With the bulk of free agency and the whirlwind that is the NFL Draft now over and OTAs opening this week, the conversations around football will slowly turn from hypotheticals to what happens between the lines on Sunday (or Monday, or Thursday, or sometimes Saturday, and even throw in Wednesday and Friday this season).
But it’s still May, meaning lists and rankings are still the number one point of conversation around the NFL internet community. Pro Football Focus’s Trevor Sikkema posted one of those rankings, ranking the top 32 quarterbacks in the National Football League. Brock Purdy was ranked 13th after his first career Super Bowl appearance, which might be a little harsh to some.
What grabbed my attention was the quarterback two spots ahead of Purdy at No. 11. He’s another NFC quarterback who just finished his first entire season as a starter who happened to lose to Purdy’s 49ers in the playoffs.
That would be Jordan Love.
I know that ranking will drive many people in this corner of the internet crazy. Still, it’s fair because of who Love is throwing the ball to versus who Purdy is throwing it to – something that is unfairly held against Purdy since he did not control which team would select him in 2022.
Naturally, I went to Pro Football Focus to look at some numbers, and while searching Stathead, I found something very, very interesting to contextualize the start of Purdy’s career. Purdy led the league with a 113.0 passer rating in 2023 on 444 pass attempts. Before that, only ten other quarterbacks have finished a season with a higher passer rating than 113.0 on more than 400 pass attempts:
– Aaron Rodgers (2x – 2011, 2020)
– Peyton Manning (2x – 2004, 2013)
– Tom Brady (2007)
– Matt Ryan (2016)
– Drew Brees (2018)
– Patrick Mahomes (2018)
– Lamar Jackson (2019)
– Tony Romo (2014)
That list contains a Hall-of-Famer, four future Hall-of-Famers, two fringe candidates with Jackson trending in the right direction, and Jim Nantz’s color commentator. Oh, and by the way, of that group, only Purdy, Brees, and Romo did not win MVP in the year of their 113.0 rating/400 attempt season.
But what if we threw in Purdy’s rookie season with his more than stellar sophomore year? What would that list look like? Purdy has played in 25 games, with 21 being starts, and over those two years, he’s thrown 614 passes with 44 touchdowns to 15 interceptions, good for a 111.4 passer rating to start his career. Again, I went to PFR and punched in how many quarterbacks have thrown more than 600 passes for a rating higher than 110 (to be as specific as possible) over their first 25 career games, and the machine spit this list out:
– Patrick Mahomes
– Brock Purdy
That’s it, that’s the list.
So let’s broaden the search to the first 25 games, 600 attempts, and a 100.0 or better passer rating:
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