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Not gonna bury the lede here. MMQB's Andy Benoit ranked Nick Foles the ninth-worst starting QB in the NFL. He has Sam Bradford just two spots better.
All in all, it's hard to argue much with the rankings. The top 10 make sense, even if we could quibble over the individual spots. The bottom 12 are fine, though I'd probably have Derek Carr in there. The glut from Jameis Winston at 26 to Tony Romo at 10 is the Great Sea of Adequacy.
What stuck with me though is the investment.
Here's the run up to the top 10 and the draft pick required:
| # | Name | Team | Pick |
| 32 | Matt Cassel | Buffalo | 230th, 2005 (New England) |
| 31 | Robert Griffin III | Washington | 2nd, 2012 |
| 30 | Marcus Mariota | Tennessee | 2nd, 2015 |
| 29 | Josh McCown | Cleveland | 81st, 2002 (Arizona) |
| 28 | Brian Hoyer | Houston | UDFA, 2009 |
| 27 | Geno Smith | New York Jets | 39th, 2013 |
| 26 | Jameis Winston | Tampa Bay | 1st, 2015 |
| 25 | Blake Bortles | Jacksonville | 3rd, 2014 |
| 24 | Nick Foles | St. Louis | 88th, 2012 (Philadelphia) |
| 23 | Teddy Bridgewater | Minnesota | 32nd, 2014 |
| 22 | Sam Bradford | Philadelphia | 1st, 2010 (St. Louis) |
| 21 | Colin Kaepernick | San Francisco | 36th, 2012 |
| 20 | Andy Dalton | Cincinnati | 35th, 2011 |
| 19 | Derek Carr | Oakland | 36th, 2014 |
| 18 | Alex Smith | Kansas City | 1st, 2005 (San Francisco) |
| 17 | Jay Cutler | Chicago | 11th, 2006 (Denver) |
What's always difficult to fathom is the amount of draft capital stuck into candidates that remain among the worst at their position in the league. Granted, the guys like Mariota, Winston, Bortles and Bridgewater are obviously still a bit too fresh for context. But that's five picks from the top three picks of their respective drafts in the worst 11 starting QBs in the league. And this list doesn't even include those early picks who haven't even made it to the starting job to be included like Johnny Manziel (22nd, 2014), EJ Manuel (16th, 2013), Brandon Weeden (22nd, 2012), Jake Locker (8th, 2011), Blaine Gabbert (10th, 2011), Christian Ponder (12th, 2011) and Tim Tebow (25th, 2010), and that's just 1st-round QBs in the last five years.
Adam Stites, from Big Cat Country, dropped a piece at dotcom yesterday looking at the share of salary cap is team is devoting to their starting quarterbacks. It syncs well with the table above in exhibiting just how desperate teams are to get a solution at quarterback and hang on to them. In fact, the Rams are at the bottom of the table in that piece, committing just 1.08% of their 2015 salary cap towards Nick Foles. With recent speculation over whether or not the Rams would be able to sign Foles to a long-term extension, the thirst is real.
In the end, the rankings don't matter as much as what teams are willing to do to avoid being in the bottom third of said rankings: anything and everything.