NFL quarterback power rankings: Why Joe Burrow deserves better from struggling Bengals It almost sounded like an apology after the Philadelphia Eagles flew past the Cincinnati Bengals in the second half of their Week 8 win that wasn’t close. Bengals coach Zac Taylor said the fans and players deserved better. He said the Bengals are better than their 3-5 record but acknowledged “we’ve earned that.”
He said it was time for the entire locker room to take accountability for not living up to expectations thus far. He said the sort of things you say when a struggling team reaches that point of the 2024 NFL season when struggling starts to become a crisis.
So here’s the most confounding part: This week, with the Bengals in crisis, quarterback Joe Burrow ascended to No. 1 in ESPN’s QBR for the season. At least according to one metric, he’s currently playing as well as any quarterback in the league and playing better than at any other point in his career.
- Whether that’s all true – Burrow ranks sixth in passing yards, fourth in completion percentage, fifth in QB rating and third in touchdowns, among
- NFL starting quarterbacks – the notion that Cincinnati could miss the NFL playoffs with Burrow performing at or near an
- All-Pro level would be sobering if it were to become reality this season.
He probably deserves better from the Bengals. The rest of the QBR leaders are starting to take on a more familiar look now that teams are almost halfway through their schedule. Josh Allen dropped from the top spot to No.
4 despite the Buffalo Bills’ big Week 8 win over Seattle: while Lamar Jackson stayed at No. 2 despite the Baltimore Ravens’ loss in Cleveland. Kyler Murray jumped from No. 6 to No. 3 after leading the Arizona Cardinals past the Miami Dolphins,
and Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes continue to trend upwards after another strong week. Here’s how the rest of the NFL’s quarterbacks rank based on ESPN’s QBR for the season, and how they did in terms of QBR during Week 8:
ESPN’s QBR, explained: Every week, ESPN gives each quarterback a QBR for their latest performance. According to ESPN, the rating is intended to “incorporate all of a quarterback’s contributions to winning, including how he impacts the game on passes, rushes, turnovers and penalties.”
QBR measures each play’s degree of success and how much credit the quarterback deserves for the play. The statistic also takes into account the strength of opposing defenses faced.
The final result is an efficiency rating as a number on a 0-to-100-point scale. The cumulative rating is averaged out on a per-play basis across the course of the season.
