• Changing of the guard: Precise pocket passers like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning used to rule the NFL with their accuracy and processing from under center, but that is starting to change.
• Dual-threat era: The rise of the athletic quarterback and the resurrection of option football have created an evolution in evaluating quarterback prospects.
• 2025 NFL Draft season is here: Try PFF’s best-in-class Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2025’s top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Quarterback evaluation is arguably the most important part of building a championship-winning roster. As the game of football continuously evolves at the lower levels and in the NFL, so do the quarterback’s duties. The proliferation of mobile quarterbacks and the modern resurrection of option football have played a crucial role in these changes.

As we keep that offensive evolution in mind, we will take a closer look at how quarterback evaluation has changed over the past two decades, resulting in the current archetype of player that generally succeeds in today’s game.

Before getting into the schematics of it all, it’s worth noting that finding a long-term franchise quarterback is extremely difficult. First, we’ll take a look at each quarterback class that can be at least roughly quantified via PFF statistics to demonstrate how hard that task is.

Number of QBs in each class with 80.0 or higher career PFF grade (min. 1,000 snaps played)

Seventeen of the 19 Super Bowls in the PFF era (since the 2006 season) have been won by quarterbacks with at least an 80.0 career PFF grade. Ten of those 17 were won by players who were drafted before 2006 – Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers. The only exceptions among the full group are Joe Flacco, who owns a 78.6 career PFF grade, and Nick Foles, who was starting in place of Carson Wentz, who owns an 81.2 career PFF grade.

These quarterbacks that compile an 80.0 or higher career grade are tough to find and often come in waves. In total, 27 such quarterbacks have been drafted with a minimum of 1,000 snaps played so far in their career across 19 draft classes, which averages out to less than 1.5 per class.

Using certain extraordinary classes as a reference point, we can divide up periods of dominant quarterbacks and find out what worked best as far as individual success for those players

2004: The golden era of pocket passers

The legendary 2004 quarterback class of Eli Manning, Philip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger isn’t referenced above, but all three played the vast majority of their careers in the PFF era. All of them earned at least an 80.0 career PFF grade. Along with their contemporaries like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, the 2004 class represented what every franchise was looking for at the time – an ultra-precise pocket passer.

Though they could make the occasional play outside the pocket, Roethlisberger being the best among them, these are the passers who excelled when they were protected and allowed to step up and stay in rhythm within the pocket.

Career passing grades

All six of these passers are likely to be headed to the Hall of Fame, but they certainly won’t be remembered for their exploits on the move. Lamar Jackson and Jayden Daniels recorded more rushing yards in 2024 alone than four of the six players above did in their entire careers.

Of course, this was before the read option and run-pass option were even thought of at the NFL level, so it makes sense that athleticism wasn’t as prioritized. Quarterbacks were expected to play within a dropback structure all the time. Teams also ran over 80% of their plays under center in 2006 as opposed to roughly only 30% of the time in 2024. The quarterbacks of that previous generation played a completely different game than today.

2011-2012: The experimental phase

The 2011 and 2012 draft classes saw six quarterbacks who have so far earned at least an 80.0 career PFF grade – Cam Newton, Andy Dalton, Andrew Luck, Ryan Tannehill, Russell Wilson and Kirk Cousins. That group doesn’t include 2012 second-overall pick Robert Griffin III, but his influence plays a part in this as well.

Start with Newton, whose dual-threat capabilities and read-option prowess lit the college football world on fire during his Heisman-winning season at Auburn in 2010. The eventual NFL MVP gave credence to the idea that a team could build its entire offense around its quarterback at the highest level as opposed to just the passing game. His 80.6 career PFF grade is built on the balance of his 77.4 passing grade and 73.9 rushing grade.

As for the others, Griffin was drafted second overall after a Heisman-winning campaign at Baylor with the idea that he could perform similarly to Newton as the dual-threat centerpiece. Dalton and Wilson were pocket passers with baseball backgrounds that allowed them to function well outside the pocket. Tannehill was a wide receiver at Texas A&M before switching to quarterback. Luck, the son of ex-NFL QB Oliver Luck, was an excellent athlete for his size as well.

While there were other passers who could improvise well, namely Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers, a new era of dual-threat passers were ushered in with the rise of players from these two draft classes. An emphasis on athleticism and rushing was becoming a focus, particularly with regard to designed run plays.

Excluding sneaks and kneels, quarterbacks across the league compiled just 918 designed carries across five regular seasons from 2006 to 2010. That number more than doubled to 1,881 designed carries, again excluding sneaks and kneels, across the next five regular seasons. Teams were beginning to search for elite dual-threat players and were adjusting their playbooks accordingly.

2017-2020: Athletic freaks, improvisation and the rise of the RPO

Starting in 2017 with Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson, some NFL teams began to tinker with the idea of an improvisational playmaker being among the most dangerous weapons in the NFL. Aaron Rodgers had made a career out of it by this point, but the league couldn’t yet find more players who could emulate that style.

Mahomes, in particular, changed that thinking, leading to that improvisational skill set becoming increasingly important in evaluating prospects. Once players like Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson were drafted in 2018 as well as mobile passers like Jordan Love, Jalen Hurts and even Joe Burrow were selected in 2020, it seemed as though athleticism and improvisational skills were suddenly required on the road to quarterback greatness.

That influence has continued into more recent draft classes. Twenty or more years ago, it’s more unlikely that players like Kyler Murray, Bryce Young and Caleb Williams would’ve been drafted first overall due to a perceived lack of size and recklessness.

Early draftees who are more stationary players, like Kenny Pickett or Mac Jones, are unable to keep up with the demands of modern offense. Two factors make this a credible point.

First, the increase in athleticism has led to a greater emphasis, as previously mentioned, and greater effectiveness for quarterbacks running the football. Prior to 2017, NFL quarterbacks hadn’t combined for a rushing grade of at least 70.0 in a single season. Most of the earlier seasons in PFF history saw abysmal rushing production from quarterbacks.

Turn the clock forward to the past five seasons and we see a completely different level of production.

League-wide QB rushing stats (Excluding Sneaks/Kneels)

Quarterbacks are now legitimate weapons in the run game, and they continue to improve as a greater emphasis is put on them contributing to it. The 92.9 rushing grade in the above table is an all-time high for a single season for quarterbacks in the PFF era. The yards after contact and missed tackles forced per attempt figures put quarterbacks above the league average for running backs in both categories in 2024.

Not only have designed carries increased for quarterbacks in recent years, but the rise of the run-pass option (RPO) has allowed them to effectively tie all of their abilities together. Quarterbacks are now more familiar than ever with their pre-snap reads at the high school and college levels with the simplicity that RPO concepts provide.

Roughly 10% of plays in the NFL involve an RPO concept. Nearly 23% of plays at the FBS level in 2024 included an RPO concept. The rise of the RPO is unlikely to stop any time soon, and quarterbacks who can effectively execute it will continue to succeed at a high level. It should come as no surprise that Patrick Mahomes has run the most RPO plays in the NFL over the past five years. Right behind him are Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts.

Several of this year’s quarterback prospects and those in recent years have excelled in the RPO game. NFL stars like Jayden Daniels, Brock Purdy, and Trevor Lawrence ranked among the top-graded players in college football when executing RPO concepts in their final amateur season. It should come as no surprise that several quarterbacks in this year’s group, including Cameron Ward, Shedeur Sanders and Jaxson Dart, have put up similarly excellent RPO profiles.

Arm talent, accuracy and processing will always be the most important factors with regard to evaluating passers. However, the game has changed to a point where athleticism and the ability to execute option-style football have become essential components to the success of an NFL offense as opposed to ancillary pieces of it.