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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/sad_bear_noises on 2026-03-17 01:21:16+00:00.
QB Rankings
Haters of the world unite. With Chris Simms dropping his 2026 QB rankings today, it’s time to tear them to shreds. But I decided to really ponder the question: “Who ranks quarterbacks better? The NFL, or could it be Chris Simms?” While the haters among us would instantly shout out “But Zach Wilson!”, friendly reminder, the NFL drafted him 2nd. So if Simms was far off, the NFL was only one pick less wrong.
Simms is famous for “contrarian” takes over the years, but is he a contrarian, or is he just right? Starting out with a bang in 2017 making Mahomes his #1 and following it up in 2018 by making Lamar #1 and Josh Allen #2. But over the years some huge misses like Matt Corral, Zach Wilson, and Drake Maye. Who really wins out over time? Maybe when it’s all taken together, Chris is actually smarter than the NFL?
To put it to the test, I decided to collect quarterback stats and see who actually predicted performance better: Chris Simms, the NFL Draft, and as a bonus, the consensus big boards you can find on nflmockdraftdatabase.com.
tl;dr: If you’re a Chris Simms hater, the rest of this post is probably not for you, and you should skip to the snarky comment. I’m 100% sure my methods are flawed, but I don’t care. Have fun.
Source Data
- 40 quarterbacks across 8 draft classes (2017-2024)
- Simms’ top-ranked QBs from each class, matched against their actual draft position
- Stats sourced from nflfastR (via nflreadpy) and Pro Football Reference
- All stats aggregated through the 2025 season (2017 class has 9 seasons, 2024 class has 2)
Findings (2017-2024, n=40)
First, I chose to ignore 2025 for now. You can probably chalk up Tyler Shough as one of his worst misses, being entirely off the board, but with one season of data, they pretty much all look like bad QBs on paper compared to veteran QBs, and I didn’t think there was much to learn.
For all of Simms’ previous rankings going back to 2017, to calculate which predictor was really more accurate, I calculated a Spearman rank correlation to measure the correlation between QB rankings and actual QB performance. In a Spearman rank, a perfect prediction would be -1. This means the stats for each QB always descended for lower ranks. 0 would be no correlation and a score of 1 would actually be ranking them backwards. The better predictor would have a more negative Spearman coefficient, signifying they would have ranked the stats in the right order more often.
To measure QB performance I used a mix of volume stats like Total AV and Total Passing EPA as well as some efficiency stats like EPA/play and Avg CPOE.
It pretty well jumps off the screen that Simms is a leader in all of the efficiency metrics. I expected the Draft to have an edge on AV. Highly drafted QBs are going to get pressed into service no matter how bad they are. So even if Chris Simms predicted Kenny Pickett was not the guy, the Steelers still tried to make it happen, giving some bad QBs an artificial bump in AV. But even AV turns out quite close, and Simms is much closer to the draft than the consensus. However, the efficiency stats is where the busts can’t hide. In Total Passing EPA, it’s not even close, the draft is barely beating true random. If I wanted to win in exactly one stat, it would be EPA/play and Simms’ is crushing the draft in that stat.
I expected the consensus board to actually do significantly better, but it turns out to consistently be the worst predictor of QB performance. Turns out, the crowds lack some degree of wisdom.
| Metric | Simms r | Draft r | Consensus r | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total AV | -0.410 | -0.449 | -0.341 | Draft |
| Total Passing EPA | -0.348 | -0.099 | -0.092 | Simms |
| EPA per Play | -0.279 | -0.143 | -0.074 | Simms |
| Avg CPOE | -0.139 | -0.130 | -0.116 | Simms |
| Yards per Attempt | -0.259 | -0.230 | -0.231 | Simms |
| TD Rate | -0.280 | -0.226 | -0.224 | Simms |
| Comp % | -0.314 | -0.352 | -0.313 | Draft |
| Composite (all 7) | -0.349 | -0.331 | -0.278 | Simms |
| Avg abs® across 7 | -0.290 | -0.233 | -0.199 | Simms |
preview.redd.it/wrswby549ipg1.png?width=2083&form…
Who Ranked Each QB Better? (2017-2024 Draft Classes)
Each bar shows how many ranking spots closer Simms was vs the draft at predicting a QB’s actual within-class performance. A value of +3 means Simms’ pre-draft rank was 3 positions closer to where the QB actually finished in his class than the draft order was. For example, if Simms ranked a QB 2nd, the draft took him 5th among QBs, and he actually performed as the 1st-best QB in his class, Simms was off by 1 spot while the draft was off by 4 — giving a score of +3 (Simms closer). Green bars (right) = Simms was closer to reality. Red bars (left) = the draft was closer. For QBs where both the Draft and Simms were close, regardless of being too high or too low, the bar should be close to 0.
For example in 2020, Joe Burrow was #1 and Jalen Hurts was #5. As opposed to some big disagreements the NFL Draft and Simms have had, both the NFL Draft and Chris Simms agreed Burrow was number 1 and failed to predict his Hurts’ performance. So no one is getting credit for Burrow because everyone knew he was and no one is getting credit for Hurts because everyone (except Howie Roseman) was wrong.
Total Passing EPA
preview.redd.it/vgud9y659ipg1.png?width=3584&form…
EPA per Play
preview.redd.it/7kpwwjy59ipg1.png?width=3584&form…
Avg CPOE
preview.redd.it/9f4wsiv69ipg1.png?width=3584&form…
Total AV
preview.redd.it/r18fl4589ipg1.png?width=3584&form…
Year-by-Year (EPA/Play)
| Year | Simms | Draft | Consensus | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 1.000 | 0.500 | 1.000 | Tie (Simms & Consensus) |
| 2018 | 1.000 | 0.300 | 0.300 | Simms |
| 2019 | 0.400 | 0.900 | 0.600 | Draft |
| 2020 | 0.300 | 0.400 | 0.400 | Tie (Draft & Consensus) |
| 2021 | 0.100 | 0.100 | 0.300 | Consensus |
| 2022 | 0.400 | 0.200 | 0.300 | Simms |
| 2023 | 0.609 | 0.257 | 0.257 | Simms |
| 2024 | 0.257 | 0.086 | 0.200 | Simms |
Simms wins 4, Draft wins 1, Consensus wins 1, Ties 2 out of 8 years on EPA/Play.
preview.redd.it/s6jdzvp99ipg1.png?width=1783&form…
The Story
When I started this, I really didn’t know what I expected. I thought there was probably no way Chris Simms would beat the entire NFL. But then I remembered the Bears have had 3 goes at drafting a QB and have been wrong 2 out of 3 times. And the third one… well you can pry Caleb Williams from my cold dead hands, but Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye are pretty good.
Everyone knows the famous Simms calls, Mahomes #1 in 2017, Lamar and Allen at the top in 2018. And everyone knows the misses, Zach Wilson #1 in 2021, Drew Lock #2 in 2019. But I think what ends up getting lost, is over time there’s a volume of correct picks that the NFL is missing on.
Simms had Trubisky 3rd in 2017 when the Bears drafted him 2nd overall, Trubisky finished 3rd in his class by EPA. He had Baker Mayfield 3rd in 2018 when the NFL took him #1, Mayfield finished 3rd. He had Darnold 4th when the consensus had him 1st, Darnold finished 4th. He had C.J. Stroud over Bryce Young in 2023. He had Bo Nix 3rd in 2024 when the NFL let him fall to the 6th QB drafted, with the Falcons lighting a pick on fire to draft Penix ahead of him, Nix is now 2nd in his class by EPA/play.
Obviously, nobody is nailing all of their picks. In some metrics, the NFL draft is barely beating blind guesses. No one can get a coefficient below -0.5 for any metric, showing that picking QBs is just really hard. But across 40 quarterbacks and 8 draft classes, these calls compound. When you look at the composite score combining all 7 metrics, Simms’ correlation (r = -0.349) beats both the draft (r = -0.331) and the consensus big board (r = -0.278). On the diverging bar charts, Simms is closer to the actual performance rank more often than the draft on every efficiency metric.
With only a few QBs per class, it’s hard to get an adequate sample size, but when you look at 40 QBs over a period of 8 years, you have to give Simms his flowers. There’s an actual measurable edge he has over the entire NFL.
Individual QB Performance Table
| Player | Draft Yr | Simms # | Draft Rank | Pick # | AV | EPA/Play | CPOE | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Mahomes | 2017 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 137 | 0.230 | 2.8 | 125 |
| Deshaun Watson | 2017 | 2 | 3 | 12 | 63 | 0.081 | 2.7 | 73 |
| Mitchell Trubisky | 2017 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 43 | -0.004 | -0.9 | 63 |
| Lamar Jackson | 2018 | 1 | 5 | 32 | 109 | 0.164 | 1.8 | 116 |
| Josh Alle… |
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