En route to winning the AFC South, C.J. Stroud was one of nine quarterbacks to eclipse 4,000 yards passing, did so with the third-best yards-per-attempt average a 8.2 and tossed 23 interceptions to just five picks. Quite easily, he just completed one of the finest rookie quarterback seasons we’ve ever seen.
Where does his rookie season rank among the best recent rookie quarterback campaigns?
We’ll go back to 2010 for stylistic similarity as to how the quarterback position is now played. And I’ve only ranked the top 8 full rookie quarterback seasons for a reason. They’re really the only ones worth ranking. Let’s dive in. (NOTE: This is an update from November, and I had to change Robert Griffin III and Baker Mayfield. Had those wrong to begin with.)
Murray won the Rookie of the Year in 2019 but his first year in the NFL doesn’t quite stack up to the rest of those on this list. His big-time throw rate of 4.0% was very respectable, as was his 2.7% turnover-worthy play rate. His yards-per-attempt average of 6.9, not so much. While good for the vast majority of rookies, it’s just not amazing here, and his aDOT was just 7.6 in Kliff Kingsbury’s Air Raid offense that also featured a plethora of screens and quick underneath throws. Murray did run for 544 yards at a 5.8 yards-per-carry clip and looked like Mario on most of those scampers.
Not that it was Prescott’s fault, but he landed in the coziest environment of any quarterback on this list. In 2016, the Cowboys had an elite offensive line and a dynamic rookie power back in Ezekiel Elliott. Out wide, Prescott had in-his-prime Dez Bryant, in-his-prime Cole Beasley, and Jason Witten at his disposal. Prescott didn’t just ride the coattails of his teammates. He orchestrated the offense calmly for the entire duration of his rookie campaign with 11 of his 16 games featuring a quarterback rating over 100.
In young Kyle Shanahan’s…
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