Matt Stafford, Brock Purdy, Kyler Murray all ahead of Sam Darnold in NFL QB rankings

The NFL will be releasing the 2025 regular season schedule over the next few days, with the full schedule coming out on Wednesday evening. Once that's overwith we will officially be in the no man's land of the offseason when all there is to do is debate lists, commonly known as rankings season.

If you're a fan of the Seattle Seahawks and believe Sam Darnold looked like a top-10 quarterback with the Minnesota Vikings last year, odds are you're going to have a long offseason. It seems most analysts either see Darnold as the same guy we saw from 2018-2020 with the Jets or that his last two games with the Vikings proved all of their negative priors, all while ignoring the exceptional improvement Darnold put on display in the previous 16 games.

Anyway, the latest disrespect for Darnold comes via a fresh batch of quarterback rankings from Andrew Buller-Ross at Sportsnaut. At the beginning of his list you'll find the usual suspects, including Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen occupying the top three spots.

Further down you'll find Matt Stafford ranked 10th, Brock Purdy ranked 13th and Kyler Murray coming in at 14th in the NFL. If you go looking for Darnold you won't find him until No. 18, which would make him the worst starting quarterback in the NFC West.

Sportsnaut on Seahawks QB Sam Darnold at 18

"Can Sam Darnold maintain the Pro Bowl level of play he delivered with the Minnesota Vikings? He won't have Kevin O'Connell dialing up the plays or anyone like Justin Jefferson to target. The Seattle Seahawks' offensive line is unproven too, but Darnold will still have a talented pass-catching corps led by Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Cooper Kupp."

These are all good points. Nevertheless, Darnold should be ranked significantly higher on this list. We feel at a minimum he should be ahead of C.J. Stroud, Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love, Kyler Murray, Brock Purdy and Dak Prescott, which would put him at 12th instead of 18. Meanwhile, Geno Smith came in at No. 20.

As for the other NFC West quarterbacks, Stafford is pretty much where he should be, as is Murray. However, as per usual Purdy is at least 10 spots higher than he deserves on account of all the ridiculous talent he has around him, especially Kyle Shanahan calling his plays.

Purdy's numbers are naturally impressive as a result, but our eyeball test says he'd likely rank no higher than 25th on most of these QB ranking lists if he had practically anybody else for an OC - to say nothing of the league's best running back, left tackle and tight end.

Unfortunately, we probably won't get to see that hypothesis play out anytime soon as Purdy is reportedly set to sign a major extension worth somewhere around $50 million per year.

Sportsnaut on Seahawks QB Sam Darnold at 18

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