Early Top 10 QB Rankings, Splash Zone

And it just, it was his weapons. What do you attribute that to? The weapons. Injury? Yeah, the weapons and the injury. Last year, through the first four games, Geronimo Allison was on a pace of, he was catching five receptions a game for 72 yards, averaging half a touchdown. Geronimo Allison, this is just another reminder, was excellent for fantasy football while he was healthy. Then he got hurt. The rookies did not step up. So that's my case for Aaron Rogers.

Will the new coaching staff let him throw the ball inside the 20, and I think they will. Yeah, he's going to decide that. I mean, Aaron Rogers is going to throw the ball inside the 20 because Aaron Rogers wants to throw the ball inside the 20. Your case, to me, is a reason why he might be a really good value this year. Relative, he's not a good value because he's going early in drafts and he's a quarterback, but relative to where you usually get him. You know, he's got eight of his last 10 seasons at 15 or 16 games, and of those, including this last year where he finished 6th,

and he had one down year when he lost Jordi, where he finished seventh. He averages just past the quarterback two over those eight seasons. Right. He's got a chip on his shoulder the size of Mike McCarthy. Okay. So I feel like if you're going to take a shot at someone, I'm going to take a shot at, you know, who is considered one of the top five quarterbacks all time, who's proven it forever, who's getting a new offensive mind in there with a lot to prove. The health issues that you just talked about, look, Geronimo, Allison should be back.

So I actually like Aaron Rogers of those top quarterbacks. But again, you know, if you're in a two-quarterback league, I think he provides a value for where he'll go. By the way, he was the only other player than Mahomes. I said 30% of the time on third and long, he's throwing deep. Rogers was at 23%. No other quarterback was above 20%. Kind of adding to the fuel to the fire of Jason's, he'll do what he wants kind of mindset, even with the handcuffing of Mike McCarthy. Deshaun Watson at number four, Baker Mayfield at 5.

Watson all the way up at number two for Mike. Jason, you and I have him at four. Last year he had a heck of a season. Highest completion percentage for a second year quarterback in NFL history. He had to run around a lot. He was sacked 62 times. I remember the John Kittner season in 2006 when he was sacked more than 62 times. That was the highest since then. A lot of those.

sacks, that's on Watson. 100%. His offensive line is, I would not call him a strong unit, but you watch him hold on the ball. And what's crazy, I want to see if you guys feel the same way as I do, because I remember, we had pumped the brakes on Watson because his draft price got absolutely out of control. He was the second quarterback off the board. After his rookie year. After his rookie year. And it was, hold the phone people. This is what he did. You can't possibly do that again. But it felt like,

about at least halfway through that he wasn't having a great fantasy year. Like that was how I, when I would watch my opponent who was in my division, he had Watson, and I was just laughing hysterically because there were so many games where Watson was actually hurting his team. But then things started to come back together for Watson. So that my point is why I have him at number two, I think he was, I think he was shook.

Coming back from the injury, he had to work his way back into the flow of the game to have more confidence in his legs. He still ran the ball like crazy over 550 rushing yards, five rushing touchdowns. I think that Watson will be completely back to health, completely back to mental health. And that's the difference for me. I love Deshaun Watson. I love everything about him. Him being at four to me has nothing to do with him. It has everything to do with the history we have in Aaron Rogers and Andrew Luck.

And then, of course, Patma Holmes. Last year, Watson went at 502. This year he's going so far at 602. Would you have been happy? That's almost a round better value. You're spot on, Jason. I've done the math. Almost. But would you have been happy with him at 502 last year? No way. No. No. What if you got the same value at 602 this year? Are you happy with that? No. Not at all. Baker Mayfield coming in at number five.

He's number five on mine. He's number five on Jason's. Mike's at seven. Yeah. Mike hates Baker. That's the thing to get to take away from this segment. How? Mike hates Baker Mayfield. Dare you speak that evil into this. I mean, I've got Baker Mania. I've got Baker Mania. Clearly. But Mike, Mike does not have Bigger Mania. Mike also doesn't like him as a player or person. Right. It actually says he's a little arrogant for my taste. That's not me, but Mike. Mike says that. Yeah. I would recommend.

if you're holding your iPhone to place it down because my rage could explode your battery. There could be some radiation. There's a problem. That's my guy. That's my guy Baker. Oh, oh. Oh. You're right. It does hurt. It hurts a lot. Thank you. So, look, it's hard not to have Baker mania right now for Jason and I. And look, from week 7 through 16 last year, he was the QB10 ahead of names like Gough, Rivers, Tribisky.

added O'Dell Beckham Jr. What I love about Baker, here's a stat that I saw this morning. I don't think I ended up tweeting it out. Baker Mayfield had the second highest, he had the second highest quarterback rating inside the 20, in the red zone. Last year he had ice water. On that struggling, Hugh Jackson led Cleveland Brown team, he was a great red zone quarterback coming into year two.

There's a lot of reasons to love him, and we don't want to knock the pendulum too far that direction. That's all I'm doing. Yeah, clearly. With your hate? You have him at seven, right? Here's the reason I'm a five. That's not even in the top six. Well said. Here's the reason I have number five, because when I look at this group, this starts the third tier for me. And the third tier, even though it starts at number five, it goes all the way down to like.

Quarterback 13. And of that group, which I love every single player in there, I want the unknown. I want the ability to say, okay, maybe Baker comes out. Like with all his kids. I love every single one. I love you all the same. But I have a favorite. Like a good father. Right. Like a real father. But your favorite is the unknown. Yeah, it's the unknown. If I know you, I don't like you. No, the reality is I'm hoping, if I'm taking any quarterback early, I need them to go Pat Mahomes.

I need them to go nuclear. I don't want them to do what Deshaun Watson did last year and have a good year. And that's the hope with Baker. Do I think he does that? I would lean on the side of no. But he has the chance. He came in after not starting the whole season. And did he tie or break the all-time rookie passing touchdown record? One of those two. He broke it. Yeah. He did not play in the first two weeks. He broke it, but you would not be happy with that season, obviously. I mean, he set up.

a record for a rookie passer not playing the first two weeks. Mike, I'm not sure I buy into the unknown aspect when you combine that with the next two guys on the list, Carson Wins, Cam Newton, and the struggles that they're, you know, they're coming off of injury, they're coming off of shoulder surgery and things like that. If anything, I would say a strong argument can be made for Matt Ryan.

We had a monstrous number two fantasy season. Ryan probably deserves the respect of being here. I believe you should look at my ranking of Matt Ryan. Which is where you have him appropriately. I believe you should all look at my ranking of Matt Ryan, which is where he will finish. You have such bad takes when it comes to Matt Ryan.

That's, okay. Are we skipping down here? Because I'm happy to talk about Matt Ryan. No, we will give you, trust me, you will be the one to talk on Matt Ryan because you have them at 13 after a number two fantasy season. No doubt about it. I just... Sounds very Matt Ryan-y. It could be Matt Ryan-y, but I just feel like it's so disrespectful to go from 2 to 13. Is it disrespectful to go from 2 to 15? Because that's what he did a couple years ago.

That was disrespectful for us. It was disrespectful to fantasy players, yes. All right, we'll move on from Baker. The big deal with Baker is you're adding one of the best wide receivers in the league, arguably the best, to an ascendant talent. You've got elite talent out of the backfield. You've got elite talent on the outside. You got elite talent at the tight end position. And you got a great O line. You got everything going in that direction. But you need him to, you know, he's got to go from 27 touchdowns to the 40 range. For, for.

A number five ranking to come through. No, no, he can be in the low 30s, but he also was only around 3,700 yards. So get that up to 43, 4,400 yards, and then you'll be all right. Carson Wentz at 6. Maybe surprising for fantasy owners as well. Deshaun Jackson rejoins the fold in Philadelphia, hopefully a healthy Alshan Jeffrey and company. Look, last year didn't finish the season. Again, was playing pretty good, though.

Very nice completion percentage to start the season. It's all about looking at whether you believe Philadelphia is going to get back on track. I mean, I've got the pros and cons for Wins very easily. He really only started 10 games and averaged basically 23 fantasy points per game, which puts him in the upper tier of quarterbacks during that stretch. And he's got the best wide receiving core he's ever had. You've still got Zach Gertz. You've still got Alshan Jeffrey. They add to Sean...

Jackson, a second year for Dallas Goddor. I love the weapons, love everything here. I would, I have him at six. I, that was, that was before the latest report that I heard about the, you know, the rehab and what's going on with the back. Because similar to Cam Newton, who we've got next, I've got Cam down at nine, I like all these guys in the tier. So why would I risk myself? I can make all the arguments as to how good Carson Wentz is. Same with Cam Newton.

But I want to try to avoid the people who have, like I don't need to draft either one of them. You would take the best value of the tier. Yes, the best value of the tier. If you were going to force yourself into a draft pick. And I get it. Look, Carson Wins has to run the ball. If he doesn't run the ball, he doesn't belong here. He's okay, not great. He never had a great game last year in all the games he returned. He ran for 93 yards on the season. What? That's it. Really? So that's the difference. I mean, he just wasn't the same Carson Wince you got.

when he was break, you know, MVP candidate. That's what I have, 34 for 93. Am I wrong? I'm just making sure. No, that's right. Okay, I was about to. No, I mean, I'm just double checking, but no great games. And the reason is he's not running the football. And he did not have enough weapons, did not, you know, he just didn't deliver the big time games. Well, we kind of expected him to run less coming back off of that knee injury in year one. And then in year two, he'd run more. Except now in year two, he's dealing with a back injury.

So is he going to do the same 9.3 yards per game on the ground? He would be a quick drop in this tier in our rankings that you'll probably see in the ultimate draft can't move him forward if he does not show that he's going to be healthy and he's able to do it. Now, Nick Foles isn't there. They don't have the fallback plan. Not anymore. Cam Newton comes in at number seven. I have him at 10, Jason at 9, Mike at 6. He could do the reverse. He could do the reverse in my mind and in my rankings. He can move up. He's probably the sneakiest.

of this group. You know, now that Chris Hogan's on that team. Oh, what an ad. But look, Cam Newton, when he is healthy, is always an elite fantasy football producer. Even last year, the struggles with the shoulder, 29% of his games. Great. Week winning weeks. He finished as a quarterback won, despite the fact that he was not even an NFL quarterback the second part of the year when he couldn't throw more than 12 yards.

That's how fire he was to start the year. Quarterback two, the year prior, two years prior to that, the quarterback won. Nine quarterback one weeks. I've got him at six, but this is, well, it's wait and see for Cam Newton. I mean, I had Cam when I started making these rankings. I had him at five as my number one quarterback in that next tier, that tier three group. But then I just started realizing because a couple of years ago he had this surgery he had in the offseason. And he came back out from it.

Totally on fire. It helped him. And he was great. And so you can make the argument. I can see him coming back and being awesome. But you got to go, well, he was worse this year than he was when he got his last surgery. Also, this isn't his first. It's his second. He is obviously by nature of nature, older than he was the first time around. Ah, yes. And so there's, you know, why? Time. The nature of nature. The great equalizer. Yes.

Um, so it's just one of those things where if, if he's healthy, he is, but see, there's a lot of if. There's if for Baker. There's if for wins. There's if for Newton. Now, you believe there is if for Matt Ryan, whereas I think Matt Ryan, I will be moving him up just on the basis of these discussions. Join me. Then I will be moving him down. I have him at night. Mike, I know. I need to equalize the breaking. Mike has him in five. And I get it. Look, the, why do we like Baker? Weapons. Weapons.

And he's a good quarterback. Talent. Matt Ryan have any weapons? Age. Matt Ryan have any weapons? Julio Jones? Yes. Wait, you're worried about Matt Ryan's age? He said, why do we love Baker? He's a second-year player. Matt Ryan has done this before. He's put up multiple top three fantasy seasons. Yes, he has. What's he done every single season following?