Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
There's a theory bouncing around the internet that the NFL is entering a quiet crisis of talent. That youth talent pipelines are in decline for a variety of reasons, including CTE fears and a general emasculation of American youth along with pay-to-play camps and lower level coaches variously accused of being too obsessed with winning at all costs and ignoring player development, or alternatively too obsessed with player the "right" way and failing to teach proper winning football.
Evidence offered is the decline of great QB play in the modern NFL. You have ancient QBs, some of them mediocre to begin with, being called in and showing a certain intelligence and ability to run an offense that modern quarterbacks lack. Phil Rivers came off the couch and started games, Case Keenum was able to just shred my Philadelphia Eagles. The ability to process and run an offense seems like a lost art.
People argue that the youth participation rate is drying up, that the most talented athletes no longer go into football in the same way they used to, that college players are choosing to stay in college for Van Wilder years and then retire with their money rather than enter the NFL, and that as a result professional football will inevitably decline.
I don't actually know enough about football to make a judgement about the evidence offered, my question is about prior historical examples.
What other sports have followed a similar pattern in this or other countries: popular sport, declines in talent as a result of youth participation drying up with the quality of players and play declining to the point where the old are simply better than the young for too long, and an ultimate slide towards irrelevance? I can imagine examples, but none I know enough about to be sure.
Football talent isn't declining; internet talk is a bunch of guys in high school and college who haven't been around long enough to realize that the league goes through ups and downs and that some players are mercurial. To the extent that there is a decline, the short answer for the reason for it is that since 2018 teams have been swinging for the next Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson, and draft capital ends up going to guys like Trey Lance and Anthony Richardson. To be fair, there isn't much of a choice, as few colleges run pro-style offenses anymore, so rookie QBs have to be taught basic skills like taking a snap from under center. Fun fact: Steve Young never took a snap out of shotgun once in his entire career. We're also coming out of an era where it was expected that the top ten QBs in the league would all throw for 4,000 yards. This was an anomaly brought on by rule changes and the aforementioned changes in college football. Now that defenses have adapted to it, you aren't going to see it as much.
Anyway, just for fun a took a look at the starters this year and compared them to starters from 2007. I picked the year arbitrarily, but it was long enough ago that nobody old enough to start would have been prohibited from playing football as a child due to fear of long-term cognitive impacts.
The Top Tier Mahomes and Brady are equivalent as they're both the undisputed alpha's of the league at this point in their careers. They may not have the most impressive stats, but they're up there, and they have multiple championships to back it up. Behind them you have Peyton Manning and Josh Allen, who everyone agrees are the most talented if not the most accomplished. This year the top tier also includes Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Brock Purdy and Jared Goff. In 2007 it also included Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers, and Drew Brees. There are more QBs today who can reasonably be described as "top tier" than there were in 2007.
The Second Tier Good QBs, but nobody would argue that any of these guys are better than any of the guys in the first list. For example, one might argue the relative merits of Burrow over Jackson, but nobody would take Trevor Lawrence over either of them. Also in this category are Sam Darnold and Jordan Love. The 2007 version includes Donovan McNabb, Eli Manning, David Garrard, Matt Hasselbeck, and Carson Palmer.
Cowboys QBs The parallels between Tony Romo and Dac Prescott are too big to ignore. Both are very good quarterbacks statistically. Both are underrated by Cowboys fans due to lack of team success, which is almost entirely due to Jerry Jones.
They Come with Baggage Players who showed promise in the past but whose talent is now beginning to be questioned. This is where Justin Herbert, Baker Mayfield, C.J. Stroud, and Jalen Hurts land. The 2007 equivalents were Jeff Garcia, Kyle Boller, Chad Pennington, and Marc Bulger. Advantage 2026 because that comparison seems cruel now that I look at it, but it could easily go that way for either of these guys.
The Young Guns They've showed promise but it's too early to tell how their careers will go. This year it's Drake Maye, Bo Nix, Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams, and Jaxson Dart. The 2007 equivalents were Alex Smith, Jay Cutler, Derek Anderson, and Matt Schaub. I'm going to tentatively give the advantage to this year, since none of the guys on the 2007 list ever actually made the playoffs at that point, and Smith is the only one whose career can't be called a disappointment.
The Young Busts Cam Ward is the only bad young player with a regular starting job. In 2007 we had Trent Edwards, J.P. Losman, Brodie Croyle, and Jason Campbell.
They Still Have It Matthew Stafford is this generation's Brett Favre. Both have played consistently well throughout their careers, and aren't slowing down despite being in their late 30s.
They Have It (Again) Kirk Cousins was a good but not great starter who got stuck in a crappy situation in Atlanta and is having a good season on the Raiders even though he has no business doing so. Kerry Collins was a good but not great starter who got stuck in a bad situation in Oakland and had a good season with the Titans even though he had no business doing so.
Whatever the Hell This Is Jameis Winston was a highly touted prospect who got dumped from his original team in favor of an aging veteran (Tom Brady) for throwing too many picks, became a backup, and was later forced to start due to injury. Daunte Culpepper was a highly touted prospect who got dumped from his original team and was replaced with an aging veteran (Brad Johnson) for throwing too many picks, became a backup, and was eventually forced to start due to injury. I give Jameis the edge since the Giants might win the division, even if it's by default.
Let's See What We Have Tyler Shough and Tavaris Jackson were both untouted second-rounders who were made starters at the beginning of the season after their teams decided that they wouldn't be resigning aging vets, Derek Carr and Brad Johnson respectively. Neither showed much promise, and I doubt Shough's fate will be any different than Spencer Rattler's.
We Don't Know What We Have Bryce Young looked like a bust several years into his career and still might be. Rex Grossman took the Bears to a Super Bowl but was constantly injured. Neither of these guys is reliable going forward.
The Journeyman Backups There is little difference between Jacoby Brissett and Josh McCown.
The Aging Vets 2007 had a surplus of aging veterans who ended up starting and don't fit into any of my other categories. These included Trent Green, Jon Kitna, Damon Huard, Brian Griese, and Trent Dilfer.
He's Still in the League? Aaron Rodgers and Kurt Warner are both Hall-of-Famers who, after getting dumped by their teams, went to New York under terrible circumstances and got better after leaving the Big Apple. Advantage to Rodgers since Warner didn't do shit in Arizona until his fourth year there.
Only Starting Due to Injury The following don't count for this year: Cooper Rush and Jalon Daniels. In 2007, Cleo Lemon and Joey Harrington similarly didn't count.
Special Cases DeShaun Watson is in a class of his own, unprecedented in league history, made even more unprecedented by the unexpectedly good season he's had so far. Malik Willis was a 3rd round project who Miami signed as a starter after he had a few good weeks as a backup in Green Bay. Daniel Jones was a bust, then not, then went back to being a bust, then had a good start last year but the Colts missed the playoffs anyway. Geno Smith was a bust who had a mid-career renaissance before going back to being bad. Kyler Murray was a decent QB who didn't live up to the hype but his doing well in Minnesota. Nothing weird like this happened in 2007.
The Verdict QB play these days is better than it was 20 seasons ago, or at least isn't noticeably worse. There are 6 QBs in the top tier now compared with 5 in 2007. The second tier has 3 this year compared to 5 then, but this doesn't account for the comeback stories of Murray and Watson. All the other categories are either washes or give 2026 a slight advantage. Case Keenum starting for an injured Caleb Williams doesn't say anything, especially when he was promptly replaced by an undrafted free agent who played in Division 2 in college. The asterisk guys in particular are what gives it away. Of Bulger, Garcia, Boller, and Pennington, Garcia was the only guy who had any real hype, and he was never as good as Herbert was early in his career. Add in that Hurts won a Super Bowl and it's no contest. Boller was only ever good in the context of the low standards of Ravens starters, Bulger had one decent year and was then just sort of there, and Pennington got a little bit of hype for blowing out Peyton Manning in the playoffs but had accuracy and injury problems. If picking a team it would be hard for me to take any of the 2007 guys over any of the 2026 guys, though that may just be recency bias. Anyway, it's pretty clear to me that, at least based on this historic year, there's no reason to believe that QB play has declined substantially. I'm not seeing a few good QBs surrounded by a revolving door of dogs. If anything, teams in those days seemed to give aging veterans longer leashes.
You bring up the Colts signing Phillip Rivers off the couch last year, despite being 43 and out of the league for several years. Well, what were their other options? They lost their top 2 QBs to injury and were down to a rookie sixth-rounder who had played terribly in relief of Jones. The Colts were still very much in the playoff race at this point, but it was past the trade deadline. Rivers was old, but he was a borderline Hall-of-Famer and had played for the team before. And it didn't work; he lost all three games he started. Any available quarterback of normal age would have been one not good enough to play third string on another team. But there are occasionally old guys out there who will still play if they can start but aren't going through training camp and road games and what have you so they can sit on the bench all season. Rivers was one of those guys. Compare this to 2007, when the Panthers signed 43-year-old Vinny Testaverde off the couch after Jake Delhomme's injury, despite having David Carr and Matt Moore on the roster, both of whom were in their 20s and had prior NFL experience. It wasn't past the trade deadline, and Testaverde wasn't anywhere near the player Rivers was.
I don’t think you can put Purdy and Goff in top tier. They are no where close to Roethlisberger, Brees, and Rivers who probably all be first ballot HOF. Purdy was good with great talent. Goff literally was a salary dump in a trade a few years. And Mahomes career is a little bit in free fall right now as he’s a waiver wire available in all my leagues despite being in his prime.
I agree both are borderline, but Goff was run out of town after one bad year, and he's led a top-5 offense since the Lions got their shit together. I'm not quite as hot on Purdy, but he's never been in a situation where the 49ers have questioned their choice to roll with him. The point is that I'd rather have him under center than Jordan Love, Sam Darnold, or Trevor Lawrence, and it's not even close. Comparing him with Roethlisberger and Rivers isn't appropriate because both of them played in the high-flying 2010s. Ben put up big numbers during the Killer Bs era, but he was generally the kind of guy who would put up his biggest numbers in seasons when the team was mediocre and he had to pass a lot. During the Killer Bs era he usually hung around the lower end of the top ten in passing yards and his first two years he didn't crack the top twenty, including his first Super Bowl year. Rivers put up bigger numbers but is widely regarded as worse. This isn't to rag on either of them, just to demonstrate that I'm not looking at raw numbers here to make my determinations. You have to account for the era, and Ben and Phil played in an era when QBs put up the biggest numbers. Joe Montana never had a 4,000 yard season, while Matt Schaub had 3. Who would you rather have as your QB?
As for Mahomes, it's the same deal. The guy isn't putting up the fantasy numbers he used to; so what? Would you rather have Bryce Young as your quarterback? Rashee Rice has been out the past 2 games, Kelce isn't what he used to be, and they finally have a reliable running back. Andy Reid isn't trying to rack up fantasy points for Patrick, he's trying to win games, and the Chiefs are 5–0. What games has Mahomes played poorly in?
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