NFC North QB Rankings, Week 9: Jordan Love vs. Caleb Williams is a heated debate

The race to the top of the NFC North QB rankings in the 2026 season has never been tighter.

Three quarterbacks in the division are playing truly elite football right now, and then the Minnesota Vikings have Kyler Murray.

All kidding aside, we've learned a lot in recent weeks about each of the quarterbacks in this division, seeing what these guys are made of and watching them go up against some of the best defenses in the league. The results have been impressive.

How in the world do you sort these players out after eight weeks? That's exactly what we're going to attempt to do. Let's dive into the latest NFC North QB rankings ahead of Week 9 action.

Latest NFC North QB rankings are a three-horse race

There aren't many full-time starting quarterbacks in the NFL so far this season who have been less effective than the Vikings' Kyler Murray.

It hasn't been all bad from Murray, but the idea of him earning a big-money contract from Minnesota in 2027 feels like a non-starter at this stage. Murray was hurt early in the season, and even if you give a grace period for some acclimation, he just hasn't been good enough.

He has just five touchdown passes in his six games, and even if you take his injury into account, his touchdown percentage of 3.2 percent this season would be a career-worst if it holds. He's still taking sacks at an 8.9 percent clip, which was another issue near the end of his time with the Arizona Cardinals.

Murray's EPA per dropback is easily the worst of his NFL career so far. Folks in the media world are talking about why the Vikings should offer a first-round pick to trade for Kirk Cousins, and not in a joking kind of way.

No change for Caleb Williams in the rankings this week, but I desperately wanted to make this a "2A" and "2B" type of week. That's just too much of a cop-out.

Williams's sample size is still small enough, and I have a justification for Jordan Love being one spot higher beyond just snaps played, but this guy is making it tougher and tougher to keep him third on the list.

The NFC North may legitimately have three quarterbacks who would rank first in most divisions around the NFL. Williams is one of them.

He's played well all year, especially since coming back from injury, but the performance he had against the Seattle Seahawks' vaunted defense on the road was really something else.

Williams has caught some flak for his receivers racking up a lot of yards after the catch, but anybody who tries to diminish his skill set is simply in denial at this point. He's a true superstar in this league, a fantastic leader for that Bears team, and when he's under center, the Bears might be the most complete team in the NFC right now.

Again, the rankings remain unchanged for the time being, as much as it feels like Williams is closing the gap with his play over the last three games.

Why? Because Jordan Love is doing more with less than pretty much any quarterback in the NFL. And he may not even have any peers in that category.

Love has had multiple passing touchdowns in all but one game this season, but even in the game where he had just one touchdown pass (against Dallas), he added a rushing touchdown. He has multiple touchdowns in every game this season, and he's had to deal with horrendous offensive line play, a non-existent running game, and his weapons dropping passes.

Against the Carolina Panthers, we saw Love put on his cape once again with three touchdown passes and 288 yards through the air. He did that despite just 66 yards on the ground for the entire team. The Packers haven't had more than 70 rushing yards in a game since October 4, and they haven't had 100 rushing yards as a team this entire season.

Love's performance this season is extremely impressive.

Jared Goff has absolutely put together an MVP-caliber résumé so far this season. He's been the most efficient passer in the entire league when it comes to TD/INT ratio (15/1).

If the season ended today, his passer rating of 110.0 would be the second-best of his NFL career, behind 111.8 just two seasons ago when the Lions won 15 games. And we're seeing how much Goff's effectiveness and efficiency are elevating this Lions team in 2026.

Over the last two weeks, the Lions have tightened things up defensively, giving Goff more of a margin for error than he had in the first five games of the season. He's behind only Joe Burrow so far this season in terms of pure EPA in the passing game.

Facing off against the vaunted Brian Flores defense, Goff showed fearlessness that led to more success than most (if anyone) have had this year. And I can't stress this enough: That was his first interception of the season.

Goff is playing the best football of his life right now.

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