ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler Breaks Down the Top of His 2026 NFL QB Rankings List

Jeremy Fowler has spent the month polling the NFL, and his quarterback list, released Monday, is the one that got everyone talking. On The Rich Eisen Show, he explained how it comes together and why Josh Allen sits at the very top.

The process is exhaustive. Fowler said he spoke to roughly 80 people around the league, with at least 70 submitting ballots. He sends out a pool of players at a position, gets back a top 10, then asks follow-up questions and compiles a composite ranking. The groundwork starts at the combine, picking brains in hallways and hotel lobbies, and the real voting happens after the draft. He always begins with quarterback "cuz they get the most results," he told Rich. "It's a fun way to get us through July."

Rich framed it as a cousin of the MVP conversation, a debate over what merits best: physical ability, mental ability, or results. Fowler's criteria are simpler than that. "Who's the best right now," he said. "This is not a career achievement award." Picture a playground pick.

Allen is his number one because, as Fowler put it, "the fear factor is really thick." He is the quarterback a defensive coordinator least wants to face. Fowler put Matthew Stafford and Joe Burrow right in that same tier, and acknowledged Patrick Mahomes belongs in the conversation, but noted Mahomes has had "subpar production for the last few years" by his own towering standard, which cracked the door for Allen.

The old knock on Allen was turnovers, and Fowler said he has mostly curbed them over the last two seasons, aside from a relapse in the Denver playoff game. What sells coaches is that Allen wins even when the scouting report is built entirely around him. "When you game plan for the Bills, you're not really game planning for the wide receivers all that much," Fowler said one coach told him. James Cook is good, but "Josh Allen is one, two, three, four, five on the scouting report, and he still beats you." Fowler's summary: "Fear is currency in the NFL. Who do you fear most? And he's the most feared right now."

Mahomes landed at number two, and Fowler was candid about the split beneath the surface. Mahomes got the most first-place votes at 41%, "but he had more than usual voters taking him outside of the top three to five." Some ballots slotted him at seven, unusual territory for him. He still gets the benefit of the doubt, and Fowler pointed to the supporting cast as the culprit. The running game vanished, the receiving trio of Xavier Worthy, Rashee Rice, and Hollywood Brown never clicked consistently, and Travis Kelce is aging, leaving Mahomes to carry too much alone.

There is also the health question. Mahomes is rehabbing a knee injury, and Kansas City does not truly know whether he will play Week 1, though Fowler said the Chiefs are leaning into it and that Mahomes has made rapid progress. The plan is to get him cleared for contact and onto the field as soon as possible, potentially in preseason. Fowler added a hopeful wrinkle for Kansas City: with Kenneth Walker now in the backfield, the offense should be more balanced, which "could actually accentuate his skill set" more than the last couple of years allowed.