2025 NFL QB ర్యాంకింగ్స్ వీక్ 17: కాలేబ్ విలియమ్స్ QB లాజిక్ను ధిక్కరిస్తూనే ఉన్నాడు
There were a lot of playoff-vibes games this week. And there was a lot of pressurized quarterback play, with signal-callers sinking or swimming in the face of divisional title races and/or the wild-card hunt. This was a special week that should make fans ravenous for the playoffs.
The Stock Market isn’t your typical QB rankings. I’m focused on monitoring the fluctuations of a QB’s performance throughout the season. No one — not even Matthew Stafford — is safe at the top. No one — not even Brady Cook — is stuck at the bottom. There is room for quick ascent — and rapid decline. One question holds most important: What have you done for your team lately?
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Find someone who trusts you like Bryce Young trusts Tetairoa McMillan.
With the division title race on the line, these two youngsters powered the passing offense.
You could, in fact, argue Young trusts McMillan too much. Their connection isn’t exactly efficient — in part because Young is always trying to feed T-Mac. Young has completed 58% of his passes (65 of 112) to the rookie receiver for 924 yards and seven touchdowns. That’s good for 14.2 yards per catch and 8.25 yards per attempt. But for a budding young quarterback-to-receiver connection, that’s great. And the more you watch this offense, the more you see that Young and the Panthers would be wholly lost without McMillan, who gives Young the confidence to attack the deep third of the field — and a safety net on third down.
Even on days when the QB-WR connection isn’t perfectly in sync, Young and coach Dave Canales always feed McMillan — particularly if he is 1-on-1 on the perimeter. Pretty much anytime Young sees that matchup, he sends the ball that way and toward the end zone. I wonder if, when the Panthers and the Buccaneers play again in Week 18, Tampa will commit more attention to McMillan to see if someone else can win for Carolina. Because this week, the Bucs were lucky McMillan and Young didn’t connect more often.
It’s still hard to say what Young can be. But this week, he showed he can be a good starting quarterback, particularly when he has T-Mac’s help.
If Rodgers has ever had a more patient game, I can’t remember it.
He had a staggeringly efficient game of dinking and dunking through the Lions secondary. He managed just 6.5 yards per attempt and completed 65.9% of his passes. He got the ball out in extremely speedy 2.45 seconds. And he didn’t turn the ball over. It was a masterclass in how to dissect a zone — and how to take what the defense gives you. (The Lions showed Rodgers zone on 33 of his 41 attempts.)
There was one play, of course, that wasn’t a dink or a dunk.
It was Kenneth Gainwell’s masterpiece.
And it came by Rodgers’ design. Before the snap, you could see Rodgers improvising — telling Gainwell something before moving the RB out wide. What happened there?
“Aaron called a play and he told me just go out and run a go ball,” Gainwell said postgame.
Rodgers whipped the ball downfield and, even though Gainwell was fighting through a defensive pass interference that brought him to the ground, the RB snagged the ball. Untouched when he made the catch, Gainwell then got up and ran it into the end zone.
“It takes unbelievable concentration to catch a ball like that. I kinda lost it for a minute in the light, and then last second, it came to me. Just put my hand on the ground and — I don’t know how I caught that,” Gainwell said.
Rodgers remains one of the sharpest minds in the game. His arm is still as live as ever. He doesn’t get love like Matthew Stafford. But it’s no coincidence Rodgers was incredible on money downs this week. Rodgers earned nine first downs on third- and fourth-down plays in Week 16, his most in a game since Week 17 of 2019, per Next Gen Stats. On those late downs, he was a remarkable 11 of 14 for 112 yards.
Keep in mind: This felt like a playoff game. If the Steelers lost, their playoff chances would’ve slipped to 55%. And the Lions basically could not lose, as they are now on the cusp of being eliminated from the postseason. Thanks to Rodgers’ (sometimes mind-numbing) efficiency, the Steelers pulled this off. Oh, and they got a little help from the refs, too.
Rodgers is quietly putting together a really nice season where he’s beaten good teams in different ways every week. The Steelers aren’t going to the Super Bowl. But I would not want to see them in the wild-card round. No way.
Williams’s body of work keeps defying the Tom Brady School of Quarterbacking.
So, what do I mean? Brady has often discussed eliminating the bad plays from his repertoire. You don’t miss an open receiver. You don’t put the ball in harm’s way. You play hero ball to keep your team out of trouble and ahead of schedule.
That’s not Williams.
Certainly, he’s steadily getting more consistent with accuracy and he’s always been surprisingly good in terms of decision-making. But he has finished with a completion percentage below 60% in 10 of the last 12 games, including in his comeback win over the Green Bay Packers this past Saturday. He played three quarters of subpar football. But he played incredible football in the fourth quarter and in overtime.
In that sense, Williams plays more of the Josh Allen School of Quarterbacking. You make a mistake? That’s fine. Do something special on the next drive to atone for the error.
“I can make any throw,” Williams said last week.
There’s no doubt. Just watch the final throw of the game against the Packers: a 49-yard touchdown in overtime. It is PFF’s highest-graded throw of the year.
Or check out the throw from the Bears’ win over the Cleveland Browns.
It’s comparable (in aesthetic) to “The Catch” from the 1982 NFC Championship Game.
Williams has completed 57.8% of his passes to the tune of 3,400 yards, 23 touchdowns and six touchdowns. And while we don’t really know what we’re going to get on any given outing from Williams, we’re starting to expect one thing: The dude shows up in the fourth quarter.
“He came through and he always makes plays when needed. He’s clutch like that,” Johnson said after Saturday’s game.
Can he keep doing it?
There’s that iconic scene from Happy Gilmore: “Happy learned how to putt. Uh oh.”
Did Darnold just have his Happy Gilmore moment against the Rams?
Because much like Gilmore couldn’t figure out how to putt, Darnold couldn’t figure out DC Chris Shula’s defense. It wrecked him in Week 12 for four interceptions. The Rams’ defense stumped Darnold for nine sacks during the last postseason with the Vikings, too.
The Darnold-Shula matchup was what made last Thursday night into must-watch TV.
But … I hate to say it. I don’t know if Happy learned to putt.
The Seahawks kept Darnold around for just long enough to find his confidence. He looked at a loss for much of the game. On third downs, he was 0 for 6 with two interceptions for an EPA of -16.7, per The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin. You saw shades of Darnold finding his groove late in the fourth when he tied the game with an impressive touchdown pass to A.J. Barner. It was a great play design that showed off Darnold’s arm strength.
And then, overtime happened.
That was when Darnold looked like a special quarterback, connecting on throw after throw. He might have enjoyed the best throw of his career on a strike to Cooper Kupp — with Darnold firing the ball to the sideline over the second level.
He never had to throw in on third down in that overtime period because the Seahawks stayed ahead of schedule, running the ball on their only overtime third down.
And still, I don’t know if this game will serve as a predictor of what’s to come in the playoffs. Kenneth Walker, Nick Emmanwori and others did a whole lot to help keep the Seahawks in the game. The officials did a whole lot to help keep the Seahawks in the game. (Just look at that controversial 2-point conversion where the officials made at least two flagrant errors: blowing the play dead and calling it a backward pass.) And because Darnold never had to throw it on third down, Shula didn’t hit the Seahawks with as many exotic looks in that OT period.
So has Darnold figured out Shula? Not yet. Not just because of one drive.
No, you can bet Shula will come back firing in the playoffs. Maybe Darnold can use the overtime win to launch himself into confidence. But I’m not ready to trust Darnold quite yet.
It has been another stellar year from Goff.
The QB nerds are allergic to counting stats, but with Goff, you’ve got to give them a look. In 15 games, he has 4,036 passing yards, 32 touchdowns and five interceptions with a 68.6 completion percentage. In short, he’s played wonderfully.
It’s like this with him year after year now. He is the sixth quarterback in NFL history to throw for at least 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns in three consecutive seasons. Also on that list: Drew Brees, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Peyton Manning and Dan Marino.
But again, if counting stats aren’t your thing, let’s look at some advanced stats. In terms of EPA per dropback this year, Goff sits at .15 — tied with Allen (an MVP candidate) for fourth in the NFL among QBs with at least 100 dropbacks. The only guys above Goff? More MVP candidates: Matthew Stafford (.2), Jordan Love (.2) and Drake Maye (.2).
This is all to say that the Lions are likely to miss the playoffs largely because of everyone else — and not Goff. And the Lions lost this past Sunday to the Steelers largely because of everyone else — and not Goff. No, Goff put together an impressive performance, even with his characteristic struggles against the blitz. He nearly had the comeback win, too. If not for a pair of offensive pass interference calls (one more legit than the other), the Lions might still be in the playoff hunt.
I don’t think the 31-year-old Goff is polarizing anymore. But if you don’t think he’s among the league’s best, you’re not watching. This season continued to erase questions about Goff.
There is absolutely no reason to think that Stafford has lost any ground in the MVP race after the loss to the Seahawks. Stafford was downright incredible as his defense came up short against Seattle in last week’s Thursday night shootout.
The strange thing about the game was that, when he was throwing downfield to Puka Nacua, the star receiver was … wide open. That’s how the Rams generated 225 yards out of the Stafford-Nacua connection.
But that didn’t mean Stafford’s 49-pass performance was easy.
With Davante Adams out, Stafford also had to squeak yards out of Xavier Smith, Konata Mumpfield and Davis Allen (who?!). Stafford was ripping the ball into tight windows. He was layering the ball over the second level with touch that — genuinely — only he can do.
Adams’ absence actually helped Stafford’s MVP case, because the only knock on his impeccable season has been that he has too many weapons. Sometimes, voters want the MVP to lack a supporting cast, much like we saw when Josh Allen won over Lamar Jackson last year. But perhaps this game — yes, this loss — will help Stafford.
Before joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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