The Worst NFL Quarterback Every Year Since 2000
Contrary to the words of the immortal Ricky Bobby, if you’re not always first, you’re not always last. In fact, when you’re an NFL quarterback, you’re one of 32 individuals holding what is the most renowned — and most difficult — position in all of professional sports.
So when you’re the best among this select group of 32 individuals, it’s definitely noteworthy. But when you’re the worst? It’s also pretty noteworthy, considering you couldn’t beat out any of the other 31 guys who have the exact same job you do.
That’s I compiled this list: to identify the worst quarterback in the NFL, in each and every season since the turn of the century.
017: DeShone Kizer, Cleveland Browns — Imagine what life must feel like for a Cleveland Browns fan. In 2016, your team traded out of the spot that ended up yielding Carson Wentz, who is the favorite to win the MVP award in 2017. This past season, your team traded out of the #12 spot, in which the Houston Texans — the team they traded with — ended up taking Deshaun Watson, who was easily the most exciting rookie quarterback the league had seen in years, until his season-ending injury. And your consolation prize in all of this was quarterback Deshone Kizer, an overwhelmed rookie who’s thrown an NFL-high 14 interceptions in only nine games this season.
2016: Ryan Fitzpatrick, New York Jets — In 2016, Ryan Fitzpatrick had all the “Fitzmagic” of one of those cheap boxes of magic tricks you’ll see at an elementary school book fair. The year after going 10–6 as the starting quarterback of the New York Jets, Fitzpatrick was absolutely terrible in 2016, finishing with a 3–8 record in the game he started, throwing 17 interceptions (the second most of any non-rookie quarterback that year), and finishing with the second worst quarterback rating in the NFL (45.4). Not surprisingly, the Jets released him after the season was over. And yet, Fitzpatrick is also still in the NFL, showing you just how starved the league is for quarterbacks who are even halfway competent.
2015: Nick Foles, St. Louis Rams — Tantalized by the fact that he was only one year removed from a season in which he threw for 27 touchdowns and only two interceptions as the starting quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, the St. Louis Rams sent Philadelphia a couple of draft picks for the right to acquire quarterback Nick Foles. That deal would go down as another terrible trade that the Rams organization has made in recent years. Foles went 4–7 as the starting quarterback of the Rams, finishing with the worst quarterback rating (32.4) in the NFL that year. And yet, he was still somehow surprised and upset when the Rams went ahead and selected quarterback Jared Goff in the subsequent NFL Draft.
2014: Blake Bortles, Jacksonville Jaguars — If we’re using movie titles to describe Blake Bortles, than you could describe the way he looks getting off the bus as “Tarzan,” and the way he plays on gameday as “Clueless.” As a rookie in 2014, we got an early glimpse of how far away Bortles is from being a viable NFL quarterback, when he finished with a 3–10 record in the 13 games he started that year. He ended the season throwing 17 interceptions, which was tied for the second most in the NFL, and finished with a quarterback rating of 31.7, which was dead last in the league.
2013: Eli Manning, New York Giants — After being named to the Pro Bowl after the 2012 season, Eli Manning had an absolutely miserable season the following year, in a season in which the Giants finished with their first losing season in almost a decade. Not only did he finish with the third-worst completion percentage (57.5) of his career, but he was sacked a career-high 39 times as well. And when he was able to stand upright and throw passes, a lot of them went to the other team; he threw a career-high and NFL-high 27 interceptions that year. That season was one of the big reasons the Giants eventually brought in then-offensive coordinator (and current head coach… for now) Ben McAdoo.
2012: Brandon Weeden, Cleveland Cavaliers — It was immediately apparent that, despite all his success at Oklahoma State University, and despite the fact that he came into the NFL as a 29-year old rookie, Brandon Weeden was not meant to play quarterback at the professional level. After being taken in the first round of the 2012 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns, Weeden went 5–10 as a rookie, throwing the second most interceptions in the NFL that year (17), and finishing the year with a paltry 36.6 quarterback rating. He never started more than five games at any point in his NFL career again, even though he’s still (somehow) in the league.
2011: Josh Freeman, Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Josh Freeman was big, strong, athletic, and talented quarterback whom the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft. He was inserted into the lineup late in his rookie year, and named the starter at the start of a 2010 season in which he not only led Tampa Bay to the playoffs, but was even named an alternate selection for the Pro Bowl. But just like the team as a whole the following year, Freeman was a major disappointment amidst the enormous expectations for him and his team. He went 4–11 as the starter, throwing 22 interceptions that year (which was second most in the league). He had the worst passer rating (74.6) of any quarterback with 15 or more starts that year.
2010: Jimmy Clausen, Carolina Panthers — The only thing that Jimmy Clausen was consistently good at, over the course of his quarterbacking career, was failing to live up to expectations. As the most sought after recruit in the history of college football recruiting, Clausen never took the University of Notre Dame to a BCS bowl game. Despite once being viewed as a potential #1 overall pick in the NFL Draft, Clausen fell to the 2nd round of a 2010 NFL Draft that was pretty marginal for quarterbacks. And after being named the starter for the Carolina Panthers in his rookie year, Clausen finished the year with an unheard of 15.0 quarterback rating, which was dead last in the NFL among all quarterbacks.
2009: Marc Bulger, St. Louis Rams — In truth, there were multiple seasons in which Marc Bulger could have been named the worst starting quarterback of that particular season. After once looking like the next “unheard of quarterback gracefully commanding the greatest shown on turf,” Bulger suffered through bouts of injuries and inconsistent play as the quarterback of the St. Louis Rams. In 2009, after Mike Martz was dismissed as the team’s coach, Bulger went 1–7 in eight games as the Rams starter, finishing with an abysmal 33.7 passer rating. He never started an NFL game after that, and retired from the league just two seasons later.
2008: Jamarcus Russell, Oakland Raiders — It could easily be argued that Jamarcus Russell was the biggest draft bust in the history of the NFL. After being taken with the #1 overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft, he never even came anywhere near the same galaxy of living up to the immense potential that scouts and observers had seen in him. He started off his career on the wrong foot from the get go, missing all of training camp in his rookie year, in a contract hold out. In his first season as a full-time starter, Russell provided a glimpse of things to come. He won five of the 15 games he started, threw for an NFL-low 161.5 yards per game, and finished with a laughable 31.8 quarterback rating, which was also the worst in the league.
2007: Rex Grossman, Chicago Bears — The fact that Rex Grossman led the Chicago Bears to the Super Bowl in 2006 seems like some type of historical anomaly; in reality, it speaks to just how good the Bears defense was that year. Despite the fact that his performance as a starting quarterback was a self-professed “roller coaster ride,” head coach Lovie Smith stuck with Grossman the following year, and the quarterback repaid him in kind by committing ten turnovers putting up a 45.2 passer rating over his first three games of the year. Eventually, Smith benched Grossman in favor of Brian Griese that year. Grossman finished th season with a 66.4 quarterback ranking, which was ranked 32nd in the NFL that year.
2006: Charlie Frye, Cleveland Browns — Charlie Frye was unfortunately another product of the factory of sadness that is the quarterback position of the Cleveland Browns. After going 2–3 down the stretch of his 2005 rookie season, the Browns named Frye the starter for the 2006 season. Par for the course in Cleveland, Frye won two games in five starts in 2005, but only four games in 13 starts the next season. He finished the year with a miserable 46.1 quarterback rating, and had the second-lowest passing yards per game (188.8) of any quarterback with more than 12 starts that year. Sadly enough, Frye was still named the starting quarterback for the Browns the following year.
2005: Aaron Brooks, New Orleans Saints — As an under-the-radar acquisition via trade from the Green Bay Packers during the 2000 NFL Draft, Aaron Brooks was put into the starting lineup of the New Orleans Saints the following season, and never gave the job back after helping lead the team to a 10–6 record and a playoff appearance. Unfortunately for Brooks, that was the last time he was able to take the Saints to the playoffs. After two mediocre seasons in 2003 and 2004, Brooks had a horrific year in 2005, going 3–10 in the 13 games he started, and had the second worst quarterback rating (70) of any player with more than 12 starts that season.
2004: Vinny Testaverde, Dallas Cowboys — It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that the worst quarterback of the 2004 NFL season also happened to be seven years older than any other starting quarterback in the league. Playing for the 5th team in 17 seasons at that point, Vinny Testaverde had one of his worst seasons as a starting quarterback, since he had left the miserable situation in Tampa Bay (the team that drafted him). He tied for the most interceptions thrown by any quarterback that year (20), and won only five of the 15 games he started for Dallas Cowboys. At 41 years old that year, it was his last season as a starting quarterback in the NFL.
2003: Jeff Blake, Arizona Cardinals — “Shake and Bake” Jeff Blake made a name for himself in the mid-1990’s, going from a sixth-round pick by the Cincinnati Bengals to a Pro Bowl quarterback for the team in 1995. But after leaving Cincinnati a few years later for “greener pastures,” Blake could never recapture that success. After pit stops in New Orleans and Baltimore, he had a brief stint in Arizona, which was absolutely disastrous. He lost 10 of the 13 games that he started for the team that year, and finished with a 69.6 passer rating. Unsurprisingly, Blake bounced around two more teams after that, before his NFL career ended.
2002: Joey Harrington, Detroit Lions — In all fairness to Joey Harrington, as decorated of a career as he had at the Universty of Oregon, he simply wasn’t ready to play in the NFL as quickly as he was thrown in the Detroit Lions, who took him with the third overall pick in the 2002 NFL Draft. Then head coach Marty Mornhinweg inserted Harrington as the starter late in a Week 1 loss, and stuck with him for the rest of the season. Harrington’s 59.9 quarterback rating was dead last in the NFL among all starters, and his 163.9 passing yards per game was second worst. As we all know, Harrington went on to become one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history.
2001: Chris Weinke, Carolina Panthers — At Florida State University, quarterback Chris Weinke led the Seminoles to back-to-back appearances in the National Championship game (winning the first of those two), and swept the majority of the postseason awards in 2000, including the Heisman Trophy. Of course, the caveat to all of that was that he was 28 years old when all that happened, having spent a number of years playing professional baseball. So when the Carolina Panthers drafted Weinke in the 2000 NFL Draft, they thought they were getting a mature rookie who could step in and play right away. Clearly, they were wrong. As a rookie in 2001, Weinke averaged less than 200 yards passing per game, threw 11 touchdowns, and 19 interceptions in 15 games.
2000: Jake Plummer, Arizona Cardinals — Jake “the Snake” Plummer was something of a local legend in the greater Phoenix area, after leading the Arizona State Sun Devils to a Pac-10 Championship and Rose Bowl appearance. So when the previously moribund Arizona Cardinals drafted him in the second round of the 1997 NFL Draft, that caused a major buzz in the area. But after a promising start to his NFL career, Plummer really struggled in 1999 and 2000. In the latter season, he threw for only 13 touchdowns and had 21 interceptions in only 14 games, with a 66.0 quarterback ranking. That was the worst among any quarterback who had started at least 12 games that year.
Story originally written as a freelance opportunity for TheSportsDrop.com
