The final week before the NFL trade deadline was quite eventful. Multiple starting quarterbacks changed teams, while injuries decimated the bottom of our rankings. We are watching undrafted rookies and career backups play in consequential games. It won't shock you to hear those results skewed negative.

Let's dive into our updated rankings, with notes on a surging Jordan Love, a free-falling Justin Herbert, the Kirk Cousins trade and more!

NFL quarterback rankings after Week 9

Jordan Love put a blowtorch to the Patriots

There have been ups and downs to this season for Jordan Love, but he's starting to pile up the numbers. With a dominant 45-27 victory over the Patriots in Foxboro on Sunday, the Green Bay Packers are now 6-3 on the season. Despite myriad injury setbacks and stretches of startling ineptitude on the defensive end, the Packers are primed for another postseason run. It's hard not to hand the majority of the credit to Jordan Love, who's doing the most with the least. That is a classic MVP argument.

Love completed 23-of-29 passes (79.3 percent) for 372 yards and three touchdowns in the Packers' drubbing of New England. It was his signature performance of this season, and it felt like a turning point after the Packers' early-season stumbles. It's still easy to nitpick Love's at times single-minded approach, but there is no more fearless gunslinger in the NFL. He applies relentless pressure on the opposing secondary and forces the defense to capitalize on his mistakes. Too many quarterbacks hamstring themselves out of fear; Love is admirable in his willingness to live on the edge. It can lead to some truly breathtaking performances.

The Packers are still a mess of a team, but the defense has turned it around enough to support what I am going to term as Green Bay's "Love-bombing" offense (sorry). Love was on the periphery of the MVP race last season, and he's back again for another go.

Justin Herbert is out of excuses

The Los Angeles Chargers fell to 0-8 with Sunday's blowout loss to Houston. What can we even say at this point? This Justin Herbert season transcends words like "disappointment," even "meltdown." Never has a consensus top-10 quarterback, with two Pro Bowls and two top-10 MVP finishes in a six-year span, fallen quite this hard.

Herbert's postseason disappearing acts are well documented, but this is a former No. 6 overall pick whom many still argued was an all-world talent last season. The rub on Herbert has always been that he's a superstar in waiting, in need of a bit more help and perhaps a more dynamic scheme. When the Chargers landed Mike McDaniel, who led the NFL's best offense for years with Tua Tagovailoa under center, the expectations shot through the roof. This was supposed to be Herbert's crowning moment.

Instead, he leads the NFL in interceptions (11) and overall turnovers (18). He's on track for career lows in completion percentage (61.3), touchdown percentage (2.6) and yards per attempt (6.8). Herbert is lost at sea. He's crumbling under pressure and rushing routine throws.

Once capable of stunning, stop-and-rewind plays on a weekly basis, it's now like the Monstars zapped Herbert of his star power. It's hard to square his reputation and what we know him to be capable of with the current product. Herbert should probably rank even lower on this list, but a rash of QB injuries around the league — plus the latent sense that he can't possibly be this ineffective out of nowhere — keeps him out of the very bottom tier. Just know he deserves to be even lower, which is super depressing.

Kirk Cousins gets one last shot at Super Bowl glory

Kirk Cousins' short but sweet Las Vegas Raiders tenure ends with Pro Bowl numbers: 2,340 yards, 20 touchdowns and a 64.1 percent completion rate across nine starts. The Raiders went 4-5 with Cousins under center, but Vegas blew past every preseason expectation. Cousins was so good that Las Vegas turned a one-year placeholder signing into a third-round pick at the trade deadline.

Cousins now returns to the Minnesota Vikings, where he spent six productive years — including a couple under head coach Kevin O'Connell, in a scheme that aligns perfectly with his play action-heavy style. Cousins made the Pro Bowl in 2022 and was on track to potentially win MVP in 2023 before a torn Achilles cut his best NFL season in half.

It's fair to wonder if O'Connell has lost his fastball; not every problem with the Vikings' 31st-ranked offense falls on Kyler Murray. That said, a lot of Minnesota's problems come down to middling performance at the QB position. A world-destroying defense helped Minnesota start 6-0, but two straight losses promptly put their clunky offense under the microscope. Cousins is imperfect at 38 years old, but he remains one of the sharpest decision-makers in the NFL, with deft touch and accuracy throwing to varied areas of the field.

If Cousins can help the Vikings achieve even modest success offensively, the defense is dominant enough to position Minnesota for a deep playoff run. It's rare to see winning teams bring in a new quarterback midseason, but Cousins' roots in Minnesota provide a unique recipe for success. If there's any latent magic there, this could be Cousins' last chance at Super Bowl glory and a special place in the NFL history books.

This week in NFL QB injuries...

Six NFL teams — Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Seattle and the New York Giants — were without their typical starters in Week 9 due to injury.

The Ravens were also without their typical backup (Tyler Huntley), which led to undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano drawing his first NFL start. It did not go well. The Eagles, meanwhile, benched their backup (Tanner McKee) in favor of Joe Milton III, a quarterback with endless talent but no apparent ability to piece it all together.

The Vikings benched backup Carson Wentz midway through a blowout loss in Buffalo, then replaced him with the Kirk Cousins trade. The Ravens also replaced Fagnano with Jacoby Brissett earlier in the week; he won't get much time to learn the system, as Baltimore can ill-afford another scheduled loss.

Meanwhile, Giants backup J.J. McCarthy injured his hip and was seen collapsing in pain after attempting a throw on the sideline. That means third-stringer Jameis Winston is back in the saddle.

This is becoming an epidemic. We will have new faces in new places for next week's QB rankings, plus the potential for a few more Guys You've Never Heard Of starting in big spots. Also: the debut start of No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza, which is exciting.

A small shoutout to Shedeur Sanders, though. He took some big hits in Sunday's OT loss to the Saints, but he put a few throws on tape that Deshaun Watson couldn't dream of making at this stage of his career. The Browns will almost certainly stick with Watson the rest of the way, but Sanders is lurking, should the window of opportunity ever reopen.