Last month, The Athletic released Mike Sando’s Quarterback Tiers — the definitive annual survey assessing NFL quarterbacks, according to a panel of NFL coaches, executives and other insiders.
Quarterback Tiers has been going strong for more than a decade. But this year, we tried something new: We invited readers to weigh in, too, by giving them an option to place quarterbacks in the tier where they thought they belonged, ranging from Tier 1 (elite, franchise quarterbacks) to Tier 5 (not an NFL starter). In all, more than 45,000 readers cast more than half a million votes.
In general, readers and the experts agreed, with both groups having very similar overall rankings of the 35 quarterbacks. (More on that in a moment.)
But a closer look at the reader data also revealed something striking: a home-team bias.
The Athletic doesn’t know which teams its readers actually support, but we do have something close: the list of teams they “follow” in our app. Using that data — all anonymized, without names or other personal information — we were able to see whether followers of a team rated their quarterback differently than other readers.
They did.
Across all 32 teams, followers rated their team’s quarterback higher than other readers did, often by a significant margin. For example, where most readers saw a Tier 2 quarterback — say, Drake Maye or Lamar Jackson — followers of their teams, the Patriots or Ravens, were much more likely to put them in Tier 1. The ratings were not wildly different; it was more of an upward shift in each player’s entire distribution of votes.
On average, the home-team bump was worth about a half-tier, roughly the difference between how experts rated Jackson (1.6, on average) and Jared Goff (2.1).
How followers of a team rated their QBs compared to other readers, ordered by who got the biggest ‘home-team bump’
Tyler Shough T. Shough
Saints
2.8 ▲ 0.9
Drake Maye D. Maye
Patriots
1.4 ▲ 0.9
Trevor Lawrence T. Lawrence
Jaguars
1.9 ▲ 0.8
Jordan Love J. Love
Packers
1.8 ▲ 0.8
Jayden Daniels J. Daniels
Commanders
1.9 ▲ 0.8
2.1 ▲ 0.8
Justin Herbert J. Herbert
Chargers
1.3 ▲ 0.8
Brock Purdy B. Purdy
49ers
1.7 ▲ 0.8
Caleb Williams C. Williams
Bears
1.7 ▲ 0.7
Kyler Murray K. Murray
Vikings
2.9 ▲ 0.7
Jalen Hurts J. Hurts
Eagles
1.9 ▲ 0.7
3.0 ▲ 0.7
Jaxson Dart J. Dart
Giants
2.9 ▲ 0.7
Bryce Young B. Young
Panthers
2.9 ▲ 0.6
Daniel Jones D. Jones
Colts
2.7 ▲ 0.6
Dak Prescott D. Prescott
Cowboys
1.8 ▲ 0.6
3.7 ▲ 0.6
1.8 ▲ 0.5
Sam Darnold S. Darnold
Seahawks
2.0 ▲ 0.5
Aaron Rodgers A. Rodgers
Steelers
3.1 ▲ 0.5
Lamar Jackson L. Jackson
Ravens
1.2 ▲ 0.4
C.J. Stroud C.J. Stroud
Texans
2.8 ▲ 0.4
Shedeur Sanders S. Sanders
Browns
4.2 ▲ 0.4
Malik Willis M. Willis
Dolphins
3.7 ▲ 0.4
Kirk Cousins K. Cousins
Raiders
3.5 ▲ 0.4
Joe Burrow J. Burrow
Bengals
1.1 ▲ 0.4
Baker Mayfield B. Mayfield
Buccaneers
2.3 ▲ 0.3
J.J. McCarthy J.J. McCarthy
Vikings
4.3 ▲ 0.3
Tua Tagovailoa T. Tagovailoa
Falcons
3.9 ▲ 0.3
Michael Penix Jr. M. Penix
Falcons
4.0 ▲ 0.3
Jacoby Brissett J. Brissett
Cardinals
4.0 ▲ 0.2
Patrick Mahomes P. Mahomes
Chiefs
1.0 ▲ 0.2
Matthew Stafford M. Stafford
Rams
1.1 ▲ 0.2
Josh Allen J. Allen
Bills
1.0 ▲ 0.1
Deshaun Watson D. Watson
Browns
4.8 ▲ 0.01
A handful of quarterbacks received a particularly large bump from their team’s followers, with Tyler Shough (Saints) and Maye topping the list.
And at the bottom, with essentially no favorable fan bump, was the Browns’ Deshaun Watson. Both followers and other readers rated him as a Tier 5 quarterback, a classification reserved for quarterbacks who panelists think are not good enough to be NFL starters. (The Browns named Watson their starter in late August; the expert panel rated him solidly in Tier 4, though he received votes for Tiers 2, 3 and 5 as well.)
The top three quarterbacks according to readers — Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes and Matthew Stafford — also had relatively small bumps, suggesting they are viewed similarly by their own fans and those of opposing teams.
Readers and experts’ rankings compared
As a group, readers’ views of the 35 quarterbacks lined up closely with those of the GMs, coaches and executives on the expert panel. If you arrange the quarterbacks by overall rank, as measured by “average” tier, the two lists are very similar, with most quarterbacks moving up or down only a spot or two.
1
Josh Allen J. Allen
Bills
▲ 1
2
Patrick Mahomes P. Mahomes
Chiefs
▼ 1
3
Matthew Stafford M. Stafford
Rams
▼ 1
4
Joe Burrow J. Burrow
Bengals
–
5
Lamar Jackson L. Jackson
Ravens
–
6
Justin Herbert J. Herbert
Chargers
–
7
Drake Maye D. Maye
Patriots
▲ 1
8
–
9
Dak Prescott D. Prescott
Cowboys
▼ 2
10
Caleb Williams C. Williams
Bears
▲ 1
11
Brock Purdy B. Purdy
49ers
–
12
Sam Darnold S. Darnold
Seahawks
▲ 2
13
Jordan Love J. Love
Packers
▼ 3
14
Jalen Hurts J. Hurts
Eagles
▲ 3
15
Jayden Daniels J. Daniels
Commanders
▼ 2
16
Baker Mayfield B. Mayfield
Buccaneers
▼ 2
17
Trevor Lawrence T. Lawrence
Jaguars
▼ 1
18
–
19
C.J. Stroud C.J. Stroud
Texans
▲ 1
20
Daniel Jones D. Jones
Colts
▲ 1
21
Bryce Young B. Young
Panthers
▲ 1
22
Aaron Rodgers A. Rodgers
Steelers
▼ 3
23
Jaxson Dart J. Dart
Giants
▲ 1
24
Kyler Murray K. Murray
Vikings
▼ 1
25
–
26
Tyler Shough T. Shough
Saints
–
27
Kirk Cousins K. Cousins
Raiders
▲ 1
28
Malik Willis M. Willis
Dolphins
▲ 1
29
Tua Tagovailoa T. Tagovailoa
Falcons
▼ 3
30
Jacoby Brissett J. Brissett
Cardinals
▲ 3
31
▼ 1
32
Michael Penix Jr. M. Penix
Falcons
–
33
J.J. McCarthy J.J. McCarthy
Vikings
▲ 1
34
Shedeur Sanders S. Sanders
Browns
▲ 1
35
Deshaun Watson D. Watson
Browns
▼ 4
The biggest differences
While their overall rankings were similar, readers’ ratings were consistently lower than those of the experts. On average, readers rated the 35 quarterbacks about 0.3 tiers lower than the panelists did.
For example, about 10 percent of reader votes were for Tier 5 (and three quarterbacks ended up with an average rating that landed them in that tier), compared to just 2 percent of votes from the experts. And all quarterbacks received at least some reader votes for each tier.
This is understandable; readers voting on the internet are, by and large, not a group we’d expect to take the challenge as seriously as an NFL coach or GM might. For this reason, it is not particularly meaningful to directly compare the average tier between readers and the expert panel.
But in some cases, the gaps between readers and experts give a clear signal about which quarterbacks readers felt were particularly overrated. Watson, Aaron Rodgers and Tua Tagovailoa topped that list.
QBs whom readers and panelists disagree about the most
Deshaun Watson D. Watson
Browns
3.8
4.8
Aaron Rodgers A. Rodgers
Steelers
2.7
3.5
Tua Tagovailoa T. Tagovailoa
Falcons
3.4
4.1
3.7
4.2
Dak Prescott D. Prescott
Cowboys
1.8
2.3
C.J. Stroud C.J. Stroud
Texans
2.7
3.2
Kirk Cousins K. Cousins
Raiders
3.4
3.9
Kyler Murray K. Murray
Vikings
3.1
3.5
J.J. McCarthy J.J. McCarthy
Vikings
4.2
4.6
Shedeur Sanders S. Sanders
Browns
4.2
4.6
Watson was accused by more than 20 women of sexual misconduct before being traded to the Browns in 2022, then started just 19 games across four seasons (missing most of 2024 and all of 2025 with a twice-torn Achilles tendon). He received, on average, a rating of 4.8 by readers. Watson’s average tier from the panelists was 3.8, giving him the largest difference in rating.
Rodgers, the Steelers’ 42-year-old quarterback, decided to return for another season, which he has said will be his last. And Tagovailoa, who’s with the Falcons on a one-year deal, had been named the Week 1 starter before being ruled out with an injury. The experts thought both Rodgers and Tagovailoa belonged in Tier 3. Readers placed them in Tier 4.
Additional work by Ben Warren