Which NFL rookie QB will have the best year? Plus, Joey Votto's farewell

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Good morning! I miss Joey Votto already.

Poll Season, Pt. 2: Caleb? Jayden? Bo Nix??

There may be no more compelling storyline this NFL season than the fate of its rookie QB class. The top two picks — the Bears’ Caleb Williams and Commanders’ Jayden Daniels — are both Heisman winners and hold their teams’ futures in their young hands. The latter could also be said of New England’s Drake Maye and Denver’s Bo Nix. In an alternate timeline, Minnesota’s injured J.J. McCarthy is in that camp, too.

The closest recent comparison is 2020: Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert went in the top six picks. They have since been franchise linchpins. Jordan Love (drafted at No. 23) and Jalen Hurts (No. 51) grew into those roles, too.

Our next NFL preview Pulse Poll focuses squarely on said pressure: Which rookie is going to have the best year? I agonized over how to evaluate this. Each QB plays on a different team with different schemes and expectations. How can we say who was actually best?

The Pulse braintrust landed on QBR, ESPN’s composite QB performance rating. For example, here are last year’s top four QBR guys:

1. Brock Purdy
2. Dak Prescott
3. Josh Allen
4. Lamar Jackson

Tracks for me. So we arrive at the fully formed poll question: Which rookie QB will end the year with the best QBR? Options:

• Caleb Williams
• Jayden Daniels
• Bo Nix
• Other

Nix gets a slot there because the Broncos announced him as their starter yesterday. New England has not decided on its starter just yet, so Maye — like Michael Penix Jr. and Spencer Rattler — falls into Other.

Make your voice heard here. We’ll run the results tomorrow.

Mile Markers: Everyone loves big numbers

Last night was great for milestones. We had three big ones:

• Dream center Tina Charles moved up to second on the WNBA all-time scoring list, past legend Tina Thompson, by scoring 12 points in Atlanta’s win over Phoenix. Charles now has 7,491 points — still 3,009 points shy of Diana Taurasi, who was fittingly on the floor with Charles last night.
• Aaron Judge hit home runs No. 46 and 47 on the season in the Yankees’ 8-1 win over Cleveland, putting him on pace for 60 dingers, just two shy of his historic 2022 pace. Something to watch.
• Elly De La Cruz stole his 60th base of the year last night, becoming just the fifth player in MLB history to post a 20/60 season. The Reds are likely missing the playoffs again this year, but at least their fans get to watch this 22-year-old every day.

Moving on:

News to Know

More Japanese players in MLB?
Evan Drellich has a fascinating piece up this morning on the fight of players in Nippon Professional Baseball — Japan’s top league — to become free agents earlier in their careers, which would clear the way for many of Japan’s top stars to reach MLB sooner than ever before. Right now, they must either wait nine years to leave or be posted for bidding, which can become prohibitively expensive for MLB clubs. Imagine if Shohei Ohtani had made it to the States earlier. We’ll have more on this later in the week.

Votto retires
Former Reds first baseman Joey Votto, 40, officially retired yesterday after a 17-year major-league career. Votto surely has a place in the Hall of Fame, and he leaves as one of the most distinct characters baseball has seen in a long time. He may also be the most disciplined hitter in the history of the game. We’ll have many more stories in the coming days about his goodbye. C. Trent Rosecrans, surely the most authoritative Votto scribe on the planet, wrote that Votto was everything baseball needed.

NASCAR denies Dillon again
Remember when Austin Dillon rammed his way through Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin to win that race two weeks ago? The victory earned him a spot in the playoffs, but NASCAR decided to strip his automatic playoff berth, and yesterday denied his appeal for reinstatement into the postseason. Dillon has one last chance to win an appeal on the matter, though.

More news

• Nebraska named freshman Dylan Raiola its starting quarterback. Expectations might actually be high in Lincoln this year.
  
• Browns running back Pierre Strong Jr. was released from the hospital yesterday after leaving practice in an ambulance with a rib contusion.
  
• Raheem Sterling wants out of Chelsea. What a weird ending.
  
• Warriors legend and Hall of Famer Alvin Attles died at 87, the team announced.
• The World Baseball Classic announced its 2026 pools and format. See the details here.