Young NFL quarterbacks are getting better: PFF data tells the story

• A higher rate of new quarterbacks are reaching a good grade faster: Since 2020, quarterbacks in Years 1-3 have trended toward a 75.0 overall PFF grade more than their predecessors.

• Achievement by the second year: As Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels and others have demonstrated, more gunslingers are good as early as their sophomore season.

• Young passers have broken in before: Although recent seasons have witnessed the emergence of new top-flight names, data suggests that the trend extends before.

Even though the 2025 NFL season concluded almost five months ago, its overarching storylines haven’t diminished much. From the Seahawks’ dominant defense carrying the team to the Super Bowl to Matthew Stafford’s age-37 MVP campaign to turnarounds dotting every division, last year’s campaign was a uniquely memorable one.

Interwoven in that is the emergence of Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, who went from a talented but flawed rookie to a much more polished pro in his second season. Indeed, Maye narrowly lost the MVP race to Stafford after recording a 90.1 overall PFF grade and 87.8 PFF passing mark during the regular season, each of which ranked second among qualifiers.

Maye’s very lackluster postseason clouded his season outlook a bit, but he still firmly solidified himself as one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks at age 23. In fact, the former third overall pick wasn’t the only member of his class to excel in their sophomore season. The Bears’ Caleb Williams and the Broncos’ Bo Nix also earned no worse than a 76.9 overall grade in 2025, sitting at an impressive 5.0% big-time throw rate or higher while leading their teams to the playoffs.

What Maye and his cohorts did in 2025 largely mimicked what happened in 2024, when Commanders newcomer Jayden Daniels flashed his dual-threat ability to produce a 90.6 overall grade and guide underdog Washington to the NFC championship game. Much of the same occurred the season prior in 2023, when Texans neophyte C.J. Stroud burst onto the scene with a spectacular 80.4 passing grade.

In each of the last three years, Maye, Daniels and Stroud — among several others — have swiftly risen to prominence, knocking down the door to enter the NFL’s most esteemed group of passers. The feat itself is fascinating, but it begs a more meta question: Are younger quarterbacks getting better? To find out, let’s leverage PFF data over 20 years of charting.

In order to establish a relative standard for a “good” quarterback, it’s important to consider both volume of playing time as well as overall efficiency. As such, we’ll implement a 500-snap threshold for any season as well as attaining a 75.0 overall PFF grade or better, which trends toward above-average in recent years.

From there, experience is also critical to define. A player’s first three seasons are often the most raw and formative, when a lower percentage of names tend to become outright stars. Hence, Years 1-3 of a quarterback’s career present a sound baseline over a factor like age, which can fluctuate greatly between prospects in even the same draft class.

With those parameters outlined, we can begin by assessing the 2025 season’s group of qualified young quarterbacks, where 30% of players mentioned reached the minimum grade.

That figure may not seem wildly impressive, even though Maye, Williams and Nix all made legitimate strides in almost every facet of their game. However, the fact that nearly four passers (including Tyler Shough) qualified underscores a trend within the last six seasons: More young quarterbacks are turning into quality players faster.

Purely counting the number of first-through-third-year quarterbacks meeting the criteria illustrates a striking trend. Since 2020, no fewer than three such players reached the 75.0 mark every year — and the lowest came in 2025. Indeed, dynamos like Joe Burrow, Brock Purdy, Justin Herbert, Tua Tagovailoa and many more have all eclipsed at least a 75.0 overall grade by their third year in the NFL. While some of those budding careers have ventured in different (and inconsistent) directions, what’s indisputable is their hasty development into an above-average quarterback early on.

Prior to that 2020 class, it was much rarer to see that number of passers getting to a 75.0 grade that quickly. Consider that only two total players accomplished it between 2015 and 2016 — including Derek Carr twice and Dak Prescott once. Multiple pre-2020 seasons feature only one such name, including Matthew Stafford in 2011 and Joe Flacco in 2009.

It would be easy to think that younger quarterbacks are simply being afforded more chances in the recent NFL, but that’s not necessarily the case. From 2011-14, at least nine passers between Years 1-3 appeared on a minimum of 500 snaps each season. But those years yielded no more than four names meeting the grading criteria, a far cry from the seven in 2020 and 2022.

Likewise, although teams have become more inclined to see what they possess in a younger quarterback — thus yielding more starting opportunities, especially earlier — simple snap volume doesn’t really explain this trend. Consider that quarterbacks in Years 1-3 combined for just over 12,000 snaps in 2025 compared to more than 13,000 in 2012. In other words, greener gunslingers have regularly seen the field throughout the last decade.

The graph below reinforces that a greater proportion of inexperienced quarterbacks are producing better PFF grades amid fairly steady denominators.

A player’s third season is often hailed as one of putting final touches on a canvas, ushering them into stardom. But the same research reveals that quarterbacks now attain high grades by their second year in the league.

After Jackson was 1-of-9 inexperienced quarterbacks to accomplish a 75.0 overall PFF grade in 2019, that jumped to 4-of-7 in 2020. Even with a dip in 2023 — when only Purdy and Stroud accomplished it — the data suggests that more first- or second-year quarterbacks are proving capable of performing like a quality starter.

A more logical explanation for this pattern over the last six seasons is that coaching has improved. Offensive staffs have a better understanding of how to insulate their young passers, from implementing RPOs and play action to enabling them to proliferate existing strengths of their game — like Williams’ escapability and Maye’s downfield passing.

Along those lines, it’s also probable that quarterback prospects are growing more talented, athletic and refined than before. While Michael Vick and Cam Newton remain paragons of the prototypical rushing quarterback, the league has countless more now like Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Maye and Daniels. Even prospects that haven’t panned out, like Anthony Richardson, boast almost unparalleled athleticism at the position.

Further, training technology and methodology has continued to improve, putting an emphasis on new facets of elite quarterbacking like avoiding turnover-worthy plays and sacks. Players in today’s draft classes may have been exposed to such high-intensity learning and exercising as early as elementary school, giving them a less steep learning curve once being drafted.

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Interestingly enough, the concept of a young quarterback insinuating themselves as one of the foremost in the NFL has not necessarily become more common of late. Before the likes of Maye and Daniels, players such Russell Wilson, Andrew Luck and Carr ranked in the top seven of qualifying overall grade before the end of their third season. Even in the immediate years before 2020, Patrick Mahomes and Jackson compiled at least a 90.9 mark during their award-winning campaigns in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

A burgeoning passer entering rare air no later than their third season isn’t revolutionary. But as PFF data illustrates, what continues to take the NFL by storm is a much more rapid development of blooming quarterbacks — who now show regular playmaking by even their second year. The trend of the last six seasons should only fuel organizations to keep throwing darts at the wall via the NFL Draft as they seek legitimate franchise options under center, which are ever-elusive in today’s game.