SB Nation is the largest independent sports media brand in the United States, consistently ranking among the Top-10 most visited overall sports domains. It competes against ESPN, Bleacher Report, and FOX Sports.
Revenge of the Birds is a part of SB Nation (SBN), covering the Arizona Cardinals. There are 32 NFL team sites, and then one site for every team in the other major sports and most major college programs.
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This time of year, ESPN spits out
its annual Top-10 position rankings, of which we have covered whether any Arizona players are included (see link above). ESPN polls players, coaches, scouts, and team executives to compile their lists at each position on offense, defense, and special teams.
SBN has just published its top quarterbacks going into the 2026 season. But instead of asking everybody in the league their opinion, SBN has traveled a different route: using analytics.
These are the conditions that SBN utilized to rank their quarterbacks:
- Offensive Impact: This evaluates how much of a team’s total offense came directly from a quarterback’s passes and running game. Functionally, how much they individually influence a drive.
- Accuracy: An expression of pass accuracy, with drops removed and evaluated bad throws adding a penalty
- Explosive plays: A combination of air/ground plays that gained 20+ yards, combined with Yards per Attempt in the passing game
- Scoring: Total touchdowns in both the passing and running game
- Lack of turnovers: Interceptions combined with fumbles lost
- Clutch: A factor of Game-winning Drives, 4th Quarter Comebacks, as well as touchdowns scored on “important drives” in which teams were within one score of each other
- Tilt: These are plus/minus points (fewer than five total) to mitigate aberrant seasons. Without a tilt, Patrick Mahomes would have been a middling QB in 2025, while Malik Willis would be the No. 1 QB in the NFL.
Using the above metrics, the scores are factored:
- This is a cross-league evaluation of each quarterback vs. their peers
- A score of five operates as the league average, with scores of 8-to-10 being significantly above league-average
- And 1-to-3 being significantly below league average
Where did Arizona rank? What about the remainder of the NFC West Division?
First off, the two top QBs ranked are Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills, and Drake Maye from the New England Patriots. They both had a top score of 53. With the first category, “Offensive Impact,” both players scored a 10, so did Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, and Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Jacoby Brissett (Cardinals)
Ranking: #25
Offensive impact: 6
Accuracy: 6
Explosive plays: 5
Scoring: 5
Lack of turnovers: 8
Clutch: 3
Overall points: 33
Kyler Murray (Cardinals)
Ranking: #27
Offensive impact: 7
Accuracy: 7
Explosive plays: 2
Scoring: 3
Lack of turnovers: 7
Clutch: 5
Overall points: 32
Matthew Stafford (Rams)
Ranking: #3
Offensive impact: 10
Accuracy: 6
Explosive plays: 9
Scoring: 10
Lack of turnovers: 9
Clutch: 8
Overall points: 52
Sam Darnold (Seahawks)
Ranking: #11
Offensive impact: 8
Accuracy: 8
Explosive plays: 10
Scoring: 7
Lack of turnovers: 4
Clutch: 6
Overall points: 43
Brock Purdy (49ers)
Ranking: #13
Offensive impact: 8
Accuracy: 9
Explosive plays: 7
Scoring: 7
Lack of turnovers: 4
Clutch: 6
Overall points: 41
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There is one issue with this ranking system. It is designed to include all 17 games in a season. If a guy, such as Brissett, comes into the season with a partial amount of game starts, the tilt is being evaluated based on the career body of work. This means players who only played part of the year just might be ranked higher.
LINK: COMPLETE LIST SBN QUARTERBACK RANKINGS
It also only looks at the 2025 regular season, and none of the playoffs. This is where the category “clutch” might come into play more. And of course, Kyler Murray was included as a member of the Cardinals.
Not sure how this was tabulated, but here it is.
