NFL Quarterback Rankings Through Week 6

NFL Quarterback Rankings: Bottom Tier

29. Daniel Jones

One of the more disappointing teams and individual players of 2020 so far has been Danny Dimes.

I expected the G-Men to take a little step forward as a team with reinforcements on the offensive line and a couple of nice signings on defense, but until facing the horrific Dallas defense, they had only scored three offensive touchdowns through four weeks and as much as I want to say how their QB has been under fire all year long and that he hasn’t gotten much help from the run game, some blame has to go to the guy running the show.

I was really impressed with Jones as a rookie, when he threw for over 3000 yards and 24 touchdowns compared to 12 INTs. This season that two-to-one ratio has flipped the other way, with three TDs and six picks. He and fellow second-year receiver Darius Slayton have built a great connection, but if you take away the numbers they have put up together, Jones would easily be dead-last in yards per attempt at 5.2 and just over 30 percent of his passes would result in first downs.

I still believe Jones’ ability to pick up yards on scrambles and in the designed run game is the best part of this offense, as he has contributed over 200 rushing yards and is averaging 7.6(!) yards per carry – that is even higher than the current leader among qualifiers in Kyler Murray (min. 40 attempts). And only one quarterback has been pressured more than Jones.

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If the New York Jets rang #WashingtonFootball and proposed a straight swap of Sam Darnold for Dwayne Haskins, to give both young 1st round QBs a fresh start, would you do it? (Acknowledge that in reality Jets would likely want more...)

— Chad Ryan (@ChadwikoRCC) October 29, 2020

30. Sam Darnold

I don’t think any young quarterback has been thrown into a worse situation than Darnold in New York.

Through three years, Jamison Crowder by far has been the best receiver Darnold has played with, Le’Veon Bell never had a 20+ yard run until he was released last week and Frank Gore has handled most of the work this year anyway, the offensive line has been one of the worst in the league over the first two years of his career and as much as Adam Gase was praised as a quarterback whisperer before coming over, he has barely given his quarterback any open receivers through scheme either.

Darnold has not been great this season whatsoever, getting fooled at times by post-snap changes and being too aggressive at times, being just under the thresholds of 60% completion percentage and 200 passing yards a game, with three TD passes versus four.

Right now he has the 32nd-best passer rating in the league (70.7) and is also at the very bottom of the league with 5.7 yards per attempt.

With that being said, he has made at least one spectacular individual plays in every single game and he has once again not gotten a lot of help around him.

Joe Flacco has started the last two weeks for the Jets and while I don’t know the medical report, going by the fact that staff also let an injured Mekhi Becton go on the field in the Denver game, I would think Darnold should not have gone back in the game with that banged up shoulder.

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Andy Dalton fumbles and Washington gets a safety 😳 (via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/iSPClfXx9x

— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) October 25, 2020

31. Andy Dalton

Having Dalton this low is more about not having seen more from him in a Cowboys uniform yet. For a long time, he was the definition of average in Cincinnati, with one really good year and a few below his standard at the end of his tenure with the Bengals.

While he did have A.J. Green all those years in Cincy, he has never had this collection of skill-position players, which can be argued is as good as anybody’s this side of Kansas City.

Dalton made two great throws late in the Giants game to Michael Gallup, when he replaced Dak Prescott in the second half, once he suffered that ankle injury, that set up a game-winning field goal.

That was a promising sign, after Cowboys fans saw their franchise QB go down, but Dalton had a really disappointing showing against the Cardinals this past Monday Night. He completed 34 of 54 passes for just 266 yards (4.9 yards would be lowest in the league) and two picks, with another sure-fire one dropped by Jordan Hicks, before throwing a meaningless touchdown late in the game.

The hope here (to some degree at least) is that last week was his first with any first-team reps and that Dalton has always been really bad in primetime, as much as I want to avoid that stigma.

He does have a pretty good arm and the athleticism to escape pressure and make throws on the run when needed, but he really needs to step up now.

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Dudes like Kyle Allen and Nick Foles have a starting gig but Jameis Winston doesn't

— Dean78904 (@DFS_Almanac) October 27, 2020

32. Kyle Allen

This is another guy we only have about five quarters of film on, as Allen was knocked out by Jalen Ramsey in his debut with Washington, which set the stage for Alex Smith’s miraculous comeback, which in ended up being a beatdown for him at the hands of that Rams D-line.

Allen was off to a hot start in place of Cam Newton in Carolina last year, when the team won in his first four starts and he stood at seven touchdowns and no picks, but from that point on, they went 1-8 and Allen threw 16 INTs compared to only 10 TDs. So far in the nation’s capital, he is completing 72.7 percent of his passes, with two TDs and one INT, but he is averaging a league-low 5.3 air yards per pass attempt and he throws the ball short of the sticks by 3.7 yards, which is further away from that first-down marker than any other QB.

He did have his team in position to win only their second game of the season this past Sunday in New York, but he also showed bad pocket presence when he was stripped for a fumble return touchdown and I still have no idea what he did on that two-point conversion attempt, when instead of going for the end-zone himself, he bailed out and threw the ball in the dirt. Him having that hit from Ramsey in the back of his mind is actually the only thing that I can imagine is what made him hesitant.

Nobody wants to be at the bottom of the list, but Sam Darnold is the only other guy without a win on his resume and I don’t think those two are necessarily close in terms of their talent.

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