2026 NFL Draft Quarterback Rankings
Christian Williams analyzes the top quarterbacks in the 2026 NFL Draft and gives his final rankings.
The 2026 NFL Draft is full of intrigue, and the quarterback class follows that blueprint. From what many believe is a surefire top pick to four players formerly mocked inside the top ten, the class has potential if you’re choosing a glass-half-full approach. While the 2024 quarterback class will be the standard to answer the question, “Is this a good quarterback class?”, classes with this much experience offer a slightly obscure answer. While the top two quarterbacks only have three-and-a-half years of starting experience combined, the rest of the group averages around three years of starting experience individually. This class is perplexing many evaluators, and there are too many factors to be perfect with quarterback evaluation. However, our model has produced positive results since its inception in 2020, with many tweaks over the years. Here’s our current slate of designations.
And here’s how I rank the 2026 quarterback class.
Quality NFL Starters
Fernando Mendoza | Indiana
6050, 236 LBS | RAS: N/A | Position Rank: 1 | Prospect Grade: 82.40 | Round Grade: 1st
No surprises here, but Mendoza slots in as my No. 1 quarterback. He wins with supreme accuracy, especially in the short areas of the field. He has a strong arm, showing off the ability to push the ball to the boundaries with ease on opposite-hash throws. His diagnoses of defenses, especially pre-snap, set him apart from most college quarterback prospects. He consistently knows where to go with the ball before the snap, allowing for a methodical, churning passing attack. Indiana made Mendoza’s life easy, but he was a master of the RPO-heavy, short-and-chippy passing attack. This isn’t to minimize Mendoza’s deep-ball accuracy, because when he was allowed to unleash it downfield, he was excellent. Those moments were especially prevalent in crunch-time situations, with his downfield attack in the clutch boosting his draft stock immensely. He had game-winning throws against Penn State and Ohio State in the regular season, and his ability to operate in the clutch throughout the season was awe-inspiring.
While there’s a lot to love about Mendoza, a few things stand out as slightly worrisome. He constantly panics when he’s inside a muddy pocket, dropping his eyes, throwing out his footwork, and scrambling frantically. He’s a great pre-snap processor, but there were times on film when his frontside reads were covered, and he tends to pull the ball down instead of progressing properly to his backside reads. He’s not the most mobile quarterback in the class, even if he shows off impressive straight-line speed. When he’s pushed off his spot, his off-platform work is fine, but it’s nothing that moves the needle. He’ll need to be better at creating from outside the pocket at the NFL level, especially if he’s sitting behind a Raiders offensive line.
If you want a more in-depth report, check this article out:
Fernando Mendoza: Locked-In No. 1 Pick or Overrated?
There isn’t a position in sports more challenging to project than the quarterback position. Ask all the NFL teams who have swung and missed on a “bust-proof” prospect. Sure, there are the players who are destined for greatness: Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, Trevor Lawrence, Caleb Williams, and many others. But when destiny is unclear, such is the case with all the potential 2026 quarterbacks, the evaluation becomes murky. College offenses function in ways that emulate a completely different sport than the NFL, and sifting through physical and mental traits to determine which quarterbacks can meet the moment once they’re under center for an NFL team is why front office and head coach turnover remains high.
NFL Comparison: Kirk Cousins
NFL Starters
Ty Simpson | Alabama
6010 | 211 LBS | RAS: N/A | Position Rank: 2 | Prospect Grade: 75.19 | Round Grade: 2nd
Much has been made of Simpson’s rollercoaster season, with many suggesting his true NFL potential sits between the highs and lows. Early-season Simpson was operating on another level, especially post-snap, with quick eyes, consistent anticipation, and NFL-level attacking, the latter of which offered more translatable throws than Mendoza. Late-season Simpson was a mess, with accuracy issues, hesitancy, and a lack of drive on the football. Some, and perhaps most, of that can be excused by the multiple injuries he was battling (lower back, gastritis, elbow bursitis, and a fractured rib). Many will suggest that he doesn’t have the frame to hold up at the NFL level, given that he has just one year of starting experience and a plethora of injuries to show for it. He’s a big question mark in a class full of question marks, as the best version of Simpson sat atop my quarterback rankings midway through the year.
As mentioned above, Simpson wins with intelligence, adequate arm talent, and enough of an off-platform repertoire to suggest a higher ceiling can be achieved. He consistently attacked the middle of the field, throwing into windows with anticipation, and doing it with premium accuracy. Later in the year, those throws were reduced primarily to short, boundary throws, likely to accommodate his pain levels when he was unleashing throws. While I didn’t chart every Simpson throw before this article, he was on target on 49 of 63 throws between the hashes between 0 and 20 yards. To put that into perspective, Mendoza attempted fewer throws to those areas despite my charts including four more games. Simpson’s willingness to throw between linebackers and safeties opened up the field for him, and when he was pushing the ball deep, he showed off excellent accuracy.
While Simpson has shown excellent potential, he’s not a perfect prospect. Athletically, he’s just average. He has enough juice to scramble and create some yards, but it’s in a tier below a Bo Nix-level scrambler. He has enough zip to throw into tight windows, but his arm should never be considered elite. And lastly…
The main hang-up for many evaluators is proof of concept. The world has just one year to evaluate, and many of those late-season games were injury-ridden. That leaves fewer than one full season to determine if he’s the future of a franchise. It’s tough to bet on someone without significant college starts, especially when there’s enough evidence to suggest that a low number of starts leads to NFL busts more often than not.
Simpson is maybe the most perplexing prospect in the 2026 class, and my grade on him is similar to Jaxson Dart’s last year. That’s around where I expect he’ll go in the draft, too.
NFL Comparison: Sam Darnold (Seahawks Version)
