The 2025 NFL season is upon us, and we have a pretty good idea which teams possess a clear quarterback advantage. Only a select few, after all, have the luxury of deploying a transcendent talent under center, leaving the rest of the league to bank on more volatile signal-callers. But have the current standard-setters at the position always reigned supreme in this regard?
The answer is yes and no. Some, like the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers, are enjoying the latest in a long and proud line of star quarterbacks. Meanwhile others, like the Kansas City Chiefs, are experiencing their first truly spectacular gunslinging in decades. Still others, like the Indianapolis Colts, are trying desperately to extend a large but fast-fading legacy.
In anticipation of the new season, Cody Benjamin and Bryan DeArdo teamed up to review the all-time quarterback history of all 32 NFL teams, ranking them from least to most impressive using the following criteria:
- Individual impact of top quarterbacks (MVPs, Pro Bowls, All-Pros, etc.)
- Longevity of top quarterbacks’ careers
- Team success and championships won
- Overall depth of team’s history of quarterbacks
Here is their complete breakdown, with all 32 teams separated into five tiers:
*Tier 5: Desperate Dreamers
Ranked and compiled by Bryan DeArdo.
Top QBs: Matt Schaub, C.J. Stroud, Deshaun Watson
Houston’s last-place finish is partially a result of the Texans being the NFL’s youngest team. At this point, the best quarterback in Texans history may well be the one currently under center.
Top QBs: Kurt Warner, Carson Palmer, Jim Hart
While they enjoyed successful tenures in the desert, Warner and Palmer only played five years apiece in Arizona. Prior to them, the Cardinals’ last successful quarterback was Jake Plummer, who in 1998 led the Cardinals to their first playoff win in 51 years.
Top QBs: Mark Brunell, David Garrard, Trevor Lawrence
Brunell helped the Jaguars get to within a game of the Super Bowl in 1996, the franchise’s second year of existence. Garrard and Lawrence have also won playoff games for Jacksonville. The issue is that the team hasn’t had any good quarterbacks outside of these three.
Top QBs: Cam Newton, Jake Delhomme, Kerry Collins
Similar to the Jaguars (who were also founded in 1995), Carolina has enjoyed some good quarterback play over the past 30 years, but that success has been few and far between. The peaks: one MVP (Newton) and three different quarterbacks who helped lead the franchise to the NFC title game.
*Tier 4: Mixed Bags
Ranked and compiled by Bryan DeArdo.
Top QBs: Sid Luckman, Jim McMahon, Jay Cutler
Cutler is the Bears’ career passing leader with just 23,443 yards. No other Chicago quarterback has thrown for more than 15,000 yards. That’s bad.
Top QBs: Joe Namath, Ken O’Brien, Chad Pennington
Namath is a Hall of Famer who helped engineer the biggest upset in pro football history. But since his departure from New York 50 years ago, the team has had only a handful of capable quarterbacks.
Top QBs: Otto Graham, Bernie Kosar, Brian Sipe
Like the Jets, the Browns have a Hall of Famer who led his team to the promised land pre-merger. And while the Browns have had some solid quarterbacks in the decades since Graham, they have more often than not had underwhelming play at that position. No surprise: They’re starting over (again) in 2025.
Top QBs: Bobby Layne, Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff, Scott Mitchell
Detroit’s recent run of success is the reason they’re ranked this high; Stafford was frequently prolific and Goff helped them to an NFC championship appearance. That means the Lions have had consistent quality play at the position since 2009.
Top QBs: Fran Tarkenton, Daunte Culpepper, Tommy Kramer
It’s a bit surprising to have the Vikings this low considering how good they tend to be. Tarkenton is a Hall of Famer who led the team to three Super Bowls in four years during the ’70s. Since his scrambling days, however, no other signal-caller has helped Minnesota reach the big game.
Top QBs: Russell Wilson, Dave Krieg, Matt Hasselbeck, Jim Zorn
Seattle has enjoyed steady quarterback play for nearly the entirety of its 50-year existence. While his career has fizzled since leaving Seattle, Wilson still has a good chance of being the first Seahawks quarterback to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame thanks to his decade-long run as a title-winning dual threat.
Top QBs: Matt Ryan, Michael Vick, Steve Bartkowski
Like Wilson in Seattle, Atlanta has another quarterback in Ryan who will likely earn a Hall of Fame induction someday. Vick also possessed Hall of Fame talent that led to one of the most successful and entertaining runs in franchise history. Ironically, Chris Chandler, the first Falcons quarterback to lead the team to a Super Bowl, is largely overlooked when discussing Atlanta’s best quarterbacks.
Top QBs: Joe Flacco, Lamar Jackson, Steve McNair
You can argue if he was elite, but you can’t argue that Flacco was a Super Bowl-winning quarterback for Baltimore who played a key role in said title. Jackson hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet, but he is a wildly dynamic two-time league MVP.
Top QBs: Tom Brady, Baker Mayfield, Brad Johnson
Brady only spent three years in Tampa, but two of those years were among the best seasons of his peerless career. Brady was preceded in Tampa by Johnson, who made more than enough plays to help the 2002 Bucs capture the franchise’s first Super Bowl. Mayfield has continued to provide Tampa with quality quarterback play since Brady’s retirement, adding an unexpected spark as a journeyman.
Top QBs: Archie Manning, Drew Brees, Aaron Brooks
New Orleans has endured long, painful stretches without good quarterback play. But the franchise has also enjoyed one of the most prolific passing careers in NFL history thanks to Brees, who in 2009 led the Saints to their first title. While Brees is a slam-dunk future Hall of Famer, Manning’s career may have also resulted in a gold jacket if hadn’t been saddled to bad supporting casts.
*Tier 3: Works in Progress
Ranked and compiled by Cody Benjamin.
Top QBs: Donovan McNabb, Ron Jaworski, Randall Cunningham, Jalen Hurts
McNabb did everything but get over the hump, following in Cunningham’s footsteps as a dual threat ahead of his time. “Jaws” took the Birds to the big game. And Hurts, still just 26, has already produced two championship-caliber Super Bowl performances, claiming one ring, as the steely face of an all-star group.
Top QBs: Ken Anderson, Boomer Esiason, Joe Burrow, Carson Palmer
Anderson won NFL MVP, and Esiason won Super Bowl MVP. Which honor is next for Burrow, who’s among the game’s top pure pocket passers? If he sticks around even longer than Palmer, a leader of the 2000s, odds are he’ll get one or the other.
Top QBs: Jim Kelly, Josh Allen, Jack Kemp
If Kelly had captured just one of his four Super Bowl appearances, this crop would probably be much higher on the pecking order. Allen certainly has the tools to make up for the near-misses, often serving as the NFL’s best pure playmaker this side of Patrick Mahomes, and eyeing his seventh straight playoff bid in 2025.
Top QBs: Dan Fouts, Philip Rivers, John Hadl, Justin Herbert
Consistency is the name of the game here. No Bolts quarterback has hoisted the Lombardi, but both Fouts and Rivers were elite for the majority of their lengthy careers; the former helped revolutionize passing with his “Air Coryell” deep shots.
*Tier 2: Historic Bunches
Ranked and compiled by Cody Benjamin.
Formerly the Houston Oilers.
Top QBs: George Blanda, Steve McNair, Warren Moon
The Oilers boasted two Hall of Fame quarterbacks in Blanda and Moon. McNair, meanwhile, helped the franchise enjoy near-instant success after the club relocated and rebranded itself in Nashville in 1997. Cameron Ward is up next.
Top QBs: Eli Manning, Phil Simms, Charlie Conerly, Y.A. Tittle
The clutch moments do a lot of the heavy lifting in New York. Manning may have never been a consistently “elite” authority under center, but he was uber-cool when it mattered most in not one but two Super Bowl upsets. Simms also won his own title, and Tittle won MVP throwing 36 touchdowns back in 1963.
Formerly the Washington Redskins.
Top QBs: Sammy Baugh, Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, Sonny Jurgensen, Mark Rypien
Despite a long slog of middling options in the 2000s, there is a rich and underrated history here: Three different quarterbacks (Rypien, Theismann, Williams) led Super Bowl wins, and “Slingin’ Sammy” Baugh captured two NFL titles pre-merger as an aerial artist well ahead of his time. Better yet, Jayden Daniels appears primed to launch this crew even further as the new face of the franchise.
11. Kansas City Chiefs
Top QBs: Patrick Mahomes, Len Dawson, Trent Green
Mahomes is already a Hall of Fame lock after just seven years as a starter, cruising to three Super Bowl wins and two MVP nods as an otherworldly point guard. The question is, how many more can he collect before he hangs it up? Dawson was legendary, too, starring as “Lenny the Cool” for the Chiefs’ first Super Bowl run.
Top QBs: Dan Marino, Bob Griese, Earl Morrall
The one knock on Marino is he never got a ring, but his numbers (61,000+ career yards) and 1984 MVP run confirmed him as one of the most gifted gunslingers to ever lace them up. Griese didn’t just secure two trophies for Miami but helped the Dolphins go 17-0 in 1972 for the NFL’s only perfect season to date.
Top QBs: Tom Brady, Drew Bledsoe, Steve Grogan
The depth may not be as impressive here, but how can the team that deployed the most accomplished quarterback of all time be left outside the top 10? Brady was Mr. Inevitable, securing six rings and another three Super Bowl appearances with New England, terrorizing the rest of the league with unmatched poise and vision.
Top QBs: Ken Stabler, Daryle Lamonica, Rich Gannon, Jim Plunkett
This isn’t recency bias, as the silver and black have lately been hurting for a true difference-maker. They ruled the old and grittier days, though, with Lamonica’s “Mad Bomber” deep shots and Stabler’s left-handed resolve making the Raiders almost synonymous with ’60s and ’70s football. Plunkett carried the torch into the ’80s.
*Tier 1: Hall of Fame Factories
Ranked and compiled by Cody Benjamin.
Top QBs: Kurt Warner, Norm Van Brocklin, Roman Gabriel, Matthew Stafford
This is a who’s who of greats from basically every era. Van Brocklin put the Rams on the map with their first championship in 1951. Gabriel won MVP in 1969. Warner served as the improbable hero of the “Greatest Show on Turf” in 1999. And Stafford reached the promised land in his very first season with the team in 2021, translating years of Lions stardom into a long-awaited playoff surge for L.A.
Top QBs: Terry Bradshaw, Ben Roethlisberger, Neil O’Donnell, Bobby Layne
The Steelers are a true litmus test for what you value when defining “all-time quarterback success.” Is it steadily dynamic production? Or just rings? Because Bradshaw got four of those bad boys in the ’70s and ’80s, even if he was never the prettiest passer. “Big Ben” was more splashy, but even he was more rugged than plenty of peers. It’s just the Steeler Way.
Top QBs: John Elway, Peyton Manning, Craig Morton
This is a top-heavy bunch, and even Manning only spent four years in Denver, but the peaks are so illustrious. Between just Elway and Manning, after all, the Broncos advanced to seven different Super Bowls, winning three. Morton also reached the big game, though it’s Elway’s Hall of Fame tear over 16 years as the true propeller. Like Brady with the Patriots, he single-handedly elevated the entire program.
Top QBs: Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, Don Meredith, Dak Prescott, Tony Romo, Danny White
If we were ranking solely by depth and duration of quality play, “America’s Team” might take the cake, because it’s hard to find a decade where the Cowboys have been without serviceable, if not special, arm talent. Somehow none of their greats have won NFL MVP, but Staubach’s zeal and Aikman’s precision combined for five Super Bowl wins; both are now enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
3. Indianapolis Colts
Top QBs: Peyton Manning, Johnny Unitas, Andrew Luck, Bert Jones
If Colts fans desire solace after witnessing Indy’s current state of affairs under center, they need look no further than their own record books. Unitas won three MVPs and four titles as a prototype of the modern quarterback. Manning was a calculated genius out of the pocket for 14 years. Jones also won MVP, and Luck was a popular pick for the award before his abrupt retirement.
2. San Francisco 49ers
Top QBs: Joe Montana, Steve Young, Y.A. Tittle, John Brodie
Which quarterback conversation starts or ends without mention of Montana’s name? Even though Brady bested him in total trophies, the “Comeback Kid” still registers as the coolest, calmest thrower to let it rip, becoming the first quarterback to win three Super Bowl MVPs. Young’s mobility and efficiency as Montana’s successor helped San Francisco go back-to-back with Super Bowl-winning all-timers.
1. Green Bay Packers
Top QBs: Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, Bart Starr
Are they the deepest bunch? Not necessarily. But who needs depth when you can literally pass the baton from Favre to Rodgers and enjoy 31 consecutive years of MVP-level moxie and production? And that says nothing of Starr’s five NFL titles, including the first two Super Bowls! No other team has produced more league MVPs (8) at the position, and who’s to say Jordan Love won’t eventually follow suit as Rodgers’ snappy-armed successor?
