You weren't alone if you read through the second annual QB Tier Rankings and shook your head at the placement of a few players. The 35 NFL coaches and evaluators who served as voters were right there with you. Their diverse opinions produced cumulative results that did not match any single voter's ballot.
While Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Andrew Luck, Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees landed in the first of five possible performance tiers, only one of the 35 voters listed those six (and only those six) as Tier 1 QBs on his ballot. The average voter placed 22 of the 32 quarterbacks in the "correct" consensus tiers. Two voters led the way with 28 hits. One had only eight.
I've spent the past couple of days engaging readers (including some NFL reporters) and some of the voters in conversations about the results. What follows are my top five objections to the results, backed by statistical and anecdotal evidence. Matt Ryan, Tony Romo, Teddy Bridgewater, Derek Carr, Carson Palmer and Russell Wilson get special consideration here.