The 2023 NFL draft quarterback class is led by the highly touted Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson and Will Levis — and it is considerably more exciting than the class of 2022.
Yet even before the draft, the NFL quarterback carousel has already been running at full speed. The New Orleans Saints signed Derek Carr, the former face of the Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders then replaced Carr with Jimmy Garoppolo, whom the San Francisco 49ers replaced with Sam Darnold (while their other young signal-callers, Brock Purdy and Trey Lance, are attempting to return from injuries).
Subsequently, Darnold’s old team, the Carolina Panthers, sent a haul of draft picks plus wide receiver DJ Moore to the Chicago Bears in exchange for the 2023 No. 1 pick. With the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts drafting second and fourth, respectively, there is a good chance that for the second time in three years, three quarterbacks will go in the top four picks.
Then there are the quarterbacks in limbo. The wait for the Green Bay Packers-New York Jets trade for Aaron Rodgers continues, while Lamar Jackson has requested a trade from the Baltimore Ravens. Ultimately, teams looking for a quarterback can either pay a premium for an established commodity, sign a journeyman veteran for a cheaper price (like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers replacing Tom Brady with Baker Mayfield), or spend draft capital on an unknown prospect. Therefore, a lot hinges on how teams evaluate this year’s draft class.
With that in mind, we present the results of Football Outsiders’ QBASE 2.0 model, which combines Andrew Healy’s original QBASE model (2015) with Jeremy Rosen and Alex Olbrecht’s functional mobility model (2018). It does so by factoring in a quarterback’s rushing ability while also using his adjusted college passing statistics and adjusted years started. The adjustments consider the quality of both the quarterback’s teammates and opponents, and while they reward quarterbacks who have steadily improved over time, they penalize one-year wonders.
The quarterbacks below are listed in order of their Scouts Inc. ranking, and interpreting each quarterback’s projection is straightforward. A value of 0 total defense-adjusted yards above replacement per attempt (TDYAR/A) is replacement-level, whereas any value over 1.5 is indicative of a Hall of Fame career. We run 50,000 simulations to provide a distribution that each quarterback falls within a particular range. Here are our 2023 projections:
