The TRUTH About Fantasy QBs in 2018, Part 1

He could be an impulsive fella. Okay. When it comes to acquiring goods, especially of a pop culture background. I got in a lot of trouble when I bought this DeLorean, which, by the way, it's a die-cast, two-scale DeLorean sitting here on the desk. And Andy takes every penny. This show would be nowhere without it. John Hammond approach to things of collectible nature.

I get this message very quickly after the, the Michael Keaton tweet happens. And it's for a, a bust of Michael Keaton in his Batman mask. This is basically a wax museum style full on Michael Keaton Batman bust. Look, I, I heard from. It's been delivered. Is that what it? Yeah. Is this true? I, I, I've heard from the grapevine. Brooks.

Take care of this. I want this on the podcast. We got to get it on the video. Get it open and bring in his head. Jay Gris is a little worried. Jay Gris is like, oh, he's going to get replaced by Batman. I'm not saying he's getting replaced, but he's worried he's going to get replaced by my, I mean, it's my lead bad man. So there is a full, and so in the middle of the show, we just got. This thing better deliver. I hope it's terrible. I hope it just looks like an albatross. Like not the right face. I told Brooks to go get it. We'll bring it back.

As soon as he gets it, I'll put it on the show. The listeners, you're going to have a harder time. Yes. So you better be on YouTube. Now everyone's surprise. Number two on the list behind Patrick Mahomes this year. Believe it or not. And I don't know why, but I feel like he deserves some sort of apology from somebody. Massive credit. Matt Ryan, not only number two in fantasy finish with 4,924 yards and 35 touchdowns and only seven picks. But...

Number two, consistency-wise, only busted 25% of the time, which compared to the rest. It's perfectly acceptable. It's totally fine compared to not Pat Mahomes. And then 75% good games, 44% great games. He was outstanding the season. It was weird because you got off to the worst start imaginable. That's what I want to say. Beware, weak.

One. Yes. Setting for all of your opinions. Not only was this week one, but this was game one. This was the NFL opener kickoff game where everybody's eyes were on how bad Matt Ryan was to start this season. Michael Keaton was even watching that game, I hear. You add in how bad the Falcons performed this year. You know, they had all the injuries on defense. And for some reason, you don't believe that Matt Ryan really had a great year.

Number two quarterback. I wrote him in our dynasty league to a championship, and he's the type of guy that he didn't go in the first 10 rounds. No. Look at this. If you throw out that first week and you look at weeks two through 10, he averaged the same. Or did you just see it? Hold on. He averaged the same amount of fantasy points as Patrick Mahomes, including seven QB1 performances. So from weeks two to 10, you had the same thing as Patrick Mahomes production-wise.

He killed bad defenses. 32 fantasy points a game against bottom 16 defenses. 20 points against the top defenses. Holy crap. That's unbelievable. Hold on. Hold on. Oh, my gosh. It's everything I've ever dreamed. All right. You've derailed, Matt Ryan. Oh, Matt Ryan, take a bag seat. We can get back to Matt Ryan. Bring us in, Brooks. Well, Brooks has to hide his face. This is unbelievable.

Oh, this is great. He's on the set with us today. Can you put him down? Michael Keaton join us. Wow, that is humongous. It's life size. That looks fantastic. Oh, my goodness. You and Keaton. All right. So I don't even know. Oh, for Mount Ryan, we have another offensive coordinator change.

with Matt Ryan. I now have to do the entire show looking at Michael Keaton. I'm bad man. So we've seen Matt Ryan struggle. The first year he has an O.C. when he had Kyle Shanehan, when he had Sarkesian. Bad years. Second year in the system, he was ready to go. That's going to happen again.

How are you, what's your comfort level, Jason, knowing that Matt Ryan's your, your quarterback? The nice thing about Matt Ryan's offensive coordinator switch that, you know, is where you hope he's not going back to the wheel and you've got to wait two years before he performs is that he's been, you know, with this offensive coordinator before. This is not, hey, let's just, let's reinvent the wheel. I think he's going to be great. I think Matt Ryan's going to have a great year. I will say this.

Part of, and this is part of Patrick Mahom's success. And every quarterback that has great touchdown success, sometimes those touchdowns can swing the next year to the rushing game. And their loss of Devonta Freeman scares me a lot more for Matt Ryan's future than the offensive coordinator switch. I think that when Devonta Freeman comes back, he will score eight plus touchdowns if he plays all year. And the running game was putrid for touchdown scoring.

for Atlanta. So, you know, Matt Ryan's not going to be in my top five, but I'm still going to definitely. Top 10? Yeah, he'll be near the top 10, and he'll be a guy that's still, despite finishing number two, he will be a double-digit round drafted guy. No one is going, no one's falling over themselves to get Matt Ryan. I think Calvin Ridley helps his floor immensely. Calvin Ridley coming into year two, a very talented player.

Inconsistent, yes. But that's just the product of being behind Julio Jones on the depth chart. But in terms of if Julio misses a game, if he needs somebody else, the capability to have a game. Three touchdown game for Calvin Ridley, it changed the equation for Matt Ryan. So I think bringing in a superstar like that makes all the difference in the world. And we've seen what happens to Matt Ryan in years past when Julio Jones is gone. Matt Ryan just absolutely turns to dust for fantasy.

Big Ben. Now, Jason has left the room. Jason has now put... Jason is a little boy with his new shiny toy. He has put Michael Keaton's bust behind the microphone with the headphones on. I'm Batman. No, see, the problem is you're doing the... That's the bail voice. Michael Keaton didn't need to do a voice. He was more matter of fact. He's... Yeah. I'm Batman. Yeah. Jason. Get out of here. Number three on the list. There's also Birdman, isn't he? Yes. Batman and Birdman.

Not many people get to be one man. He's B-Man. He's being the manas. Here's the B-Man. Big Ben, Rothesberger, number three, with 5,129 yards passing, 34 touchdowns, 16 picks, the fifth most consistent fantasy quarterback. He beat up on bottom 16 defenses as well by a wide margin, eight points better against bottom 16 defenses. But the great news. Yeah.

Home road splits. They evened out. It was okay. Yeah, this has been the story for, if you don't know, Big Ben historically, great at home, terrible on the road. And this was finally the year. He was not terrible on the road. Lo and behold, quarterback three on the season. Yeah, and the truth is, I think a big part of that was Juju Smith-Schuster. I mean, we saw how Juju and Antonio Brown kind of took turns dominating at home and on the road.

it mattered to have that second great option to throw the ball to. Not just, you know, the second great option for Big Ben for a long time has been his running back. And while the running back was still good this year and Jalen Samuel is a great pass catcher, there are no Levi-on-Bell. So it was really important to have Juju there. Going forward, you can't really talk about Big Ben. I mean, you don't know what to do with him until you know Antonio Brown's fate.

The latest information, and this will be dated quickly, I'm sure, is that Antonio Brown has not been given permission to seek a trade yet. Right. And there's open to them coming back. This is going to be a mess. But what is the range of outcomes for Big Ben without AB? Because that's the story. Not top five. If not top five. It's still very good because the...

They have weapons. Washington, Connor. Yeah. James Washington will pick up Slack, but not calling him Antonio Brown, but Big Ben could still be a top 10 guy. Yeah, man, that's going to be crazy to follow. But it was an impressive year for Big Ben. He's been around the league for a long time. So I think it was hard for me to buy into, hey, does he do what he's always done? Or does he have a, you know, a breakout year? Juju proved to be everything that Jason had dreamed he would be.

And that made all the difference in the world. So he had eight top 10 weeks and 5,129 yards, which was the most in his career and the most in the league. So, I mean, a great year. We'll see what happens. Man, yeah, it'll be interesting with Antonio. All right. Number four is Deshaun Watson. Deshaun Watson, look, a very strong finish to the season. Ended up at number four, fantasy-wise.

Over 4,000 yards, 26 touchdowns, the 5.51 on the ground and five touchdowns on the ground. Made him the third most consistent quarterback. What's tough about Watson is quarterback four on the year, that's fantastic. Number three in consistency, that's what you wanted. But did you still get actual return on where you had to draft him? He was the second quarterback for people who do not remember.

Deshawn Watson was being drafted behind Aaron Rogers. His ADP, I'm looking on fantasy pros, his ADP was 36. You were giving up right on the turn. You didn't get that. You didn't get that return. 31% of his games he was in the top three. You drafted him to be number two. Only 30% of the time he was in that range.

And he sprinkled in games that kills you. Week 1, 11 points, week 6, 5 points, week 7, 10 points, week 11, 9 points. Single digit type of games. So was it, look, it wasn't the wheels falling off. This was nice, right? I mean, you didn't have Deshaun Watson go from, you know, three or four game wonder to complete disaster. Right.

satch 62 times this year. That's the most since 2006. That's going to keep happening unless he changes his game. He just holds the ball and he tries to make something happen longer and longer. Yeah, this season seems to me to be what you could expect going forward. We talked about Deshaun Watson as don't buy based on his ADP last year and, you know, a regression alert. And he certainly did regress. I mean, if you look at his per game basis last season in that small sample, he was.

outlandish, he was Pat Mahomes good. And you didn't get that this year. I know, you know, in my leagues that is Sean Watson owners, a lot of those leagues did not make the playoffs, even though he was the number four quarterback. But this, you still had the baseline, right? 550 plus rushing yards, rushing touchdowns. The reason why he is the number three consistent rated quarterback is because of the rushing baseline. But now, let's say he.

duplicates what he's going to do this year next year, which I think is very realistic. Where should that, where should you land in a draft to take a guy who did what Deshaun? Well, yeah, I get, I get your question. Who would you take ahead of him? I mean, you're taking Mahomes ahead of him. Yeah. Would you take Big Ben, who we just talked about ahead of him? If A, B, is there.

Don't need to. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Taking them ahead of them, no, because you wouldn't need to. I mean, Big Ben will be late. Andrew Luck, Aaron Rogers. Who would you rather have? Yeah, that's what I'm asking. I would rather have Mahomes. I'd rather have Matt Ryan wherever he's drafted. Luck? I'd rather have luck. Rogers? Definitely. Russell Wilson? Yes. Drew Breeze? Yes. So I have Phillip Rivers? You'd rather have Breeze?

Watson? I don't think I'd rather have Breeze. No, no, no, no, no. We came to fist the cuffs all off season over Breeze. No, Breeze, no, I would not. Okay. I'd take Ibaxies. No, not Breeze. But everybody else, Russell Wilson, I would. I mean, so the point is, I think that Deshaun Watson is someone that should be in the eighth or ninth round. I don't, I don't see him as someone that needs to be in the top five rounds. One of the things that's really nice about Deshaun Watson is you have that pairing with a top.

three wide out. You know, it's kind of, Big Ben, you don't know if Brown's coming back. You know Hopkins is going to be there. That gives him kind of an impressive baseline with that kind of talent. And they've had struggles all year long keeping a second wide receiver healthy. I mean, where's Demarius Thomas at this point? I mean, Kiki QT banged up, hurt. He looks like a great player when he's healthy. Will Fuller. I like Watson. I think he's sneaky. I like Watson more than a lot of the guys you were saying.