It is a yearly tradition here at Bolt Beat. The 2022 season is officially over with the Kansas City Chiefs emerging as Super Bowl Champions and it is now time to rank Justin Herbert against his quarterback peers. Since this series' inception in 2020, the Chargers' quarterback has climbed quickly up the rankings.
Normally we rank the 32 starting quarterbacks in the league but with so many injuries and player movement, we decided to rank the 32 best quarterbacks, some of which being backups that were not qualified as "starters" in 2022.
Without further ado, let's jump into the rankings and see where Justin Herbert lands (spoiler alert: it is going to be a bit until you reach his place on the list).
32. Davis Mills, Houston Texans
- Preseason ranking: 21
Davis Mills actually put together some good numbers at the end of the 2021 season that had us believing that he would be a serviceable quarterback for the Houston Texans in 2022. That was not the case at all, as Mills ended up being arguably the worst starter in the league.
It got better towards the end of the year when the Texans started to stagger his snaps with Jeff Driskel but that is never a good sign.
31. Baker Mayfield, LA Rams
- Preseason ranking: 24
Baker Mayfield played for two teams in 2022 and Sean McVay was actually able to make the former first overall pick look quite decent once he joined the Rams later in the year.
However, Mayfield was statistically the worst quarterback in the entire sport while he was starting for the Panthers and the team was better when they turned to other options. It is not like Carolina is a well-oiled machine but that is a bad look for Baker.
30. Desmond Ridder, Atlanta Falcons
- Preseason ranking: NR
Marcus Mariota was so awful for the Atlanta Falcons that the team eventually turned over the starting duties to Desmond Ridder. Ridder was as forgettable as it comes as a starter but still went 2-2 in the games that he started and did not throw an interception.
There were no "wow" plays for Ridder, both good and bad. It will be interesting to see if he is the future of the QB position for Atlanta.
29. Trey Lance, San Francisco 49ers
- Preseason ranking: 28
Trey Lance had to play in a torrential downpour in Week 1 and then tore his ACL in Week 2. His career could turn into one of the biggest what-ifs in recent NFL history but for the time being, he has to at least make the list because of where he was drafted by the 49ers.