Early Top 10 QB Rankings, Splash Zone

Tom Coughlin. And so this is one of those things where it's like, I mean, and in fairness, like, it shows a little bit of immaturity. You're a, you're a multi, multi-millionaire. You can't pay your, you know, your traffic fines. Like, take care of your business. A headache's a headache. That's what I, look, from what actually happened, you know, this isn't domestic abuse. This isn't some sort of, you know, DUI. This is not something that this is a slap on the wrist type of offense. Yeah, you just don't want your star running back coming up in the news arrested.

Exactly. So that was today's news and notes brought to you by Sleeper. Be sure to switch your Dynasty League over to Sleeper. Download the app today. Guys, it's time. Let's talk quarterbacks. Maybe. Maybe we will. Maybe we won't. I don't know. Quarterbacks. And now. You know, the thing is when I can't find the drop to hit, I'm sorry to tell you this. This is human nature. I'm a fallen person.

I just want to blame Brooks. I don't want it to be my fault. I instantly want it to be Brooks's fault. He didn't capitalize the drop. It was a lowercase. Okay, so based on that, would you say that this was Brooks fault in this situation? This one yes. Okay, good. Yeah, this one yes. If I were running the soundboard, I mean, there's so many buttons over there that you could push.

And I could not find what I needed to push. Oh, you just, I would just push something. Close your eyes. Oh, because you don't want to get to that awkward point. Right. Let's close your eyes. Now, quarterbacks. Carry on Collins. All right. Hey, look, we did not include rookies in these rankings. I say that because I really wanted to. You did. I believe Kyler Murray will end up in a starting role.

drafted so high that he has to be, whether it's Oakland or Arizona or New York or wherever. Denver, who knows. But he'll be starting. So I think Kyla Murray's starting defaults him in the top 15. I really do. 100% in the top 15. If he's a top 10 quarterback, I won't be surprised at all. And I wouldn't doubt if going into draft season, he is my number one target at the position. Because depending on where, I mean, if he doesn't get the steam of this year's fantasy success and he's drafted like a rookie quarterback,

I will absolutely take him for the potential. I mean, you look at Russell Wilson, right? Comes in and rookie season or cam, the guys that run, rookie season they dominate. Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson? Yeah. I mean, we saw this last year and he's a special player. But we'll have plenty of time post-draft to talk all about where the rookies went. Best possible fits, best draft, best players for fantasy. So we'll get there.

Right now, we're going to cover our consensus. Top quarterbacks here in April. It's April 15th when we're recording this, and we all have a very surprising name at the top of the list. Now, I want to set a little context for the quarterback position first, okay, guys? If we include week 17 of last year, we saw a total number of 41 different quarterbacks put up a top 12 performance.

Why is that important, Mike? Because you stream the position. It's a very replaceable part of your fantasy football team. I think that Jason and I both commented when we were ranking our initial quarterbacks, kind of how annoying it is. Because you look at 24 guys, and while there are tiers, undoubtedly tears of quarterbacks, you get to this area where the order could be anything.

between, I don't know, six through 14. So we took our shot, we ranked our guys, we'll bring them up on the show. A couple of years ago, the quarterback situation in the NFL started looking murky. You had guys getting older. You had Tom Brady, Drew Breeze, you know, and they were about to leave, and there weren't air apparent replacements. And so it's like, it was scary. Then all of a sudden, you look at the last few years and you've got...

Carson Wins and Dad Prescott Holmes and Deshawn Watson. But none of the old guys are gone yet. So right now, more than any year I can remember, there are, there's 21 quarterbacks, not including Kyler Murray, where I think Kirk Cousins is my 21st ranked quarterback. I'd be just fine going into the, into 2019 with Kirk Cousins. And to speak to the cluster last year.

In standard scoring, the point per game differential between quarterback 8 and quarterback 14 was less than a single point. That's probably the most compelling argument to stream quarterback unless you get an incredible value on a top-in guy. If QB8 to QB 14 had a differential of less than a point of game that tells you that you are literally wasting a pick if you overpay for somebody in that middling tier, unless you are, look,

Shoot your shot. If you are convicted that, like last year, Pat Mahomes obviously did not go at the top of the draft. Oh, he was super late. If you are positive that Baker's going to be the number one quarterback, okay, maybe that rises him up that middling tier. But the evidence is there. And look, scoring is up. The way these offenses are being run has been very advantageous to the quarterback position. There were 33 weeks last year.

of 30 plus fantasy points from the quarterback position. That was almost double the year before. Yeah, two years ago, it's weird. It was. Weird, wide receiver scoring, weird quarterback scoring. That was the year that we had a lot of wide receiver injury as well, I believe. All right. Let's jump into it. Pat Mahomes. Pat Mahomes at number one. Not surprising. Finish number one. Had 14 quarterback one weeks. He was, I mean, look.

We can almost skip Pat Mahomes. Here's the reality. He was so much better than the second quarterback that the whole, you know, we are huge proponents of drafting your quarterback late, streaming the position, meaning play him off of the waiver wire, grab a guy and play the matchup more than the quarterback himself. Pat Mahomes is the only quarterback here that is worth an early pick if he were to repeat. If he were to repeat the success, he is 100% worth.

statistically mathematically, you know, looking at what you're replacing in the draft at wide receiver and running back, he would be worth it. Now, will he repeat that? I don't think so. I think that we've got enough evidence of monstrous quarterback seasons that all come down to earth, even when they're good, Peyton, Aaron Rogers, those type of things. So I would not even consider Pat Mahomes, but if he does repeat, then you're happy. Otherwise, I see, I would consider Pat Mahomes. I think he will repeat.

I think it'll be pretty close. 8.6% and that's, I'm going to 8.6 of his attempts were touchdowns. That's ludicrous. The case that I have for it is that number one, Patrick Mahomes is a generational type of talent. Number two, he's matched up with the best or top three play callers in the league. The reason I think he's such a differentiator and why those numbers can stay the same is if you look at third and long.

Who throws the ball deep? Well, Patrick Mahomes is in another echelon of what that offense does. 30% of the time, he's throwing the ball deep on third and long and taking a shot. You know what Dak Prescott did? 9%. Jared Goff in the super offense, 10%. Drew Breeze, 10%. That's an unbelievable type of number from Patrick Mahomes. Now, if Tyree Kill is not there, the ceiling changes when you take the fastest player in the game away from him.

But all of this to say, you know, how early do you take Patrick Mahomes in a redraft? Right now he's going at the seventh pick of the second round. No way, man. 3.01. I'll take the jump. The thing is, if Patrick Mahomes puts up 35 touchdowns, that's a great season. That's an excellent season for a quarterback. You're happy with your fantasy numbers.

but that would be a massive colossal bust if you drafted him at the back of the second or the early 30 and he only throws 35 touchdowns. If he throws 45? Of course. If he throws 45, but then he, now you're talking about that, and I'm fine calling him like, watching him saying he's a generational guy, but to say he's going to hit 45, you're talking, okay, he's just, he's a, he's a top two quarterback of all time already. It's not necessarily saying that.

Because the precedent set for the quarterback position in previous years that we lean on. Look, I'm trying to play devil's advocate here. I still, on the whole, we never advocate taking a quarterback high, and I don't want to. But if you do take him, and what have I told you this? Let's frame it differently. If you believe Patrick McHolmes was an 80% chance at a near repeat of the fantasy production, do you take him?

In the second round, if you believed it was an 80% chance. If I believe there's 80% then yes. Yeah. So where are you in that percentage, in that belief? Do you believe it's 50-50? I'm in 20%. I was going to say I would be close to the 20 to 25%. Okay. That's fair. That's fair. Andrew Lott comes into number two? Really, I feel like there's three guys that come in at two, three, four. Would we agree there like kind of the next grouping?

We all have the same top four. Luck Rogers Watson. They ended up landing Locke Rogers Watson in that order based on how we ranked them, mostly because Mike had Rogers at four. Dummy. So Andrew Luck, 39 touchdowns, 4,59 yards. You could kind of throw out those first three weeks of the season as he hadn't played football in about a decade or so it seemed.

But he had an NFL record eight straight games with three or more touchdowns from weeks four through 12 after that warm up period. And he was great. And this is a team that I love. This is a team that I think can threaten for an AFC title. The reason that I would put Aaron Rogers and Andrew Luck ahead of Watson, even though Watson's been great, is just because you have a history of basically those two players dominating. If you've got 16 games from those two players, you know, minus the rookie year for Andrew Luck.

You're pretty much dealing with a top five guy almost every single time. You look at Andrew Luck, the fifth best, two years ago, fourth best, the second best, the fourth best, even his rookie year, he's a ninth best. So you've got this history of like, what's the floor? What's the floor for these guys, barring injury or something like that? It's like quarterback seven. And you've got a lot of data to support that between those two. So if I'm taking the gamble of I think someone's going to be for sure locked and loaded top five,

Aaron Rogers, Andrew Luck, they've done it too many times. Yeah, they're fully in the kind of prime part of their career where you look at when Brady was there, you didn't really care what the weapons were. Brady was going to be in your top five, top eight. Luck has hopefully a healthy Tyoy Hilton, Funches, Ebron, weapons of plenty. They'll probably draft some.

Did you have anything you want to add about Andrew Luck before we talk Rodgers? No, not look. I'm going to press pause for a second because I do want to thank today's sponsor, Hello Fresh. Hello Fresh makes conquering the kitchen a reality with deliciously simple recipes and some fresh pre-measured ingredients delivered right to your door. We've been talking about Hello Fresh for a long time. I can still remember making this delicious caramelized onion burger.

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by going to hellofresh.com slash footballers 80 and entering the code footballers 80. That's hellofresh.com slash footballers 80 and enter the code footballers 80 for 20 off your first four boxes. Pretty good deal. All right. Aaron Rogers. Mike, you got them before. Talk about Aaron Rogers. So I do have Aaron Rogers the lowest, but I have the case for Aaron Rogers if people weren't aware of what happened to him.

Last year when he was still, what, the quarterback six? Correct. On the season, Aaron Rogers saw his touchdown percentage drop two full points from his career average, from 6.2 down to 4.2. And the problem came down, at least in my estimation, one he was badly injured in week one. You thought he was done for the year. But then it came down to Red Zone attempts. That's what made Aaron. He's always made Aaron Rogers different.

than other quarterbacks. As soon as they get into the 20, they get inside the 10, when most teams are saying, okay, we're going to run it up the middle. Aaron Rogers says, no, thank you. I'm going to throw it. But you saw the red zone attempts of the past five years. You're talking he's averaging a little over 100 attempts inside the red zone. And then last year, 2018, it dropped all the way to 64. There's a massive, massive plummet.