The top 10 quarterbacks a third into the 2023 NFL season

Top 10 quarterbacks of the 2023 NFL season: Great system guys

#7. Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins

Top 10 quarterbacks of the 2023 NFL season

What I hate so much about the entire conversation around Tua Tagovailoa is that it’s all black and white. Either people say he’s the best QB in the league or they call him an injury-prone, physically unimpressive system guy. His numbers truly are insane.

Tua currently is number one across the board in passing yards (1876), TDs (14), passer rating (114.1), yards per attempt (9.5), and percentage of passes past the first down marker (48.7%), despite having the lowest time to throw (2.37 seconds).

He does fit this bracket because what makes him so great is how exceptionally well he executes Mike McDaniel’s offense. Looking at how consistently he gets to the right answers based on the defensive picture is tremendous. However, what he’s added this season is being able to re-adjust as what the opposing team shows him changes post-snap and a few off-schedule plays are being sprinkled in.

Last season, a lot of what Miami did revolved around hitting windows they created with the way they spaced the field. This year Tua is actually hitting guys on the run a lot more regularly, as he averages a full yard more AFTER the catch than any other QB in the league (7.0 yards).

Where nuance needs to be added is the gravity that insane speed has and how incredibly McDaniel has been at setting the table with creative play designs. I’m not saying all the guys ahead of Tua could recreate what he’s doing, but on an average team, they can do more with less around them.

#8. Jared Goff, Detroit Lions

We need to stop acting like Jared Goff is this skinny white guy with a weak arm, the man has been slinging it all season long. He leads the league with 29 completions of 20+ yards (four more than anybody else) and is tied for an NFL-high 4.7 completed air yards per pass attempt. He also has the lowest turnover-worthy play rate (1.4%), according to PFF.

When you look at that offense, it’s all about controlling the pace of games with the run game, hitting big shots off play-action and executing situationally. Goff has that feathery touch to lead his receivers away from trailing defenders, he does a great job of stopping them in windows against zone coverage and protecting them from big hits with the appropriate ball placement.

Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson deserves a ton of credit for the way he creates schematic advantages through multiple avenues. The patience of his quarterback to wait out concepts and hang in the pocket after working through his progressions has been a big ingredient to their success.

This past Sunday, the Lions averaged just 1.8 yards per rush and picked up just two first downs on the ground, yet they only went three-and-out once and controlled the ball for 36.5 minutes. Goff currently is number two in the NFL in third-down conversion rate as a passer (48.1%), he’s fifth in EPA per play and PFF has him as the highest-graded QB overall (90.4).

#9. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles

I received plenty of pushback for having Jalen Hurts as only my 56th-best overall player heading into the 2023 season, but I think looking at the step back this Eagles passing attack has taken and all the metrics supporting that, it was a very fair ranking.

Brian Johnson has done a good job of taking over offensive coordinator duties from Shane Steichen. However, he hasn’t presented as many simplistic reads via RPOs (Hurts led the league with 122 such) and single-key reads for his quarterbacks to put the ball into the hands of their pass-catchers in space, but rather he’s leaning into more of a straight rushing attack and letting this dominant O-line go to work.

Hurts is one of the best at dropping deep balls into the bucket of his receivers streaking down the sideline, when he gets A.J. Brown or DeVonta Smith isolated on the outside. We’ve seen him hit quite a few of those yet again, but defensive coordinators have given him plenty of trouble with blitz-heavy gameplans or more intricate coverage rotations.

So as we get to designated situations, his ability to process information and solve problems isn’t on the level of the guys ahead of him and he’s holding onto the ball too long (3.06 seconds to throw is just a hundredth of a second off the highest mark in the league), also lending itself to the third-most turnover-worthy plays (10).

Hurts just threw away the Jets game with that late pick, but where kills defenses is when he fights through swinging arms and powers ahead for conversions on crucial third downs.

#10. Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks

After nearly a decade of borderline irrelevance, Geno Smith comfortably established himself as a top-ten QB in the league this past season – and he hasn’t done anything this year to take me off that.

This has been one of the most curious developments I can remember because it’s not like he made a few crazy plays or got lucky with contested passes (to where this isn’t replicable), as he’s doing a lot of high-level quarterback-y things.

Smith's head looks like a water sprinkler with the way he’s working through progressions. The feel for and subtle movement inside the pocket has been very impressive and he’s been one of the most fun watches due to his aggressive decision-making when he sees opportunities to attack down the field.

Big plays have been not as frequent this year, as Geno has faced fewer opportunities advantageous looks for those, which is why they’ve gone from dead-last to top-ten in rushing success rate (41.7%). However, the Hawks QB is second to only Josh Allen in completion percentage over expected (7.4%) and he was only intercepted once before last Sunday.

I thought for the majority of that game in Cincinnati, he showed a great understanding of the time he had to get the ball out when the defense blitzed him and the ball was on the money for the most part.

He had that one bad interception, where he thought he had rookie JSN on a wheel route, where the corner ended up inside in a two-high look, but nickel Mike Hilton smartly carried it, while Geno had his back in the flats for easy yardage. On the second one, D.K. Metcalf simply quit on the route.

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