The Success Or Failure Of Recent First Round Qbs Using Passing Success Rate

There have been 21 QBs taken in the first round of the draft over the last six drafts. About half of them have been successes, but we need to define what that means. To me a successful first round QB is a QB that is still a starting QB in the NFL after his rookie contract. Since some of these guys are still on their rookie contract, we will have to be subjective about their projected futures in the NFL. Here is the list of all 21:

• Justin Herbert
• Joe Burrow
• Tua Tagovailoa
• Trevor Lawrence
• Mac Jones
• Jordan Love
• C.J. Stroud
• Justin Fields
• Bryce Young
• Bo Nix
• Caleb Williams
• Drake Maye
• Zach Wilson
• Kenny Pickett
• Jayden Daniels
• Cam Ward
• Michael Penix
• Anthony Richardson
• Jaxson Dart
• J.J. McCarthy
• Trey Lance

So let’s sort these into guys who have cemented themselves as starting QBs in the NFL, guy who haven’t yet, and guys who never will.

Guys who have “made it” – 10

• Justin Herbert
• Joe Burrow
• Trevor Lawrence
• Jordan Love
• C.J. Stroud
• Bryce Young
• Bo Nix
• Caleb Williams
• Drake Maye
• Jayden Daniels

You could argue that Drake Maye is just the next Matt Cassel, but I saw enough of what he was able to do last season (admittedly against some terrible defenses) to conclude that he is going to be the long-term starter at QB for the Patriots. You really can’t argue with any of the other QBs as they have all led their respective teams to the playoffs, which is usually enough to get a second contract if you are a first round QB who is on a rookie deal. You could also make the argument that Bryce Young has yet to “make it” but he did lead the Panthers to the playoffs last season (admittedly as an 8-9 team in the weakest division in football).

The guys who could still end up with great careers – 3

Usually if you don’t “get it” by your third NFL season, you are never going to be a successful starting QB in the NFL. We’ll deal with each of these guys separately as their aren’t that many.

Tua Tagovailoa – he actually led the Dolphins to the playoffs in 2023, but the Dolphins have moved on from him. He was released and picked up by the Falcons. There is a possibility of him having a Sam Darnold-esque career resurgence, but the odds are fairly low, unless Michael Penix is not the answer in ATL. In that case Tua could have prove that he can function is an offense that is not run-based with almost exclusively quick throws. We’ll see some of this in the analysis later.

Michael Penix – He was blocked as a rookie by Kirk Cousins. He only started three games. The Falcons committed to him in 2025, allowing him to start 9 games. He was injured in November and placed on the IR. He led the NFL in interception avoidance with an INT rate of 1.1% among qualifiers. His three good career games (passer rating of >100) all came last season, and his best career game so far came against that stout NE pass defense last season in Poxboro. Penix will need to show that he can repeat that level of performance against good defenses to keep his starting role with Tua nipping at his heels.

JJ McCarthy – After missing all of his rookie year with a torn ACL McCarthy had an terrible start first season as the starter in Minnesota. His ratio of 11 passing TDs to 12 INTs was one of the worst TD:INT ratio among starters. Only Shedeur Sanders and (7/10) and Brady Cook (2/7) were worse. Generally this is not a stat that you want to be at or near the bottom in. Most of the guys who show up here are not long as starters in the modern NFL. Tua (20/15), Carson Wentz (6/5), and Geno Smith (19/17) all are in the bottom of this list and all will be back-up QBs in 2026. In fact, you have to get to Tyler Shough (10/6) and Sam Darnold (25/14) to find QBs who will be the starters (barring injuries) for their team in 2026 among the starting QBs who had poor TD/INT ratios in 2025 (2.0 or worse). His interception rate is one of the worst this century for a QB with 200 or more throws. There 231 QBs with 200 or more passes, his INT% is currently 227th. Among recent QBs only Tim Boyle (5.6%) and Matt Barkley (6.1%) are worse. Obviously he could improve, but even being on this list is close to a death knell for a recent NFL QB – see the second table. Notice Tua on the top list and JJ on the bottom list.

So let’s focus on success rate. Success rate in passing is the same as running. A successful pass on first down gains 40% of the needed yardage. On second down it gains 60% of the needed yardage, and on third or fourth down it converts.

The worst starting QB in the NFL by passing success rate by season going back to 2016:

• 2025 – Cam Ward
• 2024 – Anthony Richardson
• 2023 – Bryce Young and Zach Wilson
• 2022 – Russell Wilson
• 2021 – Zach Wilson
• 2020 – Dwayne Haskins
• 2019 – Mason Rudolph
• 2018 – Josh Rosen
• 2017 – DeShone Kizer
• 2016 – Case Keenum

Many of the failed QBs on the list above were not ready to be NFL starting QBs as rookies, were forced to be the primary starter, and never recovered/developed because of that. Jordan Love most likely would have followed the same path if he did not have the chance to sit and backup ARod.

The guys who have about a 2% chance of success – 8 (we’ll focus on 3)

Justin Fields – The starter who led the league in TD/INT rate last season was Justin Fields (7/1). Kudos to you if you knew that, since I follow NFL stats and I didn’t know that. Some guy named Matthew Stafford was second at 5.8 (46/8). The other side of this coin is interception rate. Fields currently has a career int% of 2.4% which is not bad, but he also doesn’t throw many TD passes. His career TD% of 3.9% is quite low relative to his peers. Lamar Jackson has a career 6.5% which is one of the best in history, but when Chris Redman (4.2), Tyler Thigpen (4.1), Mike Glennon (4.1), and Josh Freeman (4.0) all had a better TD% than you, your chances of finding a team that will use you as the primary starting QB are quite slim. Fields is his fourth team and had played five NFL seasons.

Cam Ward was the first overall pick in the draft, and that alone will give him many more chances than a QB like Spencer Rattler will get (just ask Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray). Ward played on a bad Titans team with few offensive weapons around him and a poor offensive line in front of him. He was sacked 55 times (most in the NFL) in 2025 and still was able to complete nearly 60% of his passes and throw 15 TDs and only 7 INTs while starting and playing every game for TN. That’s the good. Now the bad. Ward had a passing success rate of 38.2% as a rookie. That was dead last among starters by a large margin. McCarthy’s 41.1% was second worst. Brock Purdy led the league at 55.3%. League average was 45.2%. Other starters who have been dead last in this include Anthony Richardson (2024), Bryce Young and Zach Wilson tied (2023, Z. Wilson again in 2021), Russell Wilson (2022), Dwayne Haskins (RIP, 2020), and Mason Rudolph (2019). He see the pattern here. This is a list that you really want to avoid if you have hopes of being a long-term starting QB in the NFL. Josh Rosen was the “winner” in 2018 at 36.3%, but there is hope. Josh Allen was second to last at 37.1%.

Jaxson Dart was taken with the 25th pick in 2025 and started 12 games for the Giants as a rookie. He is in the same boat as Cam Ward in that his passing success rate was one of the worst among starters this past season at 41.7%. That’s actually equal to Josh Allen’s passing success rate from his second NFL, but few QBs in NFL history have been able to achieve the improvement over time that Allen has. Allen jumped from a success rate of 41.7% in 2019 to leading the NFL in success rate in 2020 at 56.5%. That being said, Dart, Ward and Tagovailoa can take heart in the story of another guy who found success after moving to his second NFL team – Daniel Jones.

Daniel Jones had the second worst passing success rate among starting QBs as a rookie in 2019. He moved up to 31st of 35 in 2020 (42.8), then to 27th in 2021 (43.9), and made his big jump in 2022 to 16th (45.7). In 2023 and 2024 he backslid partly because of playing through injuries (37.4 and 43.0), but then he was great in 2025 (ranking 5th at 52.0).

Some of the success rate for a QB comes from the offense in which he plays as we saw with Brock Purdy (55.3 in 9 starts) and Mac Jones (53.4 in 8 starts) who both played in the Shanahan offense of the 49ers.

If we look at every starting QB in 2025 and color code a table of their passing success rate by season we want to look for QBs who improved from red-orange to yellow and then maybe green. Few have done it, but let’s focus on the others besides Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones and Josh Allen. Keep in mind that passer success rate is not the be all and end all of QB play. It is a stat and viewed alone it can lead to erroneous conclusions.

Baker Mayfield has been an odd duck in that he has had two really good seasons (2024 and 2020) and then the rest of his seasons have been below average – although he had never been the worst starting QB in the league in passing success rate. Kirk Cousins peaked in 2020 and dropped down to 46% for every season until 2025 when he dropped down to 44.3% which was below average.

League average has hovered around 45-46% every season in this study with the exception of 2020, when it jumped to 48.0%.

Bo Nix is trending in the right direction going from 43.7 as a rookie to 45.6 in his second season. I would expect him to improve some up to 49% or so next season, but what are your expectations for him in his 3rd season. Josh Allen and Jordan Love really hit their stride in their 3rd season as a starter, as did Baker Mayfield (before fading), Kyler Murray and Deshaun Watson.

As mentioned earlier, Josh Allen made a huge jump in his third season and has stayed there since. Sam Darnold was bad as a starter for the Jets, but then he has made a huge jump in his last two seasons for the Vikings and the Seahawks.

Aaron Rodgers peaked in 2020 and has been getting worse ever since. He hit his career low as a starter last season at 42.9%. This tells me it’s time for him to retire. Peyton Manning hit a career low in his final season of 40.6%. He hung up his cleats after that. PFM led the league in passing success rate in 8 of 9 seasons that he played from 2003-2012. He was second in the league in 2013 with a passing success rate of 55.2% which was his best in Denver. Phillip Rivers led the league that season at 55.7%.

Now here’s the catch with passing success rate, having a decent run game helps improve the QB’s numbers in this stat. If the offense can consistently gain four yards on first down runs, that should make the job of the QB easier if the team decides to pass on second and six, partly since the playaction should be fairly effective on 2nd and six. If you look at the leaders in passer success rate from 2025, that was not the case. The top five teams in average yards per actual run (kneeldowns removed) on first down were the Ravens, Broncos, Jets, Falcons and Bears. None of those teams had a QB in the top of the league in passer success rate. It is informative to look at how often teams ran on first down. The Broncos ran 235 times on first down which was near the bottom of the league, while the Bills led the league with 306 first down runs. The Faiders were the only team with fewer than 200 runs on first down – which means that they had no clue had to use Ashton Jeanty as a rookie.

In general it appears that recent QBs have some improvement in their third season as a starter, but that can be small like Jalen Hurts (+0.3) or Daniel Jones (+1.1), or it can be big like Josh Allen (+14.8), Bryce Young (+5.2), or Baker Mayfield (+8.9)