Albert Breer on Herbert, Purdy and Hurts QB Poll Rankings

All right.

Welcome in to the Report for Wednesday, September 9th.

It is opening night.

The NFL season kicks off at Loman Field tonight, week one, we have the Patriots and the Seahawks.

Tomorrow, of course, the 49ers and the Rams.

In Australia, and then a full Sunday slate of games.

But to start today, we are going to look back, um, a day at my annual quarterback bowl, which always provokes a lot of debate.

And so we did want to address some of that debate here, some of the questions people had, some of the strong rewarded comments.

That people have for me coming out of that.

Now, I just wanna do one thing real quick before we dive in, which is explain the methodology.

This is something that I started doing in 2015, did it again in 2018, and then I've done it every year since 2020 now.

Um, so this would be the ninth time that I've run this poll.

Um, the idea is to project forward, and I think that's what's unique about the question I asked.

I ask coaches, executives to list the top five quarterbacks in football, who they think the top 5 quarterbacks in football will be at the end of the year, not based on accomplishment at this point, not based on who they were at the end of last year .

This is projecting forward to who they think these guys are gonna be at the very end of the 2026 season.

The poll has gotten varied results over the years.

The voter, over the years, the voter base has grown.

Um, what we do try to keep it to is guys who either coach or evaluate the quarterbacks.

So on the coaching side, that's the head coach, that's the offensive coordinator, it's the pass game coordinator, it's a quarterbacks coach.

And then on the personnel side, it's the general manager, senior personnel exec or VP or director of player personnel, or the pro personnel director.

So those are the guys.

That we send the ballots out to.

This year, I got 104 back.

All 32 teams were represented.

30 of the 32 teams had multiple voters.

We had 20 head coaches in on the poll.

We had 21 general managers.

I think it's a good cross section of the, of the league.

The idea is to build as close as we can get to a league consensus.

I think we've done that.

We got some people here who might disagree.

So my first question is coming from one of those dissenters.

That's 0 cool.

It's at Minote 7836-4.

Zero Cool says Herbert at 6 and May at 8 is absurd.

May gets docked for his postseason performance behind a collapsing offensive line, still going to the Super Bowl, while Herbert gets points on his potential to improve after yet another postseason collapse.

Strange to say the least.

Well, 0, I would say a couple of things.

Number one, if you're gonna give May a pass for what happened with his offensive line, I think it's probably pretty unfair not to give Justin Herbert that same pass.

Based on the fact that the two guys that are the pillar of their offensive roster, the two tackles, uh, Joe Alt and Rashaw Slater, played a total of 6 games last year and 0 postseason games.

So when they went to the playoffs, they had neither of their tackles.

Their running back was out, their receivers had had injury issues.

Um, there were a ton of things that Justin Herbert was fighting through and dealing with.

And that's why in some circles, and, and some people.

I talked to made the case for him for MVP last year.

Um, that doesn't mean he has had as good a year as Drake did, but last year, there were folks that thought he was the MVP just because of the way things crumbled around him and the way he had to lift everybody up and was able to do that and get that team to 11 wins.

It is very, very difficult to get a top 5 vote.

The reason I established the top 5 standard was because I wanted people to rank the guys that they thought were elite.

And leave off guys that they thought were not.

That's why I started doing it this way in 2015 .

That's where we are right now.

And over the last couple of years, a very firm top four has been established.

That's Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and of course, Patrick Mahomes.

Each of those guys has won either an MVP or been to a Super Bowl.

Um, they're all around the same age, they're all incredibly accomplished.

They've been in the league for long enough, you know, all of them came into the league in that same window, 2018 to 2020.

Um, and they've all been established as top end quarterbacks.

I think there's a league consensus or has been over the last 3 or 4 years that those are the top 4 guys.

Matthew Stafford broke into that group last year, unbelievable year last year.

He wins the MVP.

He's also won a Super Bowl.

So now you have 5 guys.

Where if you are giving anyone else a vote, you are leading one of those guys off.

So, I think the other guys on this list who accumulated a lot of votes, Herbert, May, Dak Prescott, the guys who have a large number of votes, that means there were a lot of people that left off one of those guys to put those guys on, which I think really says something.

So, I don't think either of these guys were disrespected in the voting.

I think both these guys got a lot of mention.

Now, if we're talking about why some people would look at Herbert versus May, here's what I would say.

The way the people inside the league talk about Justin Herbert is much different than the way people outside the league talk about Justin Herbert, to the point where it reminds me a little bit of the way that people in the league used to talk about Matthew Stafford when he was in Detroit, when a lot of people on the outside thought, well, he was an afterthought when it came to the conversation on elite quarterbacks.

Everyone in, like a lot of people in the league would tell you, no, you don't understand.

Stafford's really, really good.

He gets in a better situation.

We've seen what happened.

So with Herbert, could this year be that situation for him without switching teams with Mike McDaniel, with the two tackles healthy, with a young receiver group in Hampton back in the lineup.

Could all of it come together for an MVP type of year?

I think that's how some people are projecting him because enough things are right around him right now.

Again, this is about who the best quarterbacks are at the end of the year.

This year, Drake May has a tougher schedule.

has a year of tape and Josh McDaniel's offense that's out there.

Um, and he did struggle a little bit in the playoffs when he was faced with Jesse Minter and the Chargers in round one, when he was faced with Matt Burke and Damio Ryan and the Houston Texans personnel in week two, in, in, in the, in the, the, in the divisional round when he was faced with Denver , the Denver Broncos and Vance Joseph and all that personnel there in the championship game, and then of course, Mike McDonald and a dominant Seahawks defense in the Super Bowl.

I think that's why it is, it's not like there was this huge disparity between one and the other.

I don't think it's offensive to either guy.

Herbert's got a little bit of a longer track record.

There are a lot of believers in Herbert in the league.

Again, Drake May coming in where he came in, which the top guy in his draft class, um, in, in, in the poll, I think says something about Drake May and how far he came in a year's time, and nothing about, you know, how he is versus this guy or that guy.

Uh, second question, this is from Seamus Flynn, that's at Seamus Flynn.

The Purdy hater train is running at full speed, it appears.

Uh, Seamus again, I, I have all the respect in the world for Brock Purdy.

He's been really, really good.

Um, it's sort of the flip of Herbert.

He's had a lot right around him.

And we've seen Kyle Shanahan win with multiple quarterbacks, you know, he won with Mac Jones last year, he got to a Super Bowl with Jimmy Garoppolo, you know, he had Matt Ryan playing at an MVP level when he was with Matt Ryan in 2016 and they went to the Super Bowl.

So there's probably a little bit of that, like when you look at Brock Purdy physically, and maybe people don't see something that's special, and they see the coach he's with, and there is that feeling, OK, like maybe he's Really good, but not in the top 5.

So I think that's part of it.

And I think one thing that solves that is the situation around him isn't quite what it was the last few years, this year for Purdy.

We'll see what George Kittle is coming back off the Achilles.

Ricky Pearsall is, is done for the year.

Brandon Ayuk is out of the picture completely.

You have Mike Evans coming in, but there's a lot of age on that offense.

Maybe this is the year that we see him having to lift the team up a little bit more around him.

Um, but, you know, I think he's a really good quarterback who just for a lot of people in the league have not, has a lot of people in the league have not cracked that top five.

finally, question number 3, this is from Jeremiah that's at Jeremiah 7E.

Uh, Jeremiah says Jalen Hurts continues to be the most disrespected quarterback in all of football, maybe ever.

The hate is strong.

Good luck seeing him in the Super Bowl this season, Jeremiahs.

I understand Philadelphia Eagles fans being protective of Jalen Hurts.

Again, I think this comes down to the situation around him, and it's guys who have coached against him, who've seen him on cross tape, who evaluated him, and they all feel right or wrong, that the Eagles' success has as much to do with the situation around Jalen Hurts as it does with Hurts himself.

In that they've had one of the best, if not the best offensive line in all football over the last half decade, which is, you know, his run as a starting quarterback.

He's been throwing to AJ Brown and Devonta Smith the last 4 years.

He's had Dallas Goddard at tight end.

He had Saquon Barkley the last 2 years, and still, there have been some fits and starts that the offense has gone through.

He's had a different coordinator every year for the last 4 years, which is crazy, and has a new one again this year in Sean Mannion.

So, like there's just lots of mitigating factors with Jalen Hurts.

Um, I think most people look at him as somebody that you have to build a specific system for and somebody that is gonna go as far as the pieces around him.

But again, he'll have a chance to prove that he can win without AJ Brown, um, this year, and he has performed at a very high level in big games.

He was great in the Super Bowl that he lost against the Chiefs , was great again in the Super Bowl that he won 2 years later against the Chiefs.

So it's not like the guy doesn't have feathers in his cap.

I'd say it's similar to Purdy is teams are weighing situation versus the quarterback himself, looking at the very elite and saying that Jalen Hurts falls just short of that.

That's the best explanation I can give you anyway because this is not my call.

This is, again, 1004 voters.

We try to get to as close, um, as close to a league consensus as we possibly can.

Hopefully, we We do that for you .

Be sure to check that out on the MMQB.

com.

The full list is up there, the methodology, the vote count, the amount of ballots each guy fell onto, wound up on, the amount of first-place votes each guy got, it's all there.

Be sure to check it out to get yourself ready for the season opener tonight.

We're almost underway.

We will see you guys on the other end of the Thursday night game for one last report this week.