Ranking the NFL Starting Quarterbacks
#29 Gardner Minshew (Las Vegas Raiders)
The Raiders appear to have the tightest quarterback competition in the NFL heading into the 2024 season. I can’t put both Aidan O’Connell and Gardner Minshew on this list. So I’m going with the player who has 37 starts under his belt and nearly took the Colts to the playoffs last season.
Gardner Minshew is my 29th-ranked quarterback.
Minshew will be playing for his 4th team in just 6 seasons. He’s the new Ryan Fitzpatrick. If you’re looking for a good stop-gap quarterback, you can do a lot worse than Minshew. Despite being thrown to the curb repeatedly, he’s still been able to have some measure of success over the course of his 37 starts.
During his 2 years in Jacksonville, he completed 63% of his passes with a 37-11 TD-INT ratio and a 93.1 passer rating. And after a couple of back-up seasons with the Eagles, he nearly led the Colts to the playoffs last year, as I mentioned above.
The one thing you can say about Minshew is that he’s resourceful. It isn’t always pretty, but he uses everything at his disposal to try and move the offense forward. Whether that’s his arm, his legs, pump fakes or hard counts, it doesn’t matter, he’s going to try it:
You’re going to see a little bit of everything in a Gardner-Minshew game. Unfortunately, that sometimes also means plays like this:
At the end of the day, you’re not likely to see Minshew be any team’s franchise quarterback. He’s not especially gifted physically. His ball placement can be hit-or-miss. He moves unnecessarily from the pocket at times, which leaves potential big plays on the field. Despite his resourcefulness, he’s not refined enough to be a team’s long-term solution.
But he’s proven he can be a serviceable NFL quarterback. As I said, you can do a lot worse than Gardner Minshew.
Check out the rest of the rankings here:
#32 Bo Nix (Denver Broncos)
#31 Drake Maye (New England Patriots)
#30 J.J. McCarthy (Minnesota Vikings)
#29 Gardner Minshew (Las Vegas Raiders)
#28 Will Levis (Tennessee Titans)
#27 Deshaun Watson (Cleveland Browns)
#26 Anthony Richardson (Indianapolis Colts)
#25 Bryce Young (Carolina Panthers)
#24 Daniel Jones (New York Giants)
#23 Jayden Daniels (Washington Commanders)
#22 Caleb Williams (Chicago Bears)
#21 Geno Smith (Seattle Seahawks)
#20 Russell Wilson (Pittsburgh Steelers)
#19 Derek Carr (New Orleans Saints)
#18 Baker Mayfield (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
#17 Kyler Murray (Arizona Cardinals)
#16 Trevor Lawrence (Jacksonville Jaguars)
#15 Jared Goff (Detroit Lions)
#14 Tua Tagovailoa (Miami Dolphins)
#13 Kirk Cousins (Atlanta Falcons)
#12 Jalen Hurts (Philadelphia Eagles)
#11 Brock Purdy (San Francisco 49ers)
#10 Jordan Love (Green Bay Packers)
#9 Dak Prescott (Dallas Cowboys)
#8 C.J. Stroud (Houston Texans)
#7 Justin Herbert (Los Angeles Chargers)
#6 Aaron Rodgers (New York Jets)
#5 Matthew Stafford (Los Angeles Rams)
#4 Lamar Jackson (Baltimore Ravens)
#3 Joe Burrow (Cincinnati Bengals)
#2 Josh Allen (Buffalo Bills)
#1 Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City Chiefs)