It feels like people haven’t gone and read the
original PFF article, and the X poster is misreporting what was published. It’s available for free.
It’s not a traditional 1 through 32 ranking. They placed each quarterback into a specific category, ranked the quarterbacks within those categories, then ranked the categories based on potential for the entire group.
Smith was ranked near the bottom of the “Solid starters who have flashed high-end play” category. Darnold was at the top of the “Veterans capable of solid play, but could be quickly replaced” category.
If they had been placed in the same category, they unquestionably would’ve been ranked much closer.
In their category tiers, they put “Young players with a wide range of potential outcomes” between those two categories. So, you get weird rankings like Ward, Williams, and Penix being ranked above Darnold. I really can’t argue against ranking young guys, as a group, above easily replaceable vets. The potential is there with the young guys, once again as a category.
I would argue that it’s not entirely unreasonable to place these two players in these two different categories based on their respective bodies of work.