it when we see it, but that's feasible to me. Mike, looking into the future here, let's do the crystal ball one year from now. I'm looking at Caleb Williams, where he is at 23 in that fourth tier.

Next year, number one overall pick Cam Ward coming up. It looks like he has some early chemistry there with Calvin Ridley, going well at the Titans. What do you think you're talking about a year from now with Cam Ward? Yeah, I would imagine he'll be in tier three. is just somebody who, you know, maybe it's just a part of a snapshot, hopefully moving up ahead of that. I know some evaluators who think he's not going to be much more than that long term, that he could be solid but not spectacular. So I don't think there's enough information. I'm not a big draft, Nick. I think it's harder to project from college.

And so once we see him a little bit this year, I think we'll have a much firmer view of what the tiers are going to look like. Tennessee is a good and bad place for him. It's good because it's not New York. It's a place where you can actually go and focus on football. Unlike, you know, these guys have gotten chewed up by being on the Jets like Sam Darnold or Gino Smith years ago. But also, I don't think that it's a team that's really ready to win and support him, you know, as much as you might want to support a rookie.

So there'll be some bumps there. I'm just most interested in seeing, you know, the poise, the maturity, how he handles it. And if he can avoid some of the big mistakes that really hurt Will Leavis. you know you compile this list on a year on a yearly basis so you have a lot of conversations with people was there anything here that surprised you or did it sort of follow the road that you thought yeah i would say you know some of the feedback on calio booms was a little bit surprising i thought there would be people maybe doubting golf without ben johnson um let's see of these other guys in here um you know it just sort of dawned on me with

Trevor Lawrence that, you know, no one's really holding out hope for him to be, you know, much more than maybe a low tier two player. Like, like, what are his elite traits, right? And that kind of stuck with me as something that, oh, yeah, I hadn't really thought of it that way, but it kind of makes sense. What's he going to really hang his hat on? I think for him, it's almost like you bring Liam Cohen, you draft Travis Hunter. I thought there'd be a little bit more upside.

People think, like, okay, maybe Lawrence has something around him now. Perhaps this could be the year that the Jags do something. And not a great AFC zone. Yeah, and that's totally feasible. I think people just aren't that excited about him because he's not consistently accurate. I think that's been one of the most disappointing things about him. He sprays the ball a little bit more than people would like, and I think it's hard to be consistent when you're not consistently accurate.

Now, they can do more to help him, I think for sure. I think the offensive coaching was a little disappointing in the last few years, too. So we could see a little bump from him. But when I look at the top of Tier 3, I see Trevor Lawrence, Tuatung of Aloha, Kyler Murray, all super highly paid guys by the teams that drafted him without the results. And I thought a year ago that one of those three might make the jump, you know, and be a Tier 2 guy, and here they are again. Mike, thanks for your time.

And by the way, great library behind you. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. the conversation. Thank you. Mike Sando, the Atlantic Senior NFL writer. Me that's the biggest songs in the world. You've heard them countless times. Now, learn the details of how they came to be. Join Ruby Carr for Encore, the stories behind the songs you love.

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