The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: NFC North QBs

Adam Nelson   |  

Jan 9, 2019

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The NFC North is brimming with talented players, and the quarterback position is no exception. Each of the four starters in the division is highly gifted and respected. While one man cannot single-handedly bring his team to the Super Bowl, no one else on the roster is as important as the quarterback. Now that the 2018 NFL season is over for every team in the division, let’s take a second to review how each man under center performed and what they need to improve in 2019 and beyond!

The Good:

Mitch Trubisky:

In his sophomore season, the second overall pick in the 2017 draft helped turn his team around in dramatic fashion, bringing the last place (in the division) Bears to their first division title since 2010. Even with Trubisky missing two games due to injury, he still nearly tripled the number of wins he had in his rookie season. With both the least pass attempts and completions out of the four division starters, Trubisky had the highest touchdown pass percentage. He also had the least sacks in the NFC North.

At 24 years old, Trubisky will be the face of the Bears for a long time to come. If he can keep replicating these figures he’ll have no problem going toe to toe with other gunslingers in the league. He had 104 more pass attempts this season than last year, and 17 more touchdowns to show for it. If his pass attempts reach 500 or 600 (like his division colleagues), the Bears offense will be absolutely dominant.

Kirk Cousins:

Despite the up-and-down season the Vikings seemingly had, Cousins had a great season in terms of passing statistics in his first year with the Vikings. This was the 30-year-old’s seventh season in the league and his fourth as a starting quarterback. Cousins had personal season bests in completion percentage, touchdowns, and interception percentage. The Michigan State alum was the sixth player in NFL history to throw over 4000 yards, over 30 touchdowns, and 10 or less interceptions in a season, and the first one to accomplish that feat with a completion percentage over 70%.

The $84 million dollar man’s downfall was his lack of pocket presence which led to him getting tackled by the defense on a fairly regular basis. With 40 sacks, Cousins had nine fumbles and recovered only three. Cousins can connect with any receiver on the team, but a lackluster offensive line gives him almost no time to consider his options before having to scramble out of the pocket.

The Bad:

Matt Stafford:

The good news is Stafford had his second-best season in both pass completion percentage (66.1%) and interceptions (11) as a starter. The bad news is he had his lowest yards per completion in a season and failed to reach 4000 passing yards for the first time since 2009 (where he started 10 games).

Stafford is one of seven players to have over 5000 passing yards in a season, and in 2016 he had a record eight game-winning drives in a single season, all fourth-quarter comebacks. He can throw the ball pretty darn well. At 30 years old, Stafford’s 10th season in the league was very disappointing. His receiving corps wasn’t stellar, but did have stars Kenny Golladay and, before being traded to Philadelphia, Golden Tate (whom he clearly missed). Completing passes as well as any other quarterback in the league, Stafford simply just wasn’t throwing the ball far enough down the field.

The Ugly:

Aaron Rodgers:

After Green Bay’s blessed son suffered a broken collarbone in the 2017 Week 6 game against Minnesota, most people assumed that the Packers’ season was over. And they were right. With a 4-1 record before that game, the Pack would finish the year at 7-9. The state of Wisconsin was ripe with anticipation for Rodgers to return in 2018 at full strength and lead the team back to the playoffs. Apparently, no one told Green Bay they had their starting quarterback again because they had a dreadful year.

Despite having near career bests in pass attempts, completions, and passing yards, Rodgers just couldn’t get the job done. His pass completion percentage was 62.3%, good for his second worst season as a starter. Rodgers made up for this by throwing the ball 597 times this fall, and his team still came up short. Green Bay scored 376 points and gave up 400, and finished with a losing record of 6-9-1.

The main issues with the Cheeseheads were coaching and team cohesion. The former was addressed with the firing of former head coach Mike McCarthy, who led the team to a Super Bowl win in 2010. The latter is yet to be fixed, as the team finished their last three games 1-2, narrowly beating a 4-10 New York Jets team in overtime. During the Week 17 matchup against Detroit, Rodgers was forced to leave early after suffering a concussion. Green Bay was down 7-0 at the time and would leave Lambeau Field after suffering a 31-0 shutout. The Pack is hopeless without Rodgers. He’s a stellar athlete, but despite playing in the meaningless division matchup “citing the importance from a leadership standpoint”, he has a lot of work to do to get the rest of the team to perform. At 35 years old, Rodgers will probably retire at the end of his current contract after the 2021 season. He has three more years to unite and rebuild the team. Until then, no more playoff games for Green Bay.

Here are the current career standings for each of the four starting quarterbacks against NFC North teams:

As always, special thanks to ESPN and Pro-Football-Reference for all statistics. Please subscribe to our Patreon to get exclusive content and perks, and follow me on Twitter @somekidadam to stay up to date on all things Vikings!