As preseason is well underway in the NFL, it is time to take a look at the landscape of the NFL. The only way to start is to take a look at the most important position in the game, the quarterback. For the preseason, Marc Magaña will be going division by division ranking quarterbacks. This week, Marc wraps up the NFC with the NFC North.
Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers will most likely go down as one of the best of all time. After sitting behind Brett Favre for a few years, Rodgers stepped in and made his own name in the NFL. Even non-Packer fans can’t deny Rodgers is one of the most entertaining quarterbacks to watch in the NFL.
His stats aren’t half-bad either. During his career, Rodgers has thrown for just about 43,000 yards, 333 touchdowns, and only 80 interceptions. Although his touchdown numbers aren’t as high as Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Tom Brady, for every interception he throws, he throws four touchdown passes immediately after. The fact he has not hit triple-digit interception numbers to this point in his career is astonishing.
Rodgers is finally free of his former coach, who he apparently never quite got along with heading into 2019. New Packers head coach Matt LaFleur has quite the task cut out for him with trying to control Rodgers this season. Overall, Rodgers has always been at his best when ad-libbing, but how much of that is LaFleur going to allow? Perhaps an even better question is, who actually runs the show in Green Bay?
Matthew Stafford
Ever since the departure of Calvin Johnson, Stafford hasn’t been quite the same. In this passing era, Stafford has posted solid stats, but there is just something lacking. The Lions haven’t made the playoffs since 2016. Still, Stafford has been consistent in the regular season, posting over 38,000 yards, 237 touchdowns, and 129 interceptions. The Georgia product has been at the very least, average.
Going into 2019, it’s unclear what to expect from the Lions. Matt Patricia has another year under his belt, but is it enough to get the Lions into the playoffs? Stafford just hit 31; how long will he continue as quarterback for the Lions?
Mitch Trubisky
Trubisky’s ahead of Kirk Cousins for two reasons. Cousins has shown us time and time again he was an average quarterback who was helped by a brilliant offensive mind in Sean McVay, and Mitch Trubisky has the brilliant mind of Matt Nagy at his disposal. Trubisky has thrown for over 5,000 yards, 31 touchdowns, and 19 interceptions in his young career. He led the Bears to the playoffs with his 14 games played this past year.
While Trubisky doesn’t have all of the tools many elite quarterbacks in the league have, the Bears have done a great job putting weapons around him. It will be interesting to see where the rushing yards come from this year for the Bears. We know it won’t be Tarik Cohen, but is the combo of Mike Davis and David Montgomery enough?
Kirk Cousins
I’ll start it off by saying, I’m not a very big believer in Kirk Cousins at all. I think what he has done up to this point in his career has largely been because he was under the tutelage of one of the best young coaches in the NFL.
A large part of his success in Washington was due to the fact that his receivers were able to turn short routes into big gains. Don’t get me wrong, Cousins is a solid starter in the league, but I think he has proven to us he is not the guy teams can count on to take them to the next level.
In his NFL career, he has posted over 20,000 yards, 129 touchdowns, and 65 interceptions. Overall, he has had a solid career. He has a high completion percentage and does a good job moving the chains. All in all, the Vikings are a good situation for a quarterback like him. Head coach Mike Zimmer is a defensive-minded head coach. If Cousins is average and protects the ball, with that stingy defense, the Vikings have a chance at the playoffs.
