QB Sleepers, Streamers & Surprises!

You can listen to yesterday's show. In fact, you can even go back further than that. You can listen to the last few weeks if you want to. I'd recommend it. I always recommend that whether or not you have a road trip planned, you simply get in your car and just start driving around the country at this time of year and just listen to podcasts after podcasts. It's a great idea. See where you end up. Yeah.

Maybe you'll end up in Phoenix on August 24th. Number 12. And it's number 12 because we had a couple of guys tied at number 10 yesterday. Number 12 was Philip Rivers. We all like Philip Rivers. Love Philip Rivers. I think we all like him a smidge less without Hunter Henry maybe. But I have him at 9. Jason has an 11, Mike at 12. Philip Rivers has been a reliable, high yardage.

Fantasy quarterback for a long time. You go all the way back to 2008 with him. He's had eight finishes inside the top 12. So QB1 seasons, I think it's very safe to say he's going to be inside the top 12 this year. He's going to, at worst, he'll be in that 10 to 12 range. And at best, you know, last year you got a number eight finish from him. You've got a team that is, I think, very talented. That'll give him opportunities. Mike Williams is healthy. You have field stretchers, Tyro Williams.

You've got Keenan Allen back in healthy. There's a strong case for Philip Rivers to put forth a great fantasy season. And with his draft position being the quarterback 13 right now in the 10th round, he's going to end up on a lot of rosters. Yeah, it's not necessarily a smoke and value when you look at, okay, he's... And he's your age, Mike. He's quarterback. He's my... Philip Rivers? Yeah. Oh, don't see those things. Does that make Philip Rivers old? Or does that make you old?

It makes me old. Oh, okay. He's 35, Mike. I remember when I was a young fella watching Phillip Rivers get drafted. Yeah. But, like, it's not a huge value if you think of it in terms of, well, he's the quarterback 13 going off the board. He's our consensus 12. But 10th round, that's what I love about Philip Rivers. And a guy that...

has the potential to give you multiple games of over 300 yards. He's one of the very few who consistently gives you multiple games in that range. His ceiling is incredible last year, a game of over 400 yards and three touchdowns. It fits the late round quarterback mold so perfectly that in the 10th round, he is one of my top targets in fantasy leagues.

The problem is that I play in leagues with you rap Scalions. Don't worry. I'll have tie ride in those leagues. Yeah. Oh, perfect. Then I will take Rivers. My three main targets this year later in drafts, depending on how late they fall are Philip Rivers, Matthew Stafford, and Ben Rufflesberger. I really like those three to start the year. Speaking of starting the year with Philip Rivers, three of his first four games are...

good matchups. Kansas City's defense is not what it was in years past. And it's at home. And it's at home. Then Buffalo and week four, San Francisco. So it's a good slate. And I also think, look, even though you've got the problem at tight end, he very well might have his best.

core of weapons this season. It is Mike Williams replace Hunter Henry. Mike Williams is the reason, especially what's been going on in camp and the first preseason game, to make me go, you know, I don't think the Hunter Henry thing is going to hurt him too much. I will say the reports out of camp, while I'm saying, can Williams replace Hunter Henry? The reports out of camp say Tyrell Williams.

appears firmly locked as the wide receiver too. I just mean make up the production loss from Hunter Henry. Especially around the end zone. Being an elite red zone option. If one of your objections to Philip Rivers is his age, I want to remind you about something or tell you about something. Last year he posted nine games with a QB rating over 100. That is the most he has posted since 2008. So it wasn't.

You didn't see skills degrade and other players just make up for that. He had a very good season, 4,500 yards, 28 touchdowns, just 10 interceptions. And if you remember two years ago, the reason he finished at 14 had a lot to do with injury and it had a lot to do with interception problems because he was doing too much. So I like Philip Rivers. Number 13, Jaylon Ramsey calls him overrated. It's Matt Ryan, quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons. I have him at 13, Jason 16, Mike 14.

Second year with offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian. I just listened to Julio Jones talk about the fact that he's a lot more comfortable with Steve Sarkisian this year than he was last year. A lot of optimism from Jason this season, which was not the case about Atlanta last year because the draft price and the cost and all of the expectations for Atlanta last year were too high. But not this year, right, Mike?

Or Jason? Yeah, certainly. In fact, I wanted to bring that up. I'm the lowest on him at quarterback 16, but I've been so positive on the Falcons that I want the Falcons pieces. And you might go, well, how does that line up? And this is a perfect example of why late round quarterback is great, because this is not an anti, I'm not low on Matt Ryan because I think he's going to have a bad year. I would love to leave my draft with Matt Ryan. I'd be completely fine with that.

There's 15 other quarterbacks that I think are even better this season. So, I mean, you've got a guy coming into year two with his system. He's a couple of years removed from an MVP year where he won people, a lot of games in fantasy football. I think that the touchdown rate should go back to his career average. There's a lot of reasons to buy in on Matt Ryan this year. Now, a couple of the negatives from last season.

And there were a lot for Matt Ryan, but he only finishes the top 12 quarterback 25% of the time. The one that jumps out to me even more, he never had a week where he finished in the top six at the quarterback position. The entire year, mind you, that was any week last year. And the season before he was the number two overall fantasy quarterback. So since 2012, he has ping ponged. You remember how that sounds? Yes, we remember. It sounds like a clock. Yep, that's the one. There's the ping pong. But he's ping pong.

In 2012, he was number seven. Then he was number 15 in 2013. Then seven. Then 19. Then two. Oh, if these trends continue. So at least over the last six years, he's bounced back after those kind of, like he seems to like the polls, right? Right. He doesn't seem to like this medium level where he's probably, in reality, he's probably about the QB 10 to 12. Here's the thing I want to point out. It's for Matt Ryan, it's always.

touchdowns. He is a yardage monster. Last year, the Falcons were eighth and overall yards of offense, but they were 15th in scoring. His MVP year, a much closer correlation, second and yards, first in points. Go back three years when he was a bust. They were still seventh in yards, but 21st in scoring. If it's the touchdowns. And we talk about, or we have been talking about the outlier of Julio Jones.

touchdowns of over 1,400 yards and just a minuscule amount of touchdowns that will bounce back. The opportunities were there for Julio Jones. He just didn't come down with the touchdowns last year. That's the huge difference for Matt Ryan, who can become a weekly starter.

at the quarter, but for your quarterback position. And he is going in the 10th round, which is good value. I do want to amend one thing I said, because I'm looking at Matt Ryan as a whole. I would like Matt Ryan this year. I'm totally down with him having a great season, and I completely agree that the touchdowns are going to come back to his average. However, when you're drafting a quarterback in the double-digit rounds,

I pay attention a lot to those opening, that opening schedule. I just mentioned it. Philip Rivers has a great one and he's being drafted behind Matt Ryan right now. But the opening schedule not too good for Matt Ryan. He starts the season, starts the NFL season off, week one, the first game in Philadelphia. That's a tough matchup. Carolina, New Orleans, those first three games, they're not the best. And I wouldn't say that that should.

If you're going to catch Philly, let's catch him week one. That's what I would say. Eli Manning is a guy that I believe in this season, but I would not, like he is undraftable to me if I'm in my normal. I'm drafting one quarterback because he plays the Jags. I would still be okay to draft Matt Ryan, but you just need to be aware of that opening schedule. All right. We're going to talk about one of the guys Jason loves this season, Marcus Marriota, in just a moment. Before we do that, I want to remind you about pristineauction.com. That's pristineauction.com. They are the absolute.

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That's your first refill pack free at get quip.com slash footballers. That's G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash footballers. Marcus, Marioita, Jason, you have them at 12, I have them at 18, Mike 17. We're the reasonable ones because we saw last season. We saw 3,200 yards passing 13 touchdowns and 15 interceptions, and we're not ready to throw them up in that top 12 just yet, Jason. He only performed to top 12 standards three times.

last season. So you expect big things, big positive regression. I am a little hesitant. I need to see it. I think they'll be better, but not that much better. What do you think? Is it the legs? It's all about them legs? It's not all about the legs. He's got legs.

He knows how to use. When you have quarterbacks in fantasy football, like Alex Smith is a perfect example who, take last year out. You have to forget that he, you know, before last year he was not a very well-received fantasy quarterback, but he was always producing at, you know, he was around the quarterback 15 because he rushed for 200 extra yards a year. And that's what you're going to get from Marcus Marietta. But here's the thing.

with Mario, and why I'm projecting him to have a really great season, is because do you remember, it's almost hard to remember the narrative of how efficient Marioita was when he got into the red zone. And it's just like, you can't, you can't do that. His rookie year was great. And then he went from a 5.1 touchdown percentage, his rookie year, and increased it went to 5.8.