RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesASHWAUBENON, WISCONSIN - JULY 31: Jordan Love #10 of the Green Bay Packers looks on during the Green Bay Packers training camp at Ray Nitschke Field on July 31, 2026 in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images) | Getty Images
For almost a decade, The Athletic has been running a series where they ask 50 NFL coaches and executives how they feel about quarterbacks, forcing them to rank signal-callers into tiers so the publication can average out the numbers into rankings. In this year’s edition of Mike Sando’s rankings , Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love finally cracked the league’s top-10 passers for the first time.
Below are Sando’s quarterback rankings of the NFL’s first two tiers of quarterbacks, which, again, are the opinions of NFL coaches and executives.
Tier 1
1: Patrick Mahomes
t-2: Josh Allen
t-2: Matthew Stafford
4: Joe Burrow
Tier 2
5: Lamar Jackson
6: Justin Herbert
7: Dak Prescott
t-8: Drake Maye
t-8: Jared Goff
10: Jordan Love
t-11: Brock Purdy
t-11: Caleb Williams
13: Jayden Daniels
t-14: Baker Mayfield
t-14: Sam Darnold
16: Trevor Lawrence
17: Jalen Hurts
Love received two Tier 1 votes, 37 Tier 2 votes and 11 Tier 3 votes. Every season that he’s been a starter, more and more NFL voters buy into the idea of him being a Tier 2 quarterback. Overall, he moved up three spots from last year’s rankings, passing Jayden Daniels, C.J. Stroud, Jalen Hurts and Baker Mayfield, but was passed by Drake Maye, too.
Below are some quotes that coaches and executives had for Sando about Love’s game:
“He’s good — I was surprised,” an opposing defensive coordinator said. “Really solid, mobile, threw with better accuracy than I thought. I’d give him a 2.”
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“Smart, can do things at the line, has the arm talent, the mobility when he needs it, but knows how to sit in and deliver,” another defensive coordinator said. “Not a consistent killer yet, but if he plays good ball, you can win a Super Bowl with him.”
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“There are years where I could have pushed Love up to the bottom of Tier 1, top of Tier 2,” another defensive coach said. “He needs more consistency, week-in and week-out. He has some WTF plays and throws, like, ‘Why are you doing this?’”
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“He is still coming into his own as a player,” another defensive coordinator said. “Early on, he was trying to be Aaron Rodgers. You could tell from his mannerisms: too cool for school. I think he is starting to settle into who he really is. He has the size, the length, all the tools.”
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“If you can create pressure on him and make him move around, it ain’t the same,” an exec placing Love in Tier 3 said. “It took Aaron Rodgers three years to learn how to manipulate the pocket. Brett just did it. The question is, can Love learn it?”
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“I used to think Josh Allen was a 2 because he just does too much where I go, ‘OK, it’s not by the book, it doesn’t always look the way it is supposed to, but God, is it productive,’” an offensive coach said. “Jordan Love is the Tier 2 version of that. He is at times careless and overly aggressive. It looks like it shouldn’t be working, and he’s getting away with things.
“But he’s always getting away with them, so at some point, I just have to tip my cap and be impressed.”
Personally, I’m still taking Love over Jared Goff, who is 1st in the NFL in EPA/dropback from a clean pocket but 28th in the NFL when pressured (out of 32 qualifiers) over the last three seasons. Love is sixth in both categories, for what it’s worth.
To me, Goff absolutely needs a good offensive line to make things work, or it can get real ugly. At least I get the arguments for the likes of Maye or Justin Herbert off physical ability, but ranking Goff over Love seems incorrect to me at this point.
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What do you guys think? Is Love ranked too high or too low? Did the NFL get it right? Let us know in the comments section.
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