Top 10 QB Rankings + Preseason Takeaways, UDK FOR LIFE! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/15

come week one. And that's really a huge question right now. If I was drafting today, I am a little bit more skeptical. I hope that by the time most of our drafts are happening, about three weeks from now, we've got clarity. Hollywood's out there, plays a preseason game or two, in which case, absolutely. You've seen the Cardinals over the last... several years, the entire Cliff Kingsbury era, they get off to hot starts. They've got to, whatever they do in the offseason are like, okay, this is how we're going to play. It's great. And then they just don't change it. And everybody catches up with them. But the beginnings of the years have been awesome. And I think that between, I mean, you know, it's like you're going to get Hopkins back. You've got Hollywood Brown. You've got year two, Rondale. You said A.J. Green. Connor could catch it out of the backfield. Zach Ertz. And they drafted.

you know, Trey McBride. So there's a lot of weapons here. And then the most important weapon is his leg. So I think Kyler Murray has that opportunity to be the quarterback one. And where he's being drafted in the fifth, the opportunity costs given up. I mean, the gap between Kyler and those other two guys. Yeah, I would prefer those other two guys. But the gap isn't huge. He also was the quarterback two in 2020. So he's established that he can finish up there for fantasy. Number four. Jalen Hertz of the Eagles. Mike has a Mike's guy, Jalen Hertz. How dare you? We've got. I was shocked by this ranking too. But here we are. Mike at number two, Jason at four, I am at seven. Jalen Hertz was extremely consistent last season, only through for just over 3,000 passing yards and 16 touchdowns.

but managed to finish inside the top 10 at quarterback. And so the expectation here, obviously, I thought I was Mr. Lowman, but I'm really just Mr. Average because he's going as the quarterback seven. Now, he's probably the most popular fantasy draft pick at the quarterback position when you combine draft capital and upside. And there's always one, right? Every year it seems like there's one guy that's kind of sitting in that. you know, six, seventh, eighth round that everybody knows in the back of their head could end up as a top two, three quarterback. Hertz is that. To me, he has to throw for more than 3,100 yards and 16 touchdowns to do it. But the hope is that A.J. Brown, Devante Smith's maturity, the team having another year together unlocks Jalen Hertz. And if he's unlocked, you know, this guy's the limit. For me, that's what it is.

Last year, Hertz wasn't, like, the numbers are not spectacular. Though the passing, the passing numbers are very mediocre, but his rushing numbers were so fantastic. And remember that if you're in four point touchdown scoring, you're still getting six for the rushing touchdown. So that is a slight bump up. It's not like, it's not, you know, game changing, but it. Every couple little points certainly helps. And I think that the addition of A.J. Brown is massive for this offense and for the passing game. And not only the addition of A.J. Brown, you have the subtraction of Zach Ertz. Like, Zach Ertz for half the season before they traded him, he was a big part of the offense. And Zach Ertz is a catch and fall down guy, where Dallas Goddard, now that...

you have an entire off season. Like he is installed. He is the number one tight end. Like Dallas Goddard is an incredible pass catching weapon at the tight end position. Year two here for Devante Smith. Like their weapons to me are, I think, undervalued in terms of like we're talking about the chargers guys, the Arizona guys. To me, the Philadelphia pass catchers, that trifecta is right up there. I think that they're going to be absolutely electric. Jalen Hertz, the rushing numbers. Perhaps the rushing touchdowns come down. There's a world where they do not. But I think that the overall volume and rushing just yardage of 782, I think he can easily repeat that. That was only in 15 games this last year for Jalen Hertz. Very consistent showing us what he can be for fantasy with pretty mediocre passing. If that passing jumps up, then you're looking at a Lamar Jackson MVP type of a season where he's just by a wide margin, the number one quarterback.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything being said. There's not much to add, you know, over 100 targets last year went to Kwez Watkins and Jalen Rager. That's who he was throwing the ball to. Now his weapons get better. And we saw, you know, the question was posed by you, Andy, about Kyler like, are the weapons good enough in Arizona to support that overall finish? And that really matters. We saw Kyler run more without Hopkins. and score less fantasy points. It's not just running. You have to have both to be truly elite. And I think that, you know, this is at least the opportunity for Hertz to say, I can be an NFL quarterback passing the ball as well. If he can, we already know the Russian is going to be there. He'll be a home run for fantasy. Detroit, Minnesota, Washington, Jacksonville to start the year. So if you're kind of weighing, how is it going to start? I mean, he was an interesting case last year as the quarterback won through the first 11 weeks and yet never finished at one or two any of those weeks.

in terms of actually, you know, having one of those weak winning performances. He's just so trustworthy. Lamar at five. Lamar Jackson, 25 years old. Jason has him at six. I got him at four Mike at three. He's healthy again. He missed the last four weeks last year, has that connection with Mark Andrews. We know it. Hollywood Brown is not there. I am, you know, if you want to talk about weapons, you know, you have a case that. there could be a problem, right? Like if a shot Bateman doesn't step up, there could be an issue there. Obviously, Mark Andrews is an elite pass catcher. But I've been on record. I think Lamar Jackson has a chip on his shoulder. We've seen him as an MVP. We've seen him as the running away number one overall quarterback in fantasy. And, you know, he had it 767 rushing yards and he missed four weeks last year, four and a half, really. So I think that you know what you're getting with Lamar.

I think that you've had a player that has shown you who can be the number one overall player. And I think he's going to go out there and work with what he has and figure it out. The schedule for the Ravens is very good. And he's kind of one of the players I'm planting a flag on this year. Sure. It will be interesting for Lamar. Clearly with my projection, I am in. And we were talking about targets per route run last week. Rashad Bateman's targets per route runner actually, they were very poor for a rookie. And what we, so that, I mean, that's a little bit of red flag. What we don't know is, was that simply, because that's how Lamar Jackson operates this offense where it's Mark Andrews and then one pass catcher, which that's what we have seen. So hopefully Rashad Bateman, those numbers will go up and he proves that he is truly a number one wide.

wide receiver would have hoped to see a little bit better targets per route run as a rookie. But you saw the touchdown percentage for Lamar Jackson went back like essentially to just below the league average where I'm not expecting him to hit 9% like he did the MVP year. But he followed that up with a 6.9 touchdown percent rate in 2020, which is nice and way above league average. But for that to plummet down to 4.2, that was the difference, like where Lamar Jackson still had some boom games last week. But last year, it was just not nearly as consistent as the previous years. And the reason was because of the touchdown rate. So we need Rashad Bateman to really.

This offense needs Bateman to step up in just a massive way. I think that one of the things that hopefully unlocks the offense that he did not have last year was a running game. You were using Latavius Murray and Devante Freeman. I mean, it was kind of an embarrassment. And, you know, when you talk about like per game, he was the best rusher last year at the quarterback position, 63.9 yards per game. Better than Hertz, better than Allen. and he's done the thing we hope Hertz can do, which is he's throwing 36 touchdowns in a season. So, you know, you do have to pay more for him than Jalen Hertz, though. So that's one of your issues. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, it's like I love Jalen Hertz. I love him. But he does seem like the poor man's Lamar Jackson. He's slightly worse quarterback, slightly worse, rusher. So it's like, well, okay, let's go with Lamar Jackson. He's just better. He's more proven. The weapons are the real issue here. If J.K. Dobbins and Rashad Bateman step up.

and are awesome this year, then Lamar Jackson's going to be phenomenal. He's going to be a home run pick. If those two guys falter, J.K. Dobbins isn't quite back from injury, and you've got Mike Davis out there really, you know, carrying the workload with the tuba on his back, and Rashad Bateman is not the dude. Right. Then I think you'll see some struggles there, and you might have these two Hertz and Lamar Jackson kind of flip-flop. for what they can do this year just due to weapons. So it's really, if you believe in Lamar Jackson, believe in the weapons, bet on the weapons as well and kind of, you know, stack it there. How weird is it to be talking about number six overall quarterback? I don't like it. Number six, Patrick Mahomes, who, you know, he looked great in limited work in preseason week one. Surprise, surprise.

We've got him at 5, 5, and 6. I don't like it. To be fair, this is 4 point scoring. He's higher if we are 6 point per passing touchdown. Do we always do these shows with 4 points? We do. I don't like that. Can we go back and change it? All the leagues that we play in personally, the Megalibol League, our listener league, all of those. We do 6 points per passing touchdown. I think that is, you know, the more fun format. default and still majority. We're still kind of blown away that the majority leagues still go four point. So that's why we do the rankings. Patrick Mahomes is my quarterback three and six point per passing touchdown leagues. But when you've got these, I mean, we just talked about it. Three back to back to back. Mobile rushing touchdown scoring on the ground quarterbacks. That's going to affect it. But I mean, it does feel bad to have Mahomes this low because here's what we know. He's the best quarterback in the NFL. Right. Like, that's it.

He doesn't have quite the weapons and there's, oh, he lost Tyree Kill and Travis Kelsey is 33. So there's some question marks here. But in the end, he's the best quarterback in the national football. Yeah, and you kind of trust him to figure it out for the most part, right? Maybe you're concerned about top two, three potential because of the departure of Tyree Kill. But I think most people expect Patrick Mahomes to figure it out and be a pretty stable force on your fantasy roster. It's being drafted as the quarterback, too, because of that expectation. By the way, I threw a poll up to our listeners to figure out the 4.6 point breakdown. It is the default to be at 4 point on ESPN and Yahoo. Keep us posted. Right now, it's sitting about 50-50. Okay. So I'll let you know. But, Mike, any thoughts on Mahomes and, you know, replacing, you know, he didn't just lose Tyreek.

He also lost NBA, not NBS. He also lost, you know, some of his other weapons in the offense. Marcus Robinson was gone. Marcus Robinson, yeah, Byron Pringle, right? Those were the three targets last year that he used the most. You don't expect Andy Reid to do that when you've been that good and that on the edge of the Super Bowl. So. Yeah, I mean, are you, what's the, what's the worst he can finish? The worst he can finish is quarterback 10. I, you know, he has a really down year, but he's still a part of one of the best offenses and he's still great in his own right.

You've got Hall of Fame, unbelievable quarterbacks from history we can draw on. You've got Peyton Manning. You've got Aaron Rogers, guys who just were at their peak, the best quarterback in the NFL, who finishes the quarterback one in fantasy. And then you go back and you look through the career of these guys. Take Aaron Rogers, you know, when he's like the two, one, two, one. And then he's like, okay, he's seven. He's seven again. He's the quarterback 10. Same with Peyton Manning. He finishes the quarterback six and four and one. And, you know. Quarterback six, if he finishes where we've got him projected, that's good. That's really good. On his career, we'll look back and say, oh, he was okay that year. It's just with the changing of the weapons, with the lack of mobility compared to the elite rushers that are now in the NFL, you don't expect him to be the quarterback one, the quarterback two this season. He was the quarterback four last year with the 48137, quarterback four, and he played all 17 games.

So it's, I don't think that this is an unfair projection here for Mahomes when you factor in. Like, he did all of those things with his, with his guys, with a little bit younger Travis Kelsey and, and Tyree kills. He's going on the third round. So we just named a bunch of guys going on the fourth, fifth, sixth round that we have above. Like I'm not off the board then. Yeah, he's just, he's not in consideration for me. I have him in one league where he fell to like the sixth round. The irony is that he had. So many week winning weeks. Number two, number two, number one, number two. But again, like, but then a bunch of weeks at 22, 17, 26, stuff you had never seen from a home. You're hopeful that Juju and MBS can get it done, but that sentence is troubling. That sentence is super, that's a big problem. That's why he's here. That's a huge problem saying, you know.

Let's rely on Juju and MVS. Literally two players that other teams said we'd rather not rely on them. Let's let them go. Right? Yeah. At the end of the day, Green Bay said, nah, not important. Pittsburgh said nah. At least in preseason week one, those were the two guys. You saw it. Juju, 11 of 11 snaps. MBS 9 of 11. They were the first, you know, in the two wide receiver sets. That's how the season's going to start. Now, Skymore looked. He looked good, right? He came in primarily with the second string, but. He's a talented player. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to a player who nearly threw three times as many touchdowns as Jalen hurts. Tom Brady, 45 years old, 43 touchdowns. I think he's trying to match his age every year in touchdowns, which is good for fantasy. I have him at six, Jason at seven, Mike at nine, showed no signs of slowing down.

Finished inside the top five. Let me count this up. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times. That means fantasy finishes on the week by Tom Brady inside the top five. And one set number six. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want to give me any credit for that one, Jason. Well, that's what I'm here for. Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Julio Jones, Russell Gage, Leonard Fournett. So you just named to me. the outlook for Brady. When I think about Brady this season, because he's awesome, he's going to be elevating his weapons, but he is limited by them because he's not a mobile quarterback. So how good are his weapons? And I have some fears. I know that you just named a great set of wide receivers, but we don't know if Julio still got it. We don't know that Godwin's going to start the year fully healthy.

And we don't know that Russell Gage can really play that role. There's a lot of question marks here to me where the range of outcomes are wide. I could see Julio being Julio Jones. I mean, when you look at the best wide receivers of all time at this age, they were okay. They weren't always washed. And Julio is unmistakably one of the best wide receivers of all time. You know, if Godwin starts the year healthy, which. seems impossible, but the closer and closer we get, it's like, oh, this could happen. He could start week one. If that happens, then I think Brady is right on pace for 5,040 again. If Godwin isn't there, I worry that Brady could get off to a slow start because if he doesn't throw for it, he's not running for it. The question here that I have with Tom Brady is it comes down to Todd Bowles versus Bruce Ariens, where Bruce Arians,

Like no risket, no biscuit. I want to throw all the time. I want to throw deep all the time. Now, I mean, historically, Todd Bowles has been with Bruce Ariens for a very long time. And I mean, Bowles is not, you know, the offensive coordinator, but he's the head coach of the team. So does he try to shape? the identity of the team, does he change it slightly? Because 719 passing attempts from Tom Brady, that's outrageous. That number is so ridiculously high that if, I mean, if you come down 80 passing attempts, which is, I don't think that's a huge number. If you come down 80 and be more in line with kind of the rest of the league, then Brady's overall numbers are absolutely going to come down. So that's my biggest fear.

for Tom Brady. What's great about Brady is Brady's not going to be the quarterback one. And everybody knows it because he doesn't have the rushing upside. Like there's no chance he's the quarterback one this season, not at this age. So he will be drafted as a quarterback 10, like he has been for the last several years. And he will beat the quarterback 10. So he is as safe as it comes. If you want to take the late round quarterback approach and just grab Tom Brady as the 10th, 11th quarterback. drafted off the board because people want the upside and they'll draft Tray Lance ahead of them because massive upside and hope. But that's a risky pick. If you want the safe late round quarterback, it's Brady. Sure. Russell Wilson at number eight. Russell? Wilson. Incredibly almost 34 years old now. I think we all understand that, you know, he is a very high upside opportunity in the late seventh round at quarterback.

Being a quarterback one for fantasy purposes, that's kind of his reputation. He has been that for a long time. Offense of line should be better than what he had in Seattle. Yes. More pass-friendly scheme. I don't like that he lost Tim Patrick, but there are other weapons there that are going to help. Corlin Sutton, Jerry Judy, K.J. Hamler, the running backs, Albert Gwebenam, Greg Dulcich. Now, statistically speaking, per Matt DeSorbo, since 1999, traded quarterback scored 27% lower than the previous year. I would love to see that drilled down to Hall of Fame. So I'm not too worried about that. I think he's going to have more freedom in this offense. You have Nathaniel Hackett at quarterback. The picture is, this is kind of, in my opinion, his ADP is you're drafting him at his floor. And.

you could have a really high ceiling. I mean, this year for the quarterback position, when you just think strategically, it's so easy for me. There are five quarterbacks that I love where they're being drafted at, Kyler Lamar, Hertz, Tray Lance, and Russell Wilson. You're getting a guy at the 7-8 turn. The wide receivers and running makes you're giving up there are, you know. shots in the dark compared to what you know Russell can be, which is, I don't know, a quarterback won every single year of his entire career other than the injured season he just came from. You've got the weapons, you've got the freedom, they're going to let Russ cook, you've got the division and the matchups for the shootouts we just talked about. You want to get in, you know, this division and you don't want the price of a herbert of a Patrick Mahomes. Well, get Russ.

I mean, Russell Wilson's going to be in shootouts. He's got the weapons. He might be the best value in all of fantasy football. As much as I will very likely end up having one of those Kyler Lamar Hertz quarterbacks that I have been aiming for in most of my leagues. And so I might pass on Russ or might already not need him. He could be the home run pick in 2022. Yeah, and looking at, you know, Nathaniel Hackett coming down here from coming to Denver from Green Bay. Maybe it was just Aaron Rogers, but this is the coach who was working with Aaron Rogers the last couple of years. And those passes inside the 10 where you think, you know, the high-te team is going to just try and run it in. But inside the 10, you know, Aaron Rogers continually was one of the quarterbacks who throws a ton in there last year, over 50 attempts inside the 10.

That's a huge increase for your opportunity for touchdowns when you can throw it when you're that close to the goal line. So we're all in agreement here that Russ is an incredible value pick who could shock. I say not shock. He would not shock us if Russell Wilson finishes in the top three. Do you like getting off to a hot start? Do you like opening your season with a win? I like it hot. I think Russell will as well going to Seattle. for his first game throwing five touchdowns in front of his former hometown crowd. Man, they're going to freak out if they pick them off. Oh, yeah, they will. All right. You ready for the hate? Let's go. Mike says he likes it hot. So let's step into the kitchen. Joe Burrow comes in at number nine. He's the quarterback six by ADP, fifth round draft pick. We have him at eight, ten, eleven. That's right.

Mike, the floor is yours. I have. Or lava. I'm not sure. Yeah. Look, if you can't stand the heat, you get out of the kitchen. And that's why, Andy, you brought us in the kitchen because we can. That heat. Yeah, we live in Arizona. Yeah. You think I'm not battle tested? Ready for that heat? He was my ice pick on the ice and fire show just a couple weeks ago. And I laid it out of his numbers last year were like historic. He led the NFL. in completion percentage. He led the league in yards per pass attempts. He was outrageously good. And for fantasy purposes, up until week 16, he had never given you that true boom game of passing the 30 points. He hit a quarterback 2 mark in week 7. But other than that, he was finishing as quarterback 8 or worse on a weekly basis. And you need Joe, you need Joe Burrow to either

repeat his historic numbers from this past year or the volume has to get extremely pumped up, which that's not out of the range of outcomes. I'm not saying it is impossible that the beginning of the season, you just completely explained it away by he was recovering from the knee injury, the pace of play and everything like that. They were just totally trying to protect him. But I don't think that the volume will get to the point where he will pay off the running back six. Perhaps my projection of where he is at quarterback 11 because I like other guys more than him. That's fine. You can argue that that is too low. But I think that his ADP will not pay off for people. And I think that he will be disappointing at the end of the year. He'll still be fine.

But he will be disappointing if you take him as the quarterback six. Yeah, one of the things I loved about Burrow coming into the NFL, you know, when he was drafted was his mobility, his rushing ability. And you saw it in the beginning of his rookie year. He had that catastrophic knee injury. And then you wondered, is it going to come back? And it really didn't. You know, he played 16 games last year. He ran for 118 yards. So this is a guy playing for a good team. Obviously, they were in the Super Bowl. They've got a great defense. with a coach that wants to run the ball, keep these leads, use Joe Mixing and, you know, if they've got it, and he's not going to be adding the rushing baseline. So they're not throwing the ball like Tampa Bay and Brady. He's not going to throw for 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns. He has the talent. He has the ability. 550 passing attempts last year. He did skip a week, but only 520. What did Brady throw? Over 700. Yeah, so you see the gap. Like, now maybe they come out.

And they say, hey, look, Burrow is the future, not just of our franchise, but of the NFL. And we're going to give him another 100 passing attempts. We've got such great receiving weapons. And they should do that. Yes. And if they do that, it will pay off. They will not do that because Zach Taylor is their head coach. And so as somebody that ranked him low, I still think Herbert is the outcome that is possible for Joe Burrow. Sure. That's what I'm saying. Yes. If he gets another 100 passing attempts. I completely agree. I'm saying I don't believe that he's going to get another 100, 150 passing attempts to do that. He has the talent and the ability to do it. Herbert was at 672 last year. 150 more attempts. He'll get more. He will definitely get more. He should get more. And his weapons are elite. We don't even need to.

Comment on Higgins and Jamar Chase. It's just a... Joe called me, so I had to step up for him. It's a matter of volume. It is not a matter of... Is Joe Burrow good? Does he have great weapons? Like, we're playing fantasy football, and you have to use the market to your advantage. That's how you build your team. So, like, the hard part I have for saying this is what they should be doing is we... We say that a lot about teams. It's clear and obvious to everyone watching the football game that here is how the game should be going. Here's the players that should be on the field. And that we fall into the fallacy of rational coaching, thinking that the coach will do what we think is the optimal thing. So I have my concerns that the volume will go to a Justin Herbert level. If it does, if I'm wrong about that, then Joe Burrell will crush. Do you see Frank Reich's comment?