Early Top 10 QB Rankings, Splash Zone

Those top seasons. You just don't like those kind of arguments. No, I'm not. I hate those kind of arguments. You can't predict that, oh, just because every other year he has a great year and every other year he has a down year, it's going to continue. You can't do that and that's not what I am doing. Now, that's not to say that that's not true, going from 7 to 15 to 7 to 7 to 19 to 2 to 15 to 2 to I don't know, but here's the reason that I'm against Matt Ryan essentially.

You look at his last four years. He's had two really great years where he threw a lot of – it's all based on one thing and one thing alone. Touchdowns. That's it. He threw 38 touchdowns in his MVP year, two years ago, 35 last year. Those are great. You're going to have a great time. But the other two mixed in – It's going to be a party. The other two mixed in, it's not like he threw 30. He threw 21. He threw 20. And what happened this last year? His main red zone weapon on the ground, Devons Freeman, wasn't there.

Take some of those touchdowns away. I just feel like Matt Ryan is not, I mean, put it this way. Average in those last four years, including the massive MVP years and last year, just average them in touchdowns. And that's 28 touchdowns is what he has been averaging over that time. I mean, that's losing 42 points off of this last year. Now he's quarterback 13, where I've got him ranked. I don't think.

He is a guarantee you've got a change in offensive coordinator. You've got Devonta Freeman. It changed back. A change back. A change. He had an MVP season with. Nonetheless, a change from the system he just threw 35 touchdowns with. And Devonta Freeman in the running, I can't imagine the running game not getting better than it was last year, which was really bad. But don't you think it's a little bit pick and choose when you can rank James Winston where I see him at like seven? Too low. But that change.

The change is bad for Mount Ryan, but the change is good for James Winston, just because Winston has never done it. If Winston put up a monster season, is the change bad for James Winston? No, but I'm not ranking him here because of change. Change is one of the multitude of reasons. I'm ranking him here based on what Matt Ryan himself has done over the course of his career and what the truth about Matt Ryan is and his touchdown rate. That's why I'm ranking him there. I'm just adding on that he also is having a coordinator change.

I don't believe that that is necessarily better. I am a gigantic belief. Like, for instance, this is dealing with the exact same human. Dirk Cutter. Dirk Cutter is the change for both of those quarterbacks. Do you, Andy, believe that Dirk Cutter is a very good offensive coordinator? I think he's a pretty good offense coordinator, yeah. I said very good. Please answer the question. No, I don't think he's very good. Were you on the night of the 25th?

But, right. Bruce Ariens, I think, is a very good offensive mind. Would you agree with that? Sure. So that's the, I mean. But I mean, we're splitting here. It still comes down to talent on the field. I mean, it doesn't matter how it is a great quarterback. And Matt Ryan has Julio Jones, an ascendant Calvin Ridley. And now has Calvin Ridley. Ridley is a game breaker for him. That's the difference to me is I think he could finish. Matt Ryan could easily finish.

as the top three quarterback again. The difference to me is... Not saying he will. I haven't ranked it like eight or nine because of the reasons you brought up. But I'm not going to throw him six points below James. Like an insane person is Julio Jones. Just call Jason Stephen A. Smith. Entered his cocoon. I'm talking over you. Edit that out. That's disgusting. He entered his cocoon. You said that a lot like Stephen. Shamoo is fine. You could call me Shamu.

I'm fine with that. I've got a few extra LBs. You call me Stephen A. Smith. Oh, bad takes. Goodness. Julio Jones metamorphosized last year into Julio touchdown Jones. We saw that happen. Back when Matt Ryan was having the years where he is, you're right, with the 20 touchdowns, 21, he wasn't playing with two first round wide receivers. Calvin Ridley is a massive difference to this offense. I don't necessarily.

Love Calvin Ridley as a standalone fantasy wide receiver, but I think he is a massive difference to Matt Ryan being able to sustain his touchdown rate. It might come down a bit, but you give Matt Ryan 31, 32 touchdowns. I think that's well within the realm of possibility. He's never had a problem with yards ever. And he's going to be cheap. People will not pay up for Matt Ryan.

in fantasy drafts. They just won't do it. It's 703 right now. Behind Breeze, behind Watson. Just ahead of Wilson. They're going to pay him higher. They're going to take them higher because of the number two finish. Let me make, yes, they will. Finish number two is going in the seventh round. Yes. All right. Let me make my final point on Matt Ryan. Week one, were the Falcons considered a very likely Super Bowl contender? Of last year?

Going into last season, yes, 100%. In week three, were they? No, they were dead. Why? Anybody remember? They lost all of their defense. Their defense just got destroyed. Sure. They lost all their best players to season-ending injuries, and then they were giving up 43 points a game. 37, 41, 29. I mean, they were giving up monster points. So Matt Ryan's got to air it out and score touchdowns. Like, they can't win the way that...

They wanted to, and they, I mean, they were in complete shootouts week in and week out. There's only one way to settle this. Oh, let's do it. Top 10 finish for Matt Ryan. I put me down. Mike, you went in? Of course I'm in on that. Waterbet. Now, I want the record to show, because people ask this question. We're going to do a better job tracking and posting the water bet results this year because Al Borland, the producer from the Spitballers podcast, who's sitting behind the desk next to Judge Giamatti himself.

He's going to make sure that we stay on top of these. We post him to YouTube. He's got his thumbs up. We got the thumb. The thumbs up. Just one. Well, two would be ridiculous. Yeah. Have you ever given two thumbs up? Just like two. That's a little over the top. Yeah. Those have to be immediately followed with finger guns. When's the last time you've given a real thumbs up in general? Just like for a good reason. Well.

Thumbs up. All the time to kids. Yeah. To an adult. I'm talking about like, when's the last thumbs up you've given to an adult? Wow. A thumbs up to an adult. Never. It's been a minute. Never. Maybe like... Only like when I'm doing the scene from Gladiator. What if somebody's like your... Oh, that always ends in thumbs down for me. Always. I only pull this out when I know it's going to be negative. Oh, yeah. Okay. I don't think we do that anymore. We don't drink milk in public.

Once you're past a certain age, and we don't get some stuff. Wait, that's a good point. Nah, I'll get milk. A glass of milk. At a restaurant. If I'm at like an I hop or a Denny's because I already hate myself, I am fine getting the glass. I'll take the milk over the O. But you don't do chocolate. You get white milk. No, no. Chocolate milk. Wait, is that a hashtag not a sponsor? After that, Denny's endorsement. Look, I love pancakes. I want them to be five, six each.

Come at me, Cracker Barrel. Yes. Not Denny's. Glass of milk at Denny's. Then it's permitted. All right. Russell Wilson and Drew Brees round out the top ten. Apparently we're going to have a second quarterback show. Brooks, this is just in. Breaking. Breaking news. Yes, we are. Yeah, you knew that. Okay. So number nine, Russell Wilson. I've got him at seven, Jason, eight. Mike, all the way at 14. Dare I say, this is your Matt Ryan moment. Share your hate for Russell.

It's not, hey, remember that stat I talked about at the beginning of the show where quarterbacks 8 through 14 where there was like a one point difference. I just don't like the way that things are going for the offense for Seattle. Healthy Doug Baldwin doesn't intrigue? Well, but here's the thing. Patrick Mahomes, you know, insane regret. Touchdown regression is coming for Patrick Mahomes who threw, had a touchdown rate of 8.6.

Russell Wilson was at 8.2. Like, that's not happening again for Russell Wilson. If it drops into the 6th. It seems to happen to Russell Wilson, though. But he's not going to throw in the 8s, even if it comes down to the 6th, which is, that's a really healthy. That's top of the NFL. Yeah, that's Aaron Rogers' career. That's someone who throws a ton of touchdowns every single year. You will be disappointed that you have Russell Wilson.

If you look at the amount of targets and a perfect pass rating to Tyler Lockett, who was scoring a touchdown every week, if you assume that Tyler Lockett's going to have some regression on the touchdown side, you have to assume the same thing for Russell. Wilson, unless you're going to give him all back to Dougie B. Wilson's fantasy finishes in his career, 10-8-3-11-1-9. Yeah. Last year, we saw a little bit more of even, you know, even with the efficiency number nine. Maybe that.

adds a little bit of ammo to your argument, Mike. Maybe he is more appropriately where we have him, 9, 10, 11 range. And it's not him. I love Russell Wilson. I wish Russell Wilson was the quarterback for my team. Schenheimer's doing that. It's not you. It's me. Yeah. They wanted to run. They want 1989 football. And it works. So they're going to do it again. Yeah. That's what I was saying earlier. When it comes to the Lions and the Seahawks, those are two teams that don't just want to run more. They want to run.

Everybody. Pete, it's third and eight. We're going to run. Russell may run away. That's what might have happened. Second few is passing attempts in the NFL. Exactly. Drew Breeze, rounding out the top ten. Mercifully, Jason's incredibly bullish James Winston take did not push Winston into the top ten, but just barely. Even a guy like Mike who loves James Winston tempered it. Yep. There's a lot of upside there.

But Drew Breeze, Jason, you are a big Drew Breeze fan last season. He ended up throwing for just a hair under. My guy. No, that was Mike. 4,000 yards, 32 touchdowns, five interceptions. I think we know who Drew Breeze is now. Yep. Yeah, he's really good. It was hard for me because I want to be on Drew Breeze, you know, Team Breeze. That's great. But as I put him in this group, I kept just moving them back.

One spot. I did too. He's a year or two ahead of where Brady is. Right. Like Brady, you've been declining the fantasy production due to age and like the change of the offense and peppering the short stuff. Like Breeze, I think, had to average up the target that was not impressive. Or at least him and Michael Thomas did. Yes, Michael Thomas. That's correct. But you do see like the career arc being maybe a year or two behind where Brady is. Yeah. He was not in the top 12.

for consistency, he had some real dud games, but he's still Drew Breeze. If you got him for free, are you starting Drew Breeze for 16 games in your fantasy league? No. I would love to get him for free, and I would start him probably 10 of those 16 and stream against, you know, the poor matchups. Mike, are you, I mean, he had some real duds. Week 13, seven points, week 15, five points. It's, week eight, six points. It's funny because Drew Breeze was a,

He was a very heated debate on this show all of last season where Jason and I were on polar opposites. And he landed as the meat right in the sandwich between us. Right in the sand. Right in the old sandwich. And what's funny is the argument on both of our sides, Jason was, well, the passing attempts went from 673 down to 536. I said, yeah.

They're going to go back up. But they declined again. But the touchdowns. But Breeze was still way better than Jason thought he would be. We were exactly 50% right. And if you put our two takes together, that was last year's Drew Breeze. Yes. If you took away Breeze's last four games, he would have been much higher, right? QB24 in that span. Jason would have been much wronger. Yes. As they say. All right. That does it for today's show. But I just don't want to let you go without one more thing.

That would be letting you know that yesterday one lucky bidder. Oh, I hope it was me. It wasn't you. I'm pristineauction.com and Alvin Camara signed New Orleans Saints jersey with an inscribed rookie of the year, 17 on it, $59. That's silly. That's stupid. That's outlandish. That's pristine auction.com, hundreds of daily auctions. And that does it for today's episode of the show. Absolutely. Thank you for joining us.

It's going to be a good episode on Thursday. Oh, James. You're going to talk about James, Jason. Oh, yes, I am. We'll see you then. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers.

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