Who is the NFL’s best quarterback right now? Power rankings for Week 3
Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers tops the power rankings with a 2-0 record and zero interceptions.
Despite an 0-2 start for the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes remains in the top five of the quarterback rankings.
It’s never too early to rank quarterbacks.
The 2025 NFL regular season is two weeks in, and we have already seen some astonishing results and wild performances from gunslingers.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers signal-caller Baker Mayfield helped close out Week 2 with his second fourth quarter comeback in two weeks on Monday night, and Indianapolis Colts quarterback Daniel Jones is 2-0.
In addition, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson put on a show for the ages in the first ‘Sunday Night Football’ of the season, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs are 0-2, and the Los Angeles Chargers’ offense might be more reliant on Justin Herbert than expected.
That’s all without mentioning the rash of injuries that struck the position in the first two weeks. At least two and as many as five teams – the Cincinnati Bengals, Minnesota Vikings, New York Jets, San Francisco 49ers and Washington Commanders – could be missing their starting quarterbacks in Week 3.
Here’s how all 32 of the projected Week 3 starting quarterbacks rank after two weeks:
NFL quarterback power rankings: Week 3 edition
1. Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers
No other quarterback in the league has accomplished all of the following through two weeks: a 2-0 record, 500-plus passing yards, five-plus passing touchdowns and zero interceptions. We may look back on this season and laugh at the many predictions that Los Angeles would be a run-heavy offense.
2. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills
Allen’s stats tick almost every box that Herbert’s have, and he makes up for his lack of touchdown passes (two so far) with two rushing scores as well. The Bills quarterback’s clutch, game-winning drive on ‘Sunday Night Football’ deserves a shout out here as well. The reigning MVP is off to a very strong start to his follow-up campaign.
3. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
Jackson fell just short of Allen in last year’s MVP race, and he fell just short of Allen and his team when the two clashed in Week 1’s ‘Sunday Night Football.’ Outside of that tough loss, Jackson has looked every bit the part of an MVP candidate through two weeks. His 83.6 QBR, per ESPN, leads all quarterbacks.
4. Jared Goff, Detroit Lions
Goff’s 334-yard, five-touchdown day in the Lions’ Week 2 home opener win was just what Detroit needed to quell concerns of a post-Ben Johnson regression in the wake of a rough Week 1 loss. He leads the league in completion rate (80.6) through two weeks despite already facing a Packers defense that looks like the leagues’ best and shares the NFL passing touchdown lead (6) with Jackson.
5. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs
It’s hard to knock Mahomes for his team’s 0-2 start, given he’s been missing his top two receivers, his new-look offensive line is still figuring things out and tight end Travis Kelce has made back-breaking mistakes in two straight games. Mahomes ranks above even Allen with his 81.4 QBR, per ESPN.
6. Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers
Two weeks into his third year as the Packers’ starting quarterback, Love continues to look the part. He’s spreading his targets around semi-evenly to his many young receiving options, protecting the ball (zero interceptions) and generally playing well within the Matt LaFleur offense to keep his team ahead as his defense does its job. It’s only been two weeks, but Love is on pace for a career high in touchdown passes (34) and completion rate (66%).
7. Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams
Through two weeks, it has appeared as though any concerns about how Stafford’s age and back problems would affect his play were overblown. The Rams are 2-0 behind Stafford’s 71% completion rate, 543 passing yards and three touchdowns. He did throw an interception late in the first half of Week 2’s game to give the Titans the chance to take the lead before halftime, but he and the Rams bounced back with a dominant second half. PFF grades Stafford as the best overall quarterback in the NFL through two weeks.
8. Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
No other quarterback has led his team in fourth-quarter comebacks and game-winning drives in both games so far this season. Mayfield has been the epitome of clutch so far this season, coming through when the Buccaneers have needed it the most. His yardage tally (382) and completion percentage (60%) thus far are unimpressive, but he’s on the 10th offensive coordinator of his eight-year career. He also has five touchdowns and two impressive comeback wins already. The rest of the stats will come around soon.
9. Daniel Jones, Indianapolis Colts
Did anyone expect this level of play from Jones in Year 7? He’s led the Colts to a 2-0 start for the first time since 2009, and he’s made the 2025 Colts the first team in the Super Bowl era to not have to punt in either of the first two games in a season. He’s also second in the NFL in passing yards (588), sixth in completion rate (71.4%) and has yet to throw an interception or lose a fumble. Oh, and he has three rushing touchdowns this year, tied for the league lead.
10. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles
Through two weeks, Hurts has not made the explosive impact as a passer that he did in his Pro Bowl years in 2022 and 2023. He has the second-fewest pass attempts of any quarterback that has played 100% of his team’s offensive snaps – only Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy has fewer. But Hurts has protected the ball whenever he’s been asked to throw, executed multiple tush-push plays to perfection and led his team to two wins.
11. Drake Maye, New England Patriots
Maye is arguably off to the best start of any second-year quarterback in 2025. His 517 passing yards rank ninth in the NFL, his 71% completion rate ranks eighth and he has three touchdown passes with another on the ground. His one interception is a small blemish on an otherwise impressive stat line, and some of the excellent throws Maye has made on tape should make up for it.
12. Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals
Murray has helped lead the Cardinals to a 2-0 start with his 70.4% completion rate, 383 yards and three touchdowns. Tight end Trey McBride and second-year wideout Marvin Harrison Jr. are clearly his favorite targets, but he’s also done a nice job of spreading the love and finding his open man. He hasn’t done anything crazy so far this year, but what he has done has been good enough for two wins.
13. Michael Penix Jr., Atlanta Falcons
Penix is arguably having the second-best year of all second-year quarterbacks, and like Maye, has a 1-1 record to show for it. The Falcons quarterback threw for nearly 300 yards in his 2025 season-opener against the Buccaneers, and he led what should have been a game-winning drive if not for a 44-yard field goal attempt sailing wide right. In Week 2, he played relatively mistake-free football – read: no turnovers – against a Brian Flores defense, which is an impressive feat in itself, and helped secure his team’s first win of the year.
14. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys have started the 2025 season once again leaning heavily on the arm of their quarterback. Prescott has rewarded them with the league lead in completions (59) and two good performances against two divisional opponents. He faced down the Giants’ pass-rush attack in Week 2 for 361 yards and an overtime win to get the Cowboys in the win column for the first time this year.
15. Russell Wilson, New York Giants
If Wilson’s Week 1 Giants debut was lackluster, his Week 2 outing was anything but. He threw for 450 yards – two yards short of a career high – and three touchdowns against the Cowboys and showed off his patented ‘moonball’ multiple times. Unfortunately, the most memorable part of that outing might be his overtime interception on a ‘miscommunication’ that doomed the Giants to a second straight loss.
16. Aaron Rodgers, Pittsburgh Steelers
Rodgers looked like he had turned back the clock in a Week 1 win over his former team, the Jets. Things did not go quite as swimmingly in Week 2 against the Seahawks. His 54.5% completion rate, 203 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions lent themselves to a passer rating of 58.0, the 13th-lowest in his career.
17. Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears
Williams has looked better than his team’s 0-2 record might make one believe. He’s generally seemed more decisive and confident in making his reads in Year 1 with Ben Johnson, but his team’s Week 1 collapse against Minnesota and Week 2 blowout at the hands of Detroit have overshadowed some of that. ESPN ranks Williams 16th in QBR (57.5) and PFF ranks him 14th with a 74.7 grade.
18. Sam Darnold, Seattle Seahawks
Darnold’s first two games with Seattle have been fine. His lack of production in a Week 1 loss to the 49ers wasn’t great, and neither were his two interceptions in Pittsburgh. The Seahawks are 1-1 in the Darnold era but the jury should still be out on the quarterback, especially with his late 2024 collapse in the back of mind.
19. Mac Jones, San Francisco 49ers
It took exactly one start in head coach Kyle Shanahan’s offense to make fans and analysts wonder what could have been if the 49ers had just drafted Jones – not Trey Lance – with the No. 3 pick in 2021.
20. Spencer Rattler, New Orleans Saints
Rattler has played well through two weeks after winning the starting job in head coach Kellen Moore’s offense. But the young Saints quarterback hasn’t yet played on the road this year, and his first test is a big one: at Seattle in front of the some of the loudest fans in football.
21. Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars
Lawrence’s first two games of 2025 have been shaky, another reminder of the Jaguars quarterback falling short of his sky-high expectations when he entered the league in 2021. But it’s worth asking how much Lawrence is affected by his top receiver, Brian Thomas Jr., seemingly shying away from contact and giving questionable effort, and his No. 2 receiver, Travis Hunter, starting to play more on defense.
22. Geno Smith, Las Vegas Raiders
Smith finished his first game with the Raiders with a 70.6% completion rate, 362 yards and looking like everything Las Vegas hoped he’d be when it traded for him. His second game was not so good. Smith’s accuracy was all over the place against the Chargers, and his three interceptions were concerning in the 20-9 loss Monday night.
23. Cam Ward, Tennessee Titans
Ward got on the board with his first career touchdown in Week 2. The cross-body, cross-field throw he made was a perfect cross of ‘oh my gosh, look at the arm on this kid’ and ‘oh my gosh, why did he make that decision.’ In other words: he looked like a rookie quarterback with raw talent that needs refining.
24. C.J. Stroud, Houston Texans
It might be fair to start wondering if Stroud’s ‘sophomore slump’ was more anomaly or red flag. He’s graded out as one of the worst passers by both ESPN’s QBR metric (34.8 is 30th in the NFL) and PFF (55.4 passing grade is 32nd of 34). Stroud deserves patience while he works through the season with a new offensive coordinator and reworked offensive line.
25. Bo Nix, Denver Broncos
PFF grades Nix as the worst quarterback in the NFL through two weeks with a 40.9 overall grade that includes an abysmal 39.0 passing grade. At least he has one win this year, though it wasn’t exactly thanks to his 176 passing yards, one touchdown and two interceptions against the Titans Week 1.
26. Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins
Tagovailoa’s Week 1 performance against the Colts was about as ugly as it gets: 14-of-23, 114 yards, one touchdown to two interceptions and a lost fumble. Week 2 was something of a bounce-back statistically, with a completion rate above 80% and more than 300 yards, but a brutal interception in the final three minutes of the fourth quarter doomed his team to a second straight loss.
27. Bryce Young, Carolina Panthers
Young looked a lot more like the pre-benching, inconsistent version of himself in Week 1, but flashes of intriguing play popped back up in Week 2, when he nearly led the Panthers to an unlikely comeback win against the Cardinals.
28. Joe Flacco, Cleveland Browns
Through two games in his second stint with the Browns, Flacco has been unable to recapture the magic of his first stint, when he ripped off four straight 300-yard games that resulted in wins to push Cleveland into the playoffs in 2023. He was benched for rookie Dillon Gabriel in Week 2. That looks like it could be a permanent change sooner rather than later.
29. Jake Browning, Cincinnati Bengals
It took Browning less than one full game to throw three interceptions and tie for what was, at the time, the league lead in the statistic. Yet he still managed to complete more than 65% of his 32 pass attempts for 241 yards and two touchdowns and secure the win for Cincinnati.
30. Tyrod Taylor, New York Jets
Taylor isn’t likely to fill in for more than one game while starter Justin Fields is in concussion protocol. Like Browning, he made his 2025 debut in Week 2 after Fields exited the game. In that one appearance against the Bills, Taylor completed more than twice as many passes as Fields in the same number of attempts for more than twice as many yards. He was also responsible for the Jets’ only touchdown of the day.
31. Marcus Mariota, Washington Commanders
Mariota’s last start came three years and two teams ago, when he was still starting for the Falcons. In three games filling in for starter Jayden Daniels last year, he looked up to the task, but it’s hard to look past the 54.2% completion rate, 167 yards, one touchdown and an interception in his last start, a 19-16 loss to the Steelers.
32. Carson Wentz, Minnesota Vikings
The last time Wentz started a game that wasn’t inconsequential and in Week 18 was 2022 with the Commanders. His stat line against the Browns that day in a 24-10 loss: 16-of-28 (57.1% completion rate) passing for 143 yards, zero touchdowns and three interceptions. It opened the door for Washington to be eliminated from playoff contention, a fact then-head coach Ron Rivera did not seem to know, as he infamously asked in a press conference after the game, ‘We can be eliminated?’ The Commanders were eliminated later that day.