Running into the old 'sophomore slump' - QBs tend to decline in their second season - Fantasy Index

Jun 08, 2025

I’m not opposed to pulling the trigger on Jayden Daniels or Bo Nix. I like these guys. But at the same time, history tells us that second-year quarterbacks are far more likely to decline rather than improve.

That seems unlikely, given that they’ve had a chance to be around for a year. In theory, they should have a better command of their team’s offense and the league in general. But I guess that’s perhaps outweighed by defenses also having had a chance to study their tendencies – what coverages work and don’t work against them.

For whatever reason, when you look at the numbers, I see more getting worse than getting better a lot more.

Here are the last 14 rookie quarterbacks who’ve averaged top-15 per-game numbers in their first season …

If we take those same guys and look at the next season, I see 11 who got worse, and only three who got better (tagged with dots). (Matthew Stafford looked like he was going to be better, but he got hurt after only three starts.)

These are just big-picture numbers, of course. More interesting to look at, I think, than to act on. I consider Daniels to be a top-tier guy – up there with the Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. And Nix put up top-5 numbers in the second half of last season; I think he’s going to be a top-10 quarterback.

—Ian Allan