I notice that two of the marquee rookie quarterbacks put up good preseason numbers. Blake Bortles in particular, connecting on a lot of downfield throws. Teddy Bridgewater worked mostly against the deep backups, but he managed to finish with a passer rating of 111.2.
Cross-referencing against previous years, Bridgewater and Bortles grade out as two of the top four preseasons by quarterbacks taken in the first round. In the last nine years, only four other quarterbacks have had passer ratings over 100.
On the downside, there doesn’t appear to be a strong correlation between that first preseason and eventual pro success. EJ Manuel and Mark Sanchez are the only other quarterbacks with passer ratings over 110, and neither of them is on the fast track to stardom.
Arguably the best quarterbacks on the list are Andrew Luck, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Cam Newton and Matthew Stafford. None of them have great preseason stats in their first year.
| FIRST-ROUND QUARTERBACKS -- PRESEASON STATS | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Pct | Yards | TD | Int | Rating |
| 2013 | EJ Manuel | 78.8% | 199 | 2 | 0 | 112.0 |
| 2014 | Teddy Bridgewater | 61.2% | 283 | 5 | 0 | 111.2 |
| 2009 | Mark Sanchez | 64.9% | 347 | 3 | 1 | 111.0 |
| 2014 | Blake Bortles | 62.7% | 521 | 2 | 0 | 110.0 |
| 2006 | Jay Cutler | 64.5% | 561 | 4 | 1 | 108.3 |
| 2012 | Robert Griffin III | 64.5% | 193 | 2 | 0 | 103.3 |
| 2007 | Brady Quinn | 64.4% | 300 | 3 | 1 | 96.5 |
| 2010 | Sam Bradford | 60.0% | 338 | 3 | 0 | 95.9 |
| 2006 | Matt Leinart | 61.7% | 314 | 2 | 0 | 95.5 |
| 2012 | Andrew Luck | 62.1% | 522 | 3 | 2 | 89.3 |
| 2011 | Jake Locker | 65.3% | 316 | 2 | 1 | 88.5 |
| 2010 | Tim Tebow | 64.1% | 344 | 2 | 2 | 88.0 |
| 2011 | Christian Ponder | 55.1% | 290 | 1 | 0 | 79.5 |
| 2014 | Johnny Manziel | 50.8% | 296 | 2 | 0 | 76.7 |
| 2008 | Matt Ryan | 57.6% | 294 | 2 | 1 | 75.1 |
| 2006 | Vince Young | 50.9% | 357 | 1 | 1 | 69.1 |
| 2008 | Joe Flacco | 52.2% | 284 | 1 | 0 | 68.3 |
| 2012 | Ryan Tannehill | 52.6% | 414 | 1 | 1 | 66.9 |
| 2011 | Cam Newton | 42.1% | 300 | 1 | 0 | 64.9 |
| 2011 | Blaine Gabbert | 50.0% | 365 | 1 | 1 | 64.3 |
| 2012 | Brandon Weeden | 49.0% | 297 | 0 | 1 | 59.7 |
| 2009 | Matthew Stafford | 54.5% | 389 | 1 | 4 | 52.8 |
| 2009 | Josh Freeman | 44.9% | 238 | 1 | 3 | 41.0 |
| 2007 | JaMarcus Russell | --- | 0 | 0 | 0 | --- |
—Ian Allan