Throughout the 2016 NFL regular season, we’re ranking the league’s top 10 quarterbacks. Here’s how we view things after Week 10…
1. Tom Brady, Patriots: Slipped up a bit with his first interception of the season and a loss in Week 10, but Brady still leads the league in every key passing category.
2. Matt Ryan, Falcons: He’s barely holding on to the runner-up spot after his worst game of the season in an Atlanta loss to the Eagles. He’s lucky the two guys behind him were off in Week 10. The 31-year-old does still rank second to only Brady in terms of yards per attempt and passer rating.
3. Matthew Stafford, Lions: In his first year without Calvin Johnson, the 28-year-old is on pace to lead more fourth-quarter comebacks than any quarterback in NFL history. He’s also the league’s fifth-highest-rated passer.
4. Derek Carr, Raiders: The fourth-quarter magician had a bye week, so we won’t dock him points for failing to improve his mediocre 7.1 yards-per-attempt average.
5. Dak Prescott, Cowboys: The rookie made two unbelievable third-down throws in the second half of a thriller in Pittsburgh, helping lead Dallas to an eighth consecutive win.
6. Drew Brees, Saints: How closely stacked are these top six passers? Brees, who has carried a mediocre team with the league’s third-highest passer rating and second-highest completion percentage, could easily lead this list in a week or two.
7. Russell Wilson, Seahawks: He’s baaack. The league’s best improviser was electric in a huge road upset over the Patriots. His numbers haven’t quite recovered from an early-season, injury-related slump, but Wilson has five touchdowns, zero picks and a 129.7 passer rating in back-to-back phenomenal victories.
8. Marcus Mariota, Titans: Still need to see more, but in the last six weeks Mariota has a league-high 17 touchdown passes and ranks second to only Brady with a passer rating of 119.0. In that span, the Titans are 4-2. That’ll do.
9. Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers: Yes, Pittsburgh lost a tough one. But Big Ben proved that an ugly Week 9 performance was an aberration due to his injury by throwing three touchdown passes to zero picks and posting a 125.4 passer rating against the Cowboys. Despite some blips, he’s still one of the league’s 10 highest-rated passers.
10. Sam Bradford, Vikings: I feel dirty. It doesn’t seem right putting Bradford — who’s been far too conservative — ahead of Andy Dalton, Philip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins, Andrew Luck and the hard-charging Ryan Tannehill, but the dude has posted back-to-back triple-digit passer ratings and has the league’s third-highest completion percentage. With almost no support, that’s pretty impressive.
