It was a terrible week for NFL quarterbacks, but these 10 signal callers really stunk

If you’re a fan of great quarterback play, the early slate of Week 13’s matchups featured exactly half a game for you. That came courtesy of Deshaun Watson, who started his game against the Browns on fire, then cruised through the second half of a blowout that pushed the Texans one step closer to the AFC South title.

But for just about everyone else, including the quarterback standing across the field from Watson, Sunday was a day of mourning and regret.

No one embodied this more than Baker Mayfield, the Browns quarterback who had grown in leaps and bounds since being unshackled from former head coach Hue Jackson. The former No. 1 overall pick had put up MVP-caliber numbers in his three games since ditching the 3-36-1 head coach. But on Sunday, facing his first top-10 defense without Jackson, Mayfield looked every bit a rookie quarterback.

Mayfield’s first half included three interceptions and a 23-0 halftime deficit. While he’d finish his day with 397 passing yards, at no point did he have his Browns in striking distance of a win.

While his struggles may have taken the spotlight, he wasn’t alone. Six of the league’s top veteran quarterbacks — Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning, Kirk Cousins, Matt Ryan, and Andrew Luck — all averaged five yards per pass or fewer this week.

Week 13 was an awful week for quarterbacks, a sharp correction after a record-setting start to the season. While players like Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes, and Tom Brady kept their MVP hopes alive with solid performances later in the afternoon, the bad still outweighed the good as the sun set on Sunday’s slate of games. Neither rookies nor veterans were immune from a plague of wobbling passes and bad reads that marred this week’s action.

So who had the worst week among the league’s established quarterbacks? Let’s break it down.

10. Jared Goff: 17-33, 207 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT in a 30-16 win over the Lions

For anyone else this would be a borderline decent line. For Goff, who is in the thick of the MVP race, it was a disappointment. Goff threw for nearly 115 yards less than his season average, letting Todd Gurley take care of an overmatched Lions team in his stead. The mediocre performance shouldn’t hurt his stock too badly — he’s still the starting quarterback of the league’s top team this fall.

9. Eli Manning: 19-35, 170 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT in overtime 30-27 win over the Bears

The good news is the Giants won. The bad news is they did it more or less in spite of Manning than thanks to him. Two of the team’s three touchdowns came off the arms of other quarterbacks; one on a pick-six from Bears passer Chase Daniel, and another from the super-effective gadget work of Odell Beckham Jr.

Manning, however, is the quarterback who gave us this:

But hey, the Giants won, improving their record to 4-8 and making it just a little bit tougher to draft Manning’s replacement in 2019.

8. Josh Rosen: 11-26, 147 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT in a 20-17 win over the Packers

Rosen won his game. Mostly because Raven Greene dropped this surefire fourth quarter interception.

The dropped pick gave Arizona new life, and Rosen was smart enough to ride his playmakers to a game-winning field goal — Larry Fitzgerald and David Johnson accounted for 57 of the team’s 62 yards on that drive. Rosen became the first Cardinal quarterback to win in Green Bay since 1949, but he didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the process. Rosen’s numbers say he should be lower on this list, but he also led his team on a game-changing drive in the clutch, so No. 8 is where he stays.

7. Matt Ryan: 16-26, 131 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT in a 26-16 loss to the Ravens

Ryan also saw his MVP stock take a tumble in an uninspired performance against Baltimore’s No. 1 ranked defense. The veteran completed just one pass that went for more than 15 yards Sunday, a 17-yard strike to tight end Austin Hopper. At 4-8, Atlanta’s slim postseason hopes are all but squashed, but it’s tough to put all the blame at Ryan’s feet; the Falcons ran for just 34 yards on 15 carries Sunday afternoon.

6. Andrew Luck: 33-52, 248 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT in a 0-6 loss to the Jaguars

Luck was the losing quarterback in 2018’s least watchable game, but Indianapolis’s defeat wasn’t for a lack of effort. The freshly recuperated QB dropped back for 55 passes on an afternoon where Frank Reich’s offense ran the ball only 16 times. But Luck was also the general who led five drives that lasted four plays or fewer, and two more ended on a turnover on downs when he couldn’t find an open receiver downfield.

5. Baker Mayfield: 29-43, 397 yards, 1 TD, 3 INTs in a 29-13 loss to the Texans.

Mayfield was masterful last week as he drove his Browns to a 28-0 second quarter lead with three touchdown passes in a blowout win against the Bengals. He was much effective this week, hurling three interceptions as Cleveland trailed the AFC South-leading Texans 23-0 in the second quarter of what became a blowout loss.

The rookie’s streak of efficient performances ran out against Houston’s top 10 defense, and while he got back on track late in the second half, it wasn’t enough to keep the Browns’ postseason hopes alive.

4. Drew Brees: 18-28, 127 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, in a 13-10 loss to the Cowboys

Brees set the tone for a week of crappy quarterbacking with his worst performance of the year Thursday night. The veteran quarterback ventured into Week 13 as the league’s top MVP candidate, but likely ceded his position to Patrick Mahomes with an absolute clunker.

The venerable Saints quarterback has been the engine behind the league’s top scoring offense, but the Cowboys found a way to make him look like just another guy in prime time. His fourth quarter interception effectively marked the end of New Orleans’ 10-game winning streak and proved the Saints’ are vulnerable despite coming into the week with the league’s best record.

3. Kirk Cousins: 32-44, 201 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs in a 24-10 loss to the Patriots

Cousins struggled against a powerful Patriots pass rush, engineering only three drives that went more than 40 yards all evening. While he did a better job of avoiding pressure in the second half, he also failed to step up in the clutch, throwing a pair of second half interceptions that doomed Minnesota’s comeback hopes.

The most damning play of Cousins’ bad night may not have been either of those interceptions. With his team facing fourth-and-11 and trailing by 14 points with a little more than six minutes on the clock, the first-year Viking dropped back and fired a laser to Laquon Treadwell ... for a gain of 4 yards.

2. Cam Newton: 28-41, 300 yards, 2 TDs, 4 INTs in a 24-17 loss to the Buccaneers

Someone threw four interceptions in a Buccaneers game, and somehow it wasn’t Jameis Winston.

Newton’s turnovers led to 10 Tampa Bay points in a game Carolina wound up losing by seven. The Panthers are now 6-6 after a 6-2 start and quickly falling out of the playoff race.

1. Josh McCown : 17-30, 128 yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT, in a 26-22 loss to the Titans

McCown was a bright spot in a 2017 campaign where the Jets shockingly won five games. But the 38 year old who played some of the best football of his career has given way to a 39 year old who looks every bit his age, and that shined through on Sunday. McCown’s second half was a symphony of regret, with five separate drives that ended in three plays or fewer. He was the engine of an offense who gained four yards or fewer on five drives in all. Thanks to McCown’s regression, New York is playing the kind of football that makes Jamal Adams all emotional, and not in a good way.