The Late Round Quarterback staff put together their quarterback rankings for the 2013 season. The following rankings are based on standard quarterback scoring in redraft leagues, where each touchdown is worth four points and one point is rewarded for every 25 passing yards.

Player Rank JJ Chad Phil Ladd Keith Travis Austan
Drew Brees 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1
Aaron Rodgers 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 2
Peyton Manning 3 3 4 4 3 3 3 4
Cam Newton 4 4 3 3 4 5 4 3
Tom Brady 5 5 8 5 5 4 5 8
Matt Ryan 6 7 6 6 7 6 6 5
Matthew Stafford 7 6 9 7 10 10 7 6
Russell Wilson 8 12 7 9 9 12 8 7
Andrew Luck 9 8 5 10 11 9 11 11
Colin Kaepernick 10 10 11 8 8 8 12 9
Robert Griffin III 11 11 10 11 6 7 10 12
Tony Romo 12 9 12 12 12 11 9 10
Eli Manning 13 13 13 13 14 13 13 13
Ben Roethlisberger 14 14 16 14 16 14 17 14
Jay Cutler 15 15 14 17 17 16 14 19
Andy Dalton 16 16 17 18 13 15 19 15
Joe Flacco 17 17 18 20 15 20 24 17
Sam Bradford 18 19 20 16 21 18 21 22
Ryan Tannehill 19 22 19 19 18 21 23 16
Josh Freeman 20 21 23 15 20 17 22 23
Carson Palmer 21 23 15 23 23 24 15 21
Michael Vick 22 25 21 25 19 19 18 18
Matt Schaub 23 18 22 24 24 22 16 20
Philip Rivers 24 20 24 22 22 23 20 24
Alex Smith 25 24 25 21 N/A 25 25 25

Noteworthy Trends

Man, oh, man, quarterback is deep this year.

When I take a look at these rankings, I just can’t get over how many serviceable fantasy quarterbacks there are going in to this season. In standard 12-team, one-quarterback leagues, Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning are fringe starters. Those aren’t just two run-of-the-mill signal callers; they’re two pretty dang good quarterbacks, both of whom have been reliable fantasy starters for some time.

This year, however, due in large part to an influx of breakout players in 2012 (four players in our top 10 hadn’t started an NFL game a year ago at this time), the position is as deep as it’s been in quite some time.

The elite guys, the studs, remain unchanged from our June rankings. That’s because not much has changed over the past 30 days.

Don’t tell that to Aaron Hernandez.

Everyone knows what’s gone on with Hernandez, but no one knows how it’s going to affect Tom Brady and company on the field. It’s been a rough, un-New-England-like offseason in Foxboro. Brady lost his favorite wideout, Wes Welker, and Rob Gronkowski, his monster of a tight end, can’t stay off the operating table. Now Brady is sans Hernandez, one of the game’s top tight ends.

I was anxious to see how the developments would affect his rankings, but despite all of that, Tom Terrific held steady at fifth, the same spot he assumed in June. The fact that the rankings kept him fifth says a lot about Brady and the year-to-year excellence of the Patriots. Only Chad and I dropped Brady outside the top five, with each of us slotting him eighth.

Drew Brees narrowly edged Aaron Rodgers for the top spot, followed by Peyton Manning, Cam Newton and Brady. Outside of the aforementioned rankings of Brady, no one placed any of these five outside of their top five. Barring an unforeseen development, or possibly a clean bill of health for Robert Griffin III, these will be the first five signal callers off the board in August.

Matt Ryan remained sixth, with no one placing him lower than seventh, which is exactly how he was ranked a month ago.

After Matty Ice, things get fun.

There are a variety of takes on Matthew Stafford, who is ranked seventh overall. Two guys put him at No. 6 and another pair had him seventh, but he also received one No. 9 ranking and two votes for 10th.

Last year’s four breakout quarterbacks check in next in the 8-11 spots, and they are packed in very tightly. Russell Wilson, Andrew Luck, Colin Kaepernick and Griffin — none of whom had any starting experience 12 months ago — are separated by .4 in their average rankings.

Wilson is eighth despite two guys (JJ and Keith) placing him 12th. Luck, who is ninth, was boosted by Chad putting him fifth. Everyone had Kaepernick in the 8-12 range, although he did tumble three spots from the June rankings, coming in 10th. Griffin, whose ranking figures to greatly fluctuate as the season draws nearer and we learn more about his health, checks in 11th, with Ladd and Keith each ranking him in the top seven.

Travis and JJ like Romo, the 12th-ranked quarterback, a little more than everyone else, each ranking him ninth, but no one had the Cowboys’ gunslinger outside of the top 12.

Eli Manning is 13th, and everyone ranked him 13th, with the exception of Ladd, who had him 14th. Roethlisberger is next in line at No. 14, and four of the seven staffers ranked him exactly that. Jay Cutler, No. 16, was in the 14-17 range for everyone except me. I buried him down at No. 19.

AFC North quarterbacks Andy Dalton and Joe Falcco are 16th and 17th, respectively. Ladd gave each their best ranking as he had 13th and Flacco 15th. Travis was on the opposite end of the spectrum, ranking Dalton 19th and Flacco 25th for each player’s lowest ranking.

Down in the 18-23 territory, things again get bunched up, with Sam Bradford (18th), Ryan Tannehill (19th), Josh Freeman (20th), Carson Palmer (21st), Michael Vick (22nd) and Matt Schaub (23rd) being separated by 1.3 in their average rankings.

In one-quarterback leagues, these guys don’t factor in too heavily, but in two-quarterback leagues, they are major players. All the staffers agree each is a mid-to-low-end No. 2 quarterback. Palmer (Chad) and Freeman (Phil) each received one No. 15 ranking, which was the best of the cluster.

Philip Rivers, once a solid fantasy contributor, is ranked 24th, and there is a massive drop off to Alex Smith, who rounds out the top 25. The only other quarterback to receive a top 25 ranking was Brandon Weeden, with Ladd listing him 25th.

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