Chiefs rule the roost in AFC West quarterback rankings
By Matt Conner
From Patrick Mahomes to Nathan Peterman, we decided to rank each and every one of the AFC West’s 15 quarterbacks to see which team had the most promise.
Unless they possess a historic defense or the playmakers involved are future Hall of Famers, the success of an NFL franchise will most likely live or die by the talents under center. Quarterbacks make or break a team in the NFL and it’s always been that way. It’s even more emphasized now in today’s pass-happy league.
As AFC West teams begin to report for training camp we thought it would be an interesting exercise to see which teams have the most talented or promising quarterbacks, top to bottom. We didn’t just rank the starters. We also looked at the backups, third quarterbacks and even fringe roster hopefuls.
In total, the AFC West has 15 total quarterbacks hoping to show what they can do this preseason and we’ve ranked all of them front to back. We’ll begin with worst and work our way toward the best, and that means we gotta start in Oakland.
15. Nathan Peterman, Oakland Raiders
The Brodie Croyle of the Buffalo Bills. Peterman has 3 touchdowns to 12 interceptions in his brief NFL career, and he’s looked completely overmatched in any of his four NFL starts. Somehow he earned Kirk Cousins comparisons coming out of Pitt, and analysts praised his arm, accuracy and NFL readiness. Perhaps Mike Mayock just wants to see if he can still bounce back, but there’s no reason to believe in Peterman until proven otherwise. It’d be a total surprise if Oakland is still employing Peterman come September.
14. Chase Litton, Kansas City Chiefs
Chase Litton made Chiefs Kingdom laugh on Twitter this week when he took notice of Madden’s own low score for him at 45 overall. Given that no one really knows what he can or cannot do on the NFL field, we’re letting Madden do a bit of work for us here and ranking him just above Peterman but below everyone else.
At this point, the competition for the Chiefs third quarterback, if they even carry one, is on between Litton, a former starter at Marshall who signed as a rookie free agent last year, and Kyle Shurmur, this year’s version of the same out of Vanderbilt. We’re going with Shurmur, but alas, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Either way, we could be totally wrong, and Litton certainly has his fans among Chiefs faithful. Reid and company saw something they like, so we’re hoping to be completely wrong here.
13. Kyle Shurmur, Kansas City Chiefs
Shurmur signed with the Chiefs as an undrafted free agent this spring and comes with lots of starting experience as a nearly four-year starter at Vanderbilt (playing against the best in college football in the SEC). It also helps that he’s the son of longtime NFL coach Pat Shurmur, meaning he’s going to have the sort of intangibles that come from growing up around the game.
Shurmur showed great ability to improve in college as he moved from 9 touchdowns and 10 interceptions during a full year starting during his sophomore season to 24 touchdowns and 6 interceptions during his final year. He improved his accuracy and average yards per attempt each and every year at Vandy, and now he’s a sleeper in the pros working with one of the NFL’s most creative minds. Shurmur is a longshot, just like anyone this far down the list, but there are some elements to really like here.