Welcome back to the 2025 Dynasty Rookie Rankings Battle! While last week we finished up the highly touted running back class, today we switch to my 2025 Dynasty Rookie QB Rankings. Make no mistake, this year’s crop is much weaker than the historic 2024 draft class, which reset the talent pool at the position for the next decade. However, there is still some value to be had here. Let’s dive in as to why.
This article will rate each player using the categories in the Get Better at Dynasty Series, copied here for your convenience. Recall that the highlighting in the template reflects the relative importance of each trait, whereas the actual prospect report represents how strong they are in that skill.
(Note: Check out my last article, where I ranked the running backs of the 2025 NFL Draft!)
Fantasy-Relevant Traits
Rushing Ability
In this particular draft class, rushing ability is a one-horse race. Jalen Milroe will step into the NFL as a top-three rusher in the entire league the instant his name is called on draft night. The other quarterbacks in this class have “take the first down when it’s there” athleticism but will not be major rushing assets at the NFL level.
Milroe has truly rare rushing ability, which combines running back caliber size and strength (6’2”, 217 lbs) with Jayden Daniels-esque speed and explosiveness. Considering he didn’t test at the combine, I’m gonna guess he didn’t actually play at 225 lbs, but he clearly looks less wiry than Lamar Jackson and Jayden Daniels.
Let’s be clear here: we might never again see a quarterback as shifty and slippery as Jackson, so I can’t in good conscience tell you Milroe is a better rusher, but he’s the same tier of athlete as these two with more contact balance and strength. He had massive rushing equity at the goal line and will likely generate tons of rushing touchdowns at the NFL level as well.
Milroe’s rushing ability is a true trump card that changes how defenses play him and makes everything else easier for the rest of his offense. Among the ways he makes life easier for his offense:
His offensive linemen will have less to worry about with speed rushers, as well as twists and stunts because those types of rushes ruin lane integrity.
He’ll predictably face significantly more zone coverage than normal quarterbacks, and if he learns how to pick zones apart, it’s all over.
His running backs will be much more efficient because linebackers will be keeping their eyes on Milroe in the backfield a tick too long.
Milroe has the kind of rushing ability that lowers the bar for how effective a passer he needs to be at the NFL level, but there lies the rub. We’ll get to his passing later.
Jaxson Dart is the next most productive rusher in this group, amassing 495 rushing yards in his final season at Ole Miss. However, I don’t think this will translate to major rushing production in the NFL.
Dart was fed a steady diet of designed runs at Ole Miss, but he’s just not the kind of athlete who will continue getting these at the NFL level. He has good enough speed to gain yardage through major creases, but there is almost no elusiveness or change of direction whatsoever behind the line of scrimmage here.
Another major difference between Dart and the other quarterbacks, one that contributed to his rushing total, is that Dart dropped his eyes and became a runner too soon for my liking. It resulted in rushing yardage, but I think it’ll hurt him at the NFL level.
Don’t get me wrong; Dart can run pretty fast once he’s gotten up to speed, enough to step up through the middle of the pocket and get a first down when the defense is giving that up. But many, many quarterbacks in the NFL have that kind of athleticism to this point, so it’s not giving me a sense of urgency to draft him. While he outproduced Sanders and Ward on the ground this season, I think at the NFL level, they’ll rush for roughly the same fantasy points.
Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders' profiles are pretty similar here. Don’t be fooled by Sanders’ negative rushing total. That just means he took a lot of sacks (and we'll talk about that later, don’t you worry), but he’s actually equally as willing and able as Ward to rush for a first down when it’s available.
Both players are mobile but not explosive athletes who have just enough change of direction to avoid a rusher on occasion but who write checks their legs can’t cash when they go into creation mode. I expect both to have some but not a ton of rushing production at the NFL level, and both pretty clearly prefer to throw the ball rather than rush it in at the goal line.
Intermediate Passing
Between this crop of quarterbacks, the differences in anticipation jump out starkly. On the positive end of the spectrum, you have Cam Ward, who, despite having a long average time to throw, is actually extremely willing to throw with anticipation. Ward shows excellent command of his offense, knowing which concepts will be successful based on how the defense is lined up.
Ward routinely begins his throwing motion just before his wide receiver has started his break, and he frequently lets go of the ball before the receiver has even gotten his head around. If anything, he’s so confident in his reads and arm talent that he sometimes throws to his first read too much, assuming the player will get open or snap off his route correctly, which makes him look inaccurate when the receiver doesn’t get to the spot.
I want to make two very important points here. First off, I want as many shares as possible of Ward’s WR1 in the NFL. Ward is supremely confident in his reads and arm talent. If you pair him with a legit WR1, he will routinely attempt and complete throws that cannot be defended if the wide receiver runs to the correct landmark and comes back to the ball correctly.
Lacking either anticipation or confidence causes quarterbacks to waste elite wide receivers, while quarterbacks with this Matthew Stafford-esque level of arm talent and aggression can sustain an entire drive just by targeting their WR1. Please, please get Ward an NFL receiver who thinks about the game the same way as him, and they will be an unstoppable duo.
Second, while Ward has a bit of a reputation for not being too accurate, and granted, sometimes the ball sails on him when he targets receivers up the seam, a lot of the time, this “inaccuracy” is actually that he’s throwing with anticipation to a spot, and trusting the receiver to correctly get to that spot. From a TV broadcast angle, it looks like an inaccurate throw, but from an all-22 angle, it’s actually that the receiver gets too choppy at the top of the route and doesn’t come back to the ball well.
Granted, Ward is genuinely just not as accurate as a Shedeur Sanders, for example, but he’s more accurate than you'd think without considering this aspect. And he has top-tier, first-overall pick-worthy anticipation, timing, and velocity. Ward has the potential to look unstoppable at the NFL level by honing this skill to a deadly degree.
Sometimes, there is a downside to this tendency; Ward stares down his first read a little too often (but not always). Ward is so confident in his anticipation and knows his offense so well that often, his second read is to wait for his first read to come open in the next window.
He’s so confident in his arm that he will waste some plays trying to make incredibly difficult throws to thread the ball into his first read in a tiny window. This is part of the gunslinger mentality that you’d like him to reign in just a little at the NFL level.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Shedeur Sanders, who just has way too much “see it throw it” to his game for me to get too excited about him. I routinely see him looking at his first read, seeing that the coverage is set up such that the receiver will be breaking into exactly the space the defensive back is about to vacate and then just hold the ball.
Sanders is a true Rorschach test for scouts, as he puts everything you want to see on film, just not with any sort of consistency. One of his biggest weaknesses is this aspect of his game, where he needs to see the receiver is already open before he lets go of the ball. And then he loves to throw a feathery ball with touch, but to the point that he almost never drives the ball to his target on a rope.
This is a bad combination. If Sanders needs to see his receiver get open, rather than anticipating and throwing to a spot, and then he can’t laser the ball in there, the end result is that he allows the defensive back to make plays on the ball they should never have made. This routinely results in pass breakups and hospital balls that should always be completions.
When NFL quarterbacks struggle, lots of fans complain that nobody is getting open. I cannot stress enough, this is usually a quarterback-driven problem. At the NFL level, more often than not, somebody is “NFL open,” meaning there is a throwing window there if you know what you’re reading. Sanders is the type of quarterback who will make his offensive coaching look bad if he doesn’t clean this up.
To his credit, though, Shedeur is extremely accurate in the intermediate area. He has complete control of where the ball is going, showing great ball placement to lead receivers who have trailing defensive backs who could otherwise make a play on the ball.
In between these two players, we have Jalen Milroe. Please don’t let his running back size and athleticism fool you; Milroe has the brain of a quarterback. He’s actually very good at coming off his first read quickly when he sees the defensive backs are leveraged correctly to stop the route concept, and he gets his eyes around to the other half of the field and finds the backside dig. This is a hugely important progression to be able to get through at the NFL level.
However, while Milroe tries to make similar reads to Ward, he’s wrong more often than Ward. Milroe threw too many interceptions this year, and one major reason is that he often underestimates how much ground the defensive back can cover when they “click and close” to make a play on balls thrown to the sideline.
The other reason Milroe throws too many interceptions, and another reason to knock his intermediate throwing ability, is that he struggles significantly at layering throws. An NFL quarterback should be able to drop the ball over the linebackers but in front of the safeties when the situation calls for it. Milroe essentially only throws laser beams, which means he sometimes throws a flat ball directly to a linebacker, or he sails the throw, and it becomes an easy interception for the safety.
Unfortunately, I think you’ll always have to live with this aspect of Milroe’s game, as I just don’t see layering ability on tape. This shows up when he tries to throw fades, too. It’s way too flat, and the defensive back can make a play on the ball.
Finally, let’s talk about Jaxson Dart. He’s generally very accurate to the levels of the field his arm can reach, which unfortunately doesn’t cover every throw an NFL quarterback should be able to make. He also anticipates quite well and can fit a ball with decent velocity, again to those parts of the field he can actually access.
Unfortunately, I think Dart’s anticipation falls a little behind Ward and Milroe. When he is reading a single receiver against a single defensive back, he knows how to throw to a spot. However, he takes shortcuts and comes off his first read too early when he’s trying to read a complementary route concept matched up against defensive backs who are leveraged favorably for him.
I think he’s a little panicky here, and his eyes just scan that there is a similar number of defensive backs and receivers in that part of the field. That shows a lesser mastery of his offense compared to Ward, who knows essentially before the snap whether a route concept is matched up well against the look the defensive backs are showing.
Essentially, Dart meets some minimum threshold in terms of anticipation and velocity but without the ability to go above and beyond and make an offense look unstoppable.
Arm Talent
In my opinion, Jaxson Dart really falls off when we get to the arm talent department. Dart can drive balls to the intermediate areas down the middle of the field and to the sideline from the near hash. However, he consistently leaves plays on the field for two reasons.
His accuracy falls off dramatically when he needs to make throws that strain his arm strength. He frequently does not give his receivers chances to make plays on the ball when trying to catapult the ball down the sideline. This is why I give him an awful score for”bucket throws”, because he just can’t drive the ball to a spot where only the receiver can play it.
When he tries to drive the ball to the sideline at intermediate depth, the ball usually dies early. His deep balls down the sideline fade into the middle of the field. He just cannot hit hole shots against Cover-2, which is not an easy throw, but the best quarterbacks generate big plays by making it.
Shedeur Sanders, meanwhile, has fine, but not great, arm talent. He can make all the throws, including dropping difficult throws in the bucket, but it’s not the kind of arm talent that makes a player go from good to great.
From a stable platform, he can make impressive big-time throws that drop right over the receiver’s shoulder. However, he leaves big plays on the field because he struggles to drive the ball into tight windows by the sideline.
He always throws a feathery ball with touch, but I think part of the reason why is that he just doesn’t have a fastball. Additionally, somebody who goes into creation mode often has to turn down players who are wide open behind the defense because he just can’t get the ball there unless he’s stable in the pocket.
Getting to the higher end of the arm talent spectrum, Jalen Milroe has outstanding arm strength and velocity. Unfortunately, he *only* has a fastball. He can throw laser beams all over the field, but he struggles immensely at layering the ball and throwing with touch into a bucket.
On the bright side, Milroe can make a tight window throw anywhere on the field and drive the ball to the sideline. Despite not being the most accurate quarterback, he is capable of completing throws that require perfect ball placement. He isn’t consistent with his accuracy, but he can challenge and hit precise throwing windows on occasion.
Milroe’s excellent ball velocity can sometimes work against him, however. Alabama’s pass catchers dropped a ton of footballs and left a lot of plays on the field for him, and while these are balls that should be caught, the velocity on these balls just makes them harder to catch than the soft looping ball that Shedeur throws.
Of this group, Cam Ward has similar arm strength to Jalen Milroe, where he can really drive the ball into a tight window all over the field, but he is much better at layering throws. Ward has a good sense of the type of throw that is required to complete a pass, and is comfortable either lobbing a ball with touch or driving it on a rope.
Improvisation
Despite being so mobile, Jalen Milroe did not impress while improvising. Already not the most accurate quarterback, Milroe’s accuracy goes away completely when he’s on the run. With his mobility and arm strength, we can hope this area of his game comes around, but the outputs were not good this year.
Jaxson Dart struggles here for a couple of reasons. First off, he drops his eyes and commits to running the ball too early and too often. While players like Sanders and Ward primarily scramble to throw and only run when they see daylight, Dart goes into running mode as a first resort without enough thought as to whether there is space for him to run into.
Secondly, the arm talent isn’t quite there to playmake on the run. However, Dart has a bit of that “gamer” to him, where he can pull a rabbit out of his hat and make a gritty throw while imminently being chopped down by an edge rusher. This is something sure to impress NFL general managers.
Moving on to Shedeur Sanders, his mentality is actually really good in this area. He scrambles to throw and only runs when he sees the defense is giving him space to take a first down. He also doesn’t really lose much accuracy to the intermediate area while he’s on the run.
However, Sanders’ footwork gets messy while playmaking, and his arm talent reaches its limits in this area, so he can’t generate explosive plays quite like a true playmaker. Sanders’ other issue is that he tends to backpedal or serpentine backward when he’s buying time, which often removes any possibility of actually completing a throw.
Finally, we have Cam Ward, who also prefers to throw when playmaking rather than rushing it. My issue with this is that he often bites off more than he can chew, believing in himself to extend plays for longer than the limits of his athleticism actually allow.
However, there is no lack of ability here, as he can change his arm slot as needed and also get enough zip on the ball to hit a receiver who is working back to the ball. He rewards the second and third efforts made by receivers to come open and work back to him.
Deep Passing
Sanders can make bucket throws with touch deep down the field, but he doesn’t quite have the strongest arm, so he sometimes will underthrow deep balls or let defenders make a play that they ideally aren’t able to. Overall, though, he does a good job of giving his receivers a chance one-on-one and letting them make a play. It's a good strategy when you have Travis Hunter on your team. At the NFL level, fans might think he’s being “bailed out” by his receiver, but giving the receiver a chance to make a play is a skill in the first place.
Cam Ward, meanwhile, is outstanding at recognizing leverage and is always willing (sometimes even overconfident) about his ability to drop a ball into the receiver’s leverage. The desire and talent to use touch is there, though maybe not consistently successful enough for me to consider it a strength. This trait will complement his willingness to thread the ball into his top receiving target.
Jalen Milroe, meanwhile, is quite adept at recognizing leverage. He notably loves to throw the ball over a defender’s shoulder when their back is to him, giving receivers a chance to play the ball while the defensive back doesn’t know what’s hit him.
However, too often, he predetermines that he’s going to take a one-on-one matchup down the field, even when the receiver doesn’t stack the defensive back. And his accuracy can sometimes let him down here, with the ball sailing out of bounds.
Lastly, we have Jaxson Dart, who really disappointed me here. The arm strength let him down while passing it deep, and he constantly threw into the wrong leverage. I’m really concerned Dart will never be more than a game manager due to this and other limitations.
You’d think Dart would have more touch, but he just can’t accurately catapult the ball at the limits of his throwing range, with the result being way too many prayers where the receiver didn’t even have a chance to make a play for him.
There is an important difference between watching a player catapult the ball deep on his highlight reel versus seeing him leave plays on the field because of balls that cause the wide receiver to slow down or throws to the sideline that die. I saw way too many of these types of throws.
Traits That Matter For Earning a Role
Sack Avoidance
I truly worry about this part of Shedeur Sanders’ game. He backpedals constantly, which accomplishes nothing other than taking him farther away from the action, ruining his platform, and getting him sacked for avoidable losses of yardage. Even when he scrambles instead of backpedaling, Sanders loves to serpentine his way farther and farther backward.
There are times he buys time correctly, working to the sideline or stepping up in the pocket, but overall, he's shaky enough here to risk getting benched. If Sanders does not fix this bad habit quickly at the next level, he will struggle to move the ball and will give a coach no choice other than to worry about his own job. This habit, even against ghost pressure, doesn’t even give his offense a chance when he's going through a rough patch.
Cam Ward is much more willing to hang in the pocket than Sanders, but sometimes he too is guilty of trying to twist out of sacks that he’s not athletic enough to avoid. Unlike Sanders, Ward does not backpedal away from decent pockets and give up on plays early, but he will take sacks that could have been avoided.
One thing I will note is that while some might argue Cam Ward has too high an average time to throw, he is absolutely not playing backyard football. Ward is confident in his ability to throw receivers open and can competently run an offense that gets the ball out of his hands quickly. One last slight issue with Ward is that because he believes so much in waiting for his first read to come open, he can get crushed by delayed blitzes from his blindside.
Jalen Milroe is actually very willing to hang in the pocket, maybe too much for his own good. Rather than relocating in the pocket, he more so tries to get a last ditch throw out when he’s already waited too long and in the process of being hit, which often leads to fumbles.
While he doesn’t bail on plays early, his internal clock is a hair too slow. It’s not on Justin Fields’ level where he gets absolutely crushed and doesn’t see it coming, but it does lead to him trying to throw the ball while an edge rusher is able to grab his arm.
Jaxson Dart, to his credit, is the most consistent quarterback out of this bunch at throwing hot when he sees a blitz coming. That helps him turn blitzes into easy completions. However, he drops his eyes and predetermines that he’s going to run too soon on other plays, not letting his receivers’ routes develop.
Turnover Avoidance
This area is the biggest weakness in Milroe’s game. I started to mention this previously, but he throws too many interceptions. Usually, it's because throws down the seam can sail on him or because he underestimates how much ground defensive backs in the zone can cover when they trigger and attack downhill.
As if that weren’t bad enough, he’s been quite prone to fumbles too, and his hands measuring in under nine inches at the Senior Bowl doesn’t help (truly I have no idea what to do with his hands magically growing at the combine).
There are a couple of reasons Milroe fumbles so much (besides small hands). Firstly, as I’ve mentioned before, his internal clock is a bit slow so he’ll attempt to throw while an edge rusher is in position to attack his arm. Secondly, he rushes so much that he has many more chances to fumble the ball than a pocket quarterback.
Shedeur Sanders, on the other hand, protected the ball very well in college, throwing 37 touchdowns compared to 10 interceptions last year and throwing only three interceptions the year before. He also wasn’t especially fumble-prone in college, though he was not perfect.
Cam Ward was in the middle of the pack in both categories, but with his supreme confidence, you might see seasons where the turnovers spike because he tries so hard to keep plays alive. Also, because he’s so supremely confident in his ability to challenge tight windows and defensive backs, you might see years with high interception totals.
Jaxson Dart took good care of the football and notably didn’t fumble much despite being fed a steady diet of designed rushes.
Short Accuracy
Shedeur Sanders is great in this area, as he maximizes run-after-catch with his ball placement on throws into the flat, and he has great timing and ball placement on slants. He also notably doesn’t show the same tendency to backpedal when the play calls for him to get rid of the ball before any pressure can get home. For this reason, he could thrive in a timing-based offense.
Jaxson Dart likewise has good timing and placement on short routes, hitting receivers in stride and maximizing run-after-catch. He’s not quite as effective and clean as Sanders here, but he’s not missing anything.
On the other end of the spectrum, Jalen Milroe is quite erratic in short areas. Something about his throwing motion gets cut short when he can’t fire the ball downfield, and the end result is misses that look bad on tape. To be clear, that’s not always the case, and it’s not so bad as to be disqualifying, but it’s there.
Between these extremes is Cam Ward, who notably struggled to throw in-breaking routes. I do think a lot of this is him throwing to a spot and not being on the same page as his receiver, but sometimes there are just misses here.
Overall
Cam Ward
Profile
Cam Ward profiles as a low-end QB1 whose dynasty stock will rise and fall with passing touchdown variance. He doesn’t have the rushing ability to score sustainably like a top-five quarterback, but he has enough high-end traits in the passing game to run an offense through him and sustainably rank highly in passing yardage and touchdowns.
Ward nicely blends high-volume gunslinger traits with NFL-caliber command of his offense. He throws with so much anticipation and arm talent that the highest end of his play can look unstoppable and sustain a red-hot offense. If he busts, it will be because the floor dropped out on his turnover-prone nature or because his completion percentage nose-dived as he challenged one too many tough windows instead of taking easy wins.
Best Case
Ward could legitimately develop into a top-tier pocket quarterback, in the style of a Matt Stafford, a hair below the Joe Burrow tier. To be a pocket quarterback who is also a fantasy asset, you need to create explosive plays and playmake/improvise. Ward is capable of both at the higher end of his range of outcomes.
Worst Case
If Ward’s confidence in his ability to thread the ball into his first read turns into an inability to move on in his progression, we could get the typical “nobody is open” look to an offense that’s actually just gasping for a quarterback change. Add in turnovers, and you have a tough situation.
Shedeur Sanders
Profile
Even the best version of Shedeur Sanders is a quarterback who is much better in real life than in fantasy football. We’re looking at a QB2 who will be viewed as his team’s franchise quarterback but who won’t be a priority to own in fantasy football.
Overall, I think Sanders lacks the high-end traits needed for me to prioritize him in drafts, but he’s not exactly a floor play, either. He shows many bad habits on tape with his footwork and pocket movement, which means we could have a flat-out bust on our hands if things break wrong.
Considering Sanders’ best scheme fit is in a balanced timing-based offense, we’re talking about a player who might command good offenses but who won’t be consistently near the top of the league in yardage and touchdowns.
Best Case
Sanders’ accuracy and touch remain while the rest of his game calms down, and we’re left with an efficient, responsible quarterback with a long NFL career who returns many QB2 seasons and a couple of low-end QB1 seasons that benefit from good touchdown variance.
Worst Case
Sanders’ offense looks unwatchable, as he refuses to throw with anticipation to receivers who are “NFL open,” and he makes his offensive line look bad by backpedaling into avoidable pressures. A coach eventually benches him because he needs to prove the offensive game plan is actually functional.
Jalen Milroe
Profile
Milroe's profile is as "boom or bust" as it gets. If he hits, he's a perennial QB1, but he could also be a complete bust who returns nothing on your investment. There is an NFL quarterback somewhere in here, but for now, Milroe is not ready to be an NFL-caliber pocket passer due to his turnover-prone nature, slow-ish internal clock in the pocket, and inability to layer the ball.
While Milroe sometimes misses throws, he is actually quite capable of completing passes in the intermediate area of the field with ball placement and velocity. Milroe puts individual high-end plays on tape every game; he knows what he’s looking at when he makes post-snap reads, he’s willing to throw with anticipation, and he can hit any window with his ball velocity. But can he string those good moments together into a well-played game?
Let me be clear: I would be all the way out on Milroe if I thought he couldn’t think the game like an NFL player, but mentally, I see an NFL-caliber processor here. There are too many high-end traits in his game for me to be all the way out.
We need to keep in mind that the rushing ability lowers the bar for what needs to happen for his offense to move the ball. The threat of his rushing will make lots of other facets easier, and the reality of his rushing will lead to first downs and explosive plays by itself. That being said, Milroe has the potential to develop into a really good passer independently. The ingredients are there, including on the mental side.
Best Case
A top-three overall dynasty asset. The rushing ability is rare and every bit as exciting as a Jayden Daniels. We could justifiably see Jalen Hurts-esque rushing usage around the goal line, too.
Worst Case
Milroe could potentially just never get into a game. If he sprays the ball erratically in practice (something I don’t think he did in most games, but sometimes the misses are just bad) and can’t take care of the ball, he’s in trouble.
Milroe isn’t going to walk into a starting job, which means he’s going to have a short leash when he eventually starts. This isn’t the kind of player who will survive a short leash unless he wins games early.
Jaxson Dart
Profile
A QB2, with a very unlikely low-end QB1 season in sight, if he leans on the rushing ability because the passing didn’t go great. Overall, there is a likable player here with signs of NFL-caliber processing and accuracy, but I think we’re missing the high-end traits to have a fantasy asset or franchise quarterback.
Dart is a quarterback, but the playmaking plays down because he drops his eyes too soon and scrambles to run without surveying the situation. The deep passing and “Sunday throws” play down because the ball dies on him in situations in which he needs to drive the ball. I see a spot starter or bridge quarterback here.
Best Case
The limits of his arm talent end up not mattering as he can get to throws that are in his bag with good processing and a well-tailored offense. The rushing ability provides some kind of floor. We have a QB2 who sometimes runs his way into a Daniel Jones-esque low-end QB1 season.
Worst Case
Defenses don’t feel pressured to cover the whole field against him, which makes everything much harder for him. We get a spot starter but not much more. There’s just not enough juice here to be higher in my 2025 Dynasty Rookie QB Rankings.