QB Sleepers, Streamers & Surprises!

Mahomes did what Baker Mayfield's going to do. He sat. He redshirted. He got an opportunity to see what the league's all about. And now he gets to come in with that experience of seeing a professional like Alex Smith. So for fantasy, what are our expectations for Patrick Mahomes? Do we expect it to be a ping pong ball season where you have some tough weeks, some high interception totals, and then some big time weeks? Because that arm, you know, he's got two long bombs and his entire day is made. I think that's a very...

accurate representation of how I feel about Patrick Mahomes. He oozes upside. That offense is just, it's sticky. It's sticky with upside. Hmm. It's, hmm. Yeah, okay. Because he just, like, points. They just throw them. They're going to stick to this offense. Okay. All right. Come on. Follow me, people. Just trying to follow you through. I'm very, I'm interested in Patrick Mahomes.

Back of the 11th round, the quarterback 16 off the board. I can dig that. I can dig that of saying, okay, I'm going to go with Patrick Mahomes as my guy. Does open up the season on the road against the Chargers. Not a defense I'm looking for my newest quarterback. He's not a rookie technically, but it's his rookie season. That's not the kind of opening game I want to have for my fantasy quarterback.

So that does put a damper on drafting. Yeah, three of the first four games are on the road. Denver, Pittsburgh, and the Chargers. Oh, right? You can see what he's made of in those three games. And the one thing that I really like... Might be made of interceptions. The one thing I really like about Patrick and Holmes, you know, we talk about all the time with fantasy, he has the ability to put up points with his legs. The last two years in college, he had 22 rushing...

touchdowns, 10 and then 12. He had a year of over 450 rushing yards, so he's athletic. He can get the job done on the ground, which he might need to on those road matchups. And that helps his baseline. I do think he's going to be a very valuable streamer. He'll probably be on waivers after your draft is over. And look, I mean, after that opening road game, you know, or two, then he's going to have week three San Francisco at home. That's...

My stream of the week, I can call it now. Week three, my stream of the week will be Patrick Mahomes. Well, let's talk about San Francisco. We're going to go 18, 19, 20, and then I'm going to grab a sleeper quarterback from each of you guys, and then we'll jump into the mailbag, answer some listener questions. 18 is Jimmy G. Jimmy Garamplo, Jimmy Hanselm, as Mike calls him. Look, it's got to be the looks that get him all the love because you got five games last year, and yes, he won those games. But we talk fantasy football. He's a winner. He's a winner.

I don't know if he's a fantasy winner. I've got him at 20. Mike, you're the highest at 16. In his five starts last season. 24th in fantasy, 16th, 11th, 4th, 11th. It's not bad. No, it's not. It's not bad. It's also a very small sample size. I think people expect him to get better, not worse. You've got Marquis Goodwin. You've got the drafting of wide receiver rookie Dante Pettis. You have Pierre Garcans return.

George Kittles' capability of ascending doesn't play in the easiest division. No. Defensively, you have to face a Cardinals defense that should be in the upper half. Very good Rams defense. I don't think Seattle's going to drop out of the top 15 either. So that's a challenge. He also starts the season at Minnesota. That'll be fun. So Jimmy G right now, he's being drafted in the ninth round. He's a QB 10 off the board. That's the problem.

That's like a no draft. He's, I'm officially not drafting Jimmy G in any league. I am probably with you. If Jimmy, if you happen to be in a league where Jimmy Garoppolo does drop, then I'm interested in him. But standard, your standard league, your home leagues, a fantasy football calculator has them going in the ninth round as the 10th quarterback off the board. I am not interested in the handsome one at that price. It's just too much.

Yeah, I mean, I believe that he is actually a very good quarterback. I do too. So, you know, he's one of the harder guys to get a hold of. You haven't seen him for a whole year ever. I think he'll put up the yardage. My issue is if you look, you know, historically, and you kind of saw this in the very small sample size we have, Kyle Shanahan's offenses while he's got some great years with, you know, offensive.

passing touchdowns usually they rank much higher in rushing touchdowns than they do in in the passing scoring and that's kind of what you saw last year his pace in those five starts for jimmy garropla was i mean goodness gracious he was almost on a 5,000 yard pace but it was only 19 touchdown pace versus a 16 interception way too small sample size to actually extrapolate and and say that's going to be what happens that's not the stats that i've got projected for him right um

But whenever you've got a guy going in the single digits that opens the season with a really tough matchup, who's a crapshoot? And that's, he is. He's a roll of the dice. And they're really good looking dice. But it's hard to take that gamble there when a couple rounds later you can grab safer options at quarterback. Grab some dusty dice. Number 19, Dak Prescott.

From Darling to Disaster, that might be the description of last years. Accurate. Yeah, last season. Look, he started all right. He started great. He started all right. He started the first half of the year is the number one quarterback in fantasy. So I would say, well, I mean, 12, 11, 10, 9. Didn't he get drafted higher than that? So the first four weeks? Sure. He's giving you quarterback one weeks and then he gave you a week of two, three, three. And Jason's right, halfway through the season.

on a points per game basis, Dak Prescott was elite. I don't want to focus on that argument because I actually believe that Dak is one of the few. He's one of the players, the wild cards, I've been at 16, that I think he could be, I'm not predicting it, but I think he could be one of those guys that all of a sudden is a top five quarterback. I completely agree. And it's the second half of the season. The Zeke suspension, you want to blame that. I blame more of the left tackle. Same exact time.

And yes, and I think that that was the bigger problem. It was, it looked like a, his replacement looked like a bullfighter, just getting, dodging out of the way for defenders to come and destroy Dak Prescott and his face. Now, and that turned into just absolute terrible, terrible fantasy output. Des Bryant was inefficient, even though Dak Prescott was trying to feed him the ball. That's the big question for Dak.

What happens with this wide receiver crew? All the pass catchers really because one of his good buddies, Tony Romo's best friend, Jason Witten, gone. Des Bryant, gone. You have Bryce Butler, gone. It's a new crew in town for Dallas. Will they be able to get on the same page fast enough that Dak Prescott can be a fantasy relevant quarterback?

Yeah, I tend to think that he can. I lean with Andy, you know, not that you're calling for, but he could absolutely end up as a top five guy. He's very Russell Wilson in the stance that it's hard for him to finish outside of, you know, the top 10 quarterbacks when he puts up such huge rushing numbers. You know, over 400 yards. He just scores on the ground. He will. Six touchdowns.

Both years on the ground. And on designed runs. Exactly. Well, you've got Zeke down there. And so it's like everybody's playing Zeke. And every now and then you roll him out and he just waltzes right into the end zone. I don't think the way his touchdowns come are repeatable. That's what you're saying. They're designed for him. So, you know, look, you're talking about a guy who so far has never.

finished outside of being a quarterback one. He's being drafted in the 13th, almost the 14th round. I would absolutely take a shot on deck. To Mike's point, they have lost, the Cowboys have lost more than 45% of their targets. Yep. Jason Whitton and Des Bryant leaving. It's going to be whether Dak can make these guys. Can he make Alan Hearns, Michael Gallup, Terrence Williams, Cole Beasley, Deontay Thompson, can he make somebody something there? Because if we believe he will,

then one of those guys is going to emerge as a fantasy value as well. Number 20, Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals, quarterback Jason has them the highest at 15. Mike and I am at 22-23. Last season was one to forget for a lot of different reasons. You can look at the offensive line in Cincinnati. They lost Whitworth, and that was not good. Devastating. 3,300 yards was all that Andy could put up. 25 touchdowns.

12 interceptions. It was a disappointing season. He did have a handful of games where he showed you what you've seen from him in the past. I mean, he was the number five overall quarterback in 2013. He was the number 12 in 2016. They didn't run a lot of offensive plays. We brought this up on the show before. It's one of the reasons Mike or Jason likes Joe Mixing this year. It's one of the reasons I like AJ Green to reemerge as a top five guy this year. But Andy Dalton, what can we really expect from him?

How much do you want to lean on him? He's pretty much a streaming guy, right? He is for me. Yeah, he's still a streamer. I mean, even though I've got him 15, and I think he will have a good season, I think the Bengals completely rebounded, not to being a great offense, but not being an albatross, like they were last year. They're one of those teams I, you know, I'm buying into their fantasy weapons at their value. I like AJ Green. I like Joe Mixon. I like John Ross.

And so, therefore, I like Andy Dalton. I think that what happened last season, the way he got started week one and week two when he was, I mean, week one, he was the 37th quarterback. Keep in mind there are 32 teams playing in week one. That's how bad he was. He was so, he was. Is this accurate? Oh, yeah. Do you not remember? He threw like four or five.

intercepts he i mean i think he had negative points it was he was so bad that he burned people and then the the bengals does that mean he finished behind like three guys that took into rounds and threw like a single pass yeah exactly he finished behind a couple punners yeah so you know it i think it i think it has uh scarred

the minds of fantasy owners, and you need to make sure that you don't let those emotions factor in too much and say he's a bum forever. He's been fantasy relevant in the past. I think he's got better weapons this year than he did last year, better offensive line this year than last year. So he should, I mean, he should definitely go up. I can't imagine him going down this year from last year, especially after you look at those first two weeks when he was the 37th quarterback and the 28th quarterback.

Then they fired their offensive coordinator, and he was never that bad the rest of the season. And he finished as, you know, the quarterback's 17. So if he gets better than 17, he's left for dead right now. All right. Let's each bring forth a sleeper quarterback. Somebody that you think not only could be a great fantasy value this year, but maybe somebody that could sneak into that top 12 that nobody's talking about. For me, that guy is.

Tyrod Taylor. Tyrod Taylor is, I think, an underrated, I and Jalen Ramsey believe, he is an underrated quarterback. The past three seasons, he's finished 14, 8, and 16. He has the best weapons he's ever had, in my humble opinion, with Josh Gordon, Jarvis Landrie, David Injoku, Antonio Calloway, Duke Johnson. I think the opportunity is there for Tyra Taylor. I do believe in the conviction.

of John Dorsey, Hugh Jackson, that they want Baker Mayfield to redshirt this season because they have confidence in the play of Tyra Taylor. It is just my personal belief and conviction. But I'm going to put my money where my mouth is in most of my leagues. Tyra Taylor is going to end up my quarterback in most leagues. Unless he's taken away from me, he's going to end up a late round, last round quarterback. And he'll be there for you. And the best part that is once he's benched, you've spent so little.

of draft capital on him. You can easily move on. That's what's so great about the late round quarterback. Who do you got is your sleeper, Mike? A guy I want to talk about right now because he's actually 21 on our list. It's Case Keenum. Interesting. He's now the quarterback for the Denver Broncos. He goes from an amazing situation with Stefan Diggs and Adam Thielen to...

A little bit of a downgrade. Pretty good one. But it's not bad at all with Demeris Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders as you're one and two, then you have the possibility of the emergence of rookie wide receiver, Cortland Sutton, Deshawn Hamilton, and on top of that, a good run game. Last year, Case Keenham finished as the quarterback 14. Case Keenom didn't start the year.