Top 10 Quarterbacks + Sneaky Good QB Values - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/9

I have long watched the people of Earth, and I have witnessed their capacity for greatness. They know that in any draft, there are calms between storms. There are days when their league mates turn against them. But the day will never come when they forsake their fantasy draft, and the quest for ultimate glory. Rankings, sleepers, breakouts, values. Together at last. United. Within the Ultimate Draft Kit. The Ultimate Draft Kit stands ready, waiting, watching, protecting, and making your opponents look like stupid, dumb, dumb idiots compared to you and your magnificently hot roster. Will you use it to build your team and win a championship? I do not know, but yes, you probably should.

The time for courage and world domination is now at Ultimate DraftKit.com. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers Podcast for Wednesday, August 9th. Happy to be with you. Mike, the Fantasy Hitman Wright is here. Hello.

Jason Moore, present, accounted for. Also, hello. Doing a bit of a head nod as he tends to do. I don't know if you've ever not done a head nod in the intro part of the show. I don't know if you've ever listened to our intro music, because if you don't do a head nod with that music banging. Get pumped. Then you have no soul. You have no soul. I'm Andy Holloway. Alex Toussaint would say. Go to sleep and try again. Okay. All right. Little Alex Tucson. What's up, Alex? I'm sure he's listening. I'm so sure. Yeah. I'm sure. Do you ever get on your on your bike and hope for the shoutout? Oh, I have. Yes. Oh, I've tried it several times. Have you ever got a shout out? He has ignored me every time. This would be a Peloton bike ride. Yeah. I've done pretty much all my milestone rides. I'm like, this is the time. Then you're going to get the shout out? And then you go 20 minutes. You're like,

He doesn't care. This ride doesn't matter to him. It's like he doesn't even know I did 400 rides. You know what's depressing to me on the on the bike is that like I'm, you know, I'm aiming for like 100 rides here soon. Yeah. And then it's like I'm hearing the shoutouts. And they're like 35,000 rides for Joe Bob in Nebraska. Yeah, us 100 rides. We stand no chance. There's no way these people aren't riding eight to 10 times a day. Two million rides. Yeah. Sorry, Mike. No shout out. Just a little Peloton humor. Jason's left out. I'm sure all the Peloton people are really enjoying this bit. And everyone else. I don't think they're a sponsor, right? They have been a sponsor. Well, they didn't pay for this. We'd welcome them back. Yeah, well, somewhere to aim. But welcome in. We've got the top 10 quarterback rankings today. We're going to talk about some deeper quarterback value options for your.

roster heading into the draft. It's hard. I mean, the quarterback position is, I find it to be one of the harder positions to go into a draft with a plan and not be disrupted. Because sometimes you begin to construct that roster and maybe one of the top tier quarterbacks drops to you. And, you know, last year it was very beneficial to have Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hertz. Like that was a difference maker every single week. Predictably, you had that advantage. traditionally on this show like we've been doing it nine years a lot of the years have been focused on late round quarterback opportunities you know Josh Allen was a breakout six seventh round Lamar Jackson was a breakout um Kyler Murray was a value at one point in time so like even last year Jalen Hertz was a later round pick that that shot up yeah and so make no mistake here like if you can do that that's way better

Like then spinning the high draft pick. If you can get the Jalen Hertz later on in the draft. So, but when you're in the draft, what I'm saying is it's very difficult to see, you know, the Josh Allen name there, the Patrick Mahomes name and kind of have it disrupt your gameplay. It's funny. This show specifically, like the top 10 quarterbacks over the last several years has been one of my least favorite shows because the quarterbacks I want. are the later quarterbacks. I don't want to spend up on these high ones. So it's like we're telling you all about these quarterbacks that are good that you don't want to draft. But that's different this year. It's very different. These are the guys you need this year with, you know, and what you're saying, Andy, is very true. When your plan goes awry, right? Like there's a top six or seven people for most.

Most people, they want one of those top six or seven quarterbacks. And as soon as that tier is gone, you go, oh no. What do I do? Yeah, you could end up reaching for another player because maybe you only like one or two of the later guys and then you reach for them and make a mistake that way. Right. So we're going to give you the answers. Yeah, we'll do our best. And we'll talk through it today. So we got that going on. We got some news to talk about. Quick question. Ultimate draft kit.com head over there, the UDK primed, ready to go. All of our rankings being updated every moment of the day. We've been paying close attention to camp battles, camp reports. I mean, if you are looking for updated Kyle Trask, Baker Mayfield type of rankings. Oh, yeah. And that battle. I mean, Baker's going to start preseason game one. Kyle Trask's going to start game two. It's not really fair. Game two is a pretty tough matchup.

I feel like they're setting Trask up for failure. Wait, did you, is this real? Yeah. Real preseason, tough preseason matchup for Trash. Are you making pre-excus for Kyle Trask? Yeah, he is. Might be. A tough preseason matchup. Mm-hmm. Whose twos are really, really good. If you can't handle preseason week two, you should not be a starter. He's going to be facing ones all year long. I'm really worried about that. I believe he will be playing against the Jets who will probably be playing their starters. I'm just saying that's a tough matchup. Do you know that you play starters throughout like the year? Yeah, but not every week isn't an audition to win the job.

Yes, it is when you're Kyle Trask and Baker Mayfield. It's, we have other rankings too. Join thefoot.com's the community. That's where you get a bonus weekly episode of the show, premium perks throughout the year, access to the premium Discord server where you can get into Foot Clan leagues. You can ask questions, trade reviews. Get that sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet validation that you need when you make a trade. You want people to give you the thumbs up. So you're like, yeah, I won the trade. There are people in there that'll give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Yeah. Be careful what you wish for. If you get the thumbs down, you just delete the thread out of Discord. Don't worry about it. And you said, no, my friend did that trade. Yeah. I was just getting a review for him. Quick question of the day. Look, if you don't draft one of the top 10 quarterbacks we're talking about today, which we'll get to shortly here on the countdown, who are you targeting at current average draft position? So let's say you are punting the position. You just...

Sometimes you go on with the plan to get a top guy, but then a different running back value drops to you, a wide receiver value. You have to pass if you've got somebody that you love dropping at another position that you play more than one of. So who are you targeting right now? Yeah. So if I don't get one of those top guys, what I have found my strategy that I have been going to the most, because in today's day and age in fantasy football, you need an elite. You need someone that is scoring crazy amounts of points that differentiates themselves from your average quarterbacks who at the end of the year will accumulate stats but won't win you weeks. And so I'm taking a shot on Anthony Richardson to be...

More than we hope. Rookie from the Colts. Rookie, yes, rookie dual threat quarterback. 64-255. Yeah, he's built in the. He's a Greek god. He really is. He is the Cam Newtonist player since Cam Newton. A real true alpha human. If you walk by one of the mannequins for like the under armor. Yes. That was actually him. He was standing there. He's just, he's so. Big. But because I think he might get off to a really slow start, and I would not prefer to play Anthony Richardson week one. I want to see it a little bit. I don't need to start off with losses. I pair him with Gino Smith. Gino Smith is going really late. Mike, I know you love Gino Smith. I do. He's one of your targets as well. Last year finishes the quarterback five, adds JSN to the team. I think he has a chance to be really good.

The fact that you can get, it's funny, I'm getting my backup first in Anthony Richardson, and then waiting a couple rounds and grabbing my starter in Gino Smith, pairing those two guys together. It's a rare time where I will roster two quarterbacks, and then Gino's schedule to start the season, week one against the Rams, week two against the Lions. You can't get much better matchups for a quarterback than those two specifically. It's worth saying briefly that if Anthony Richardson does hit, like we've talked about this is a possibility. It will mean a lot for like Michael Pittman. Yeah? Like if it's a better than expected year, I think Michael Pittman ends up a value. I'll say too. I mean, two has been my target. I think he has fantasy MVP potential. I did hear, I don't know if we got it in the news. Jason, you were talking right before we hit record about Jalen Waddle limping off.

But with his full allotment of weapons in Miami, I think Tua proved last year that he has a ceiling that is, you know, he had a six touchdown game against Baltimore. He has a receiver in Tyree Kill that breaks football. And so I'm not going to presume injury. And I think Tua in the eighth round, ninth round is very, very interesting. So that's kind of my target as a player that has top five potential. All right, and I will jump in. And I'll say it is, it's funny that we're talking about, you know, these are guys, if we don't get one of our top 10, these are the players that we're going to fall back on because one of the players in our top 10 is not going in the top 10 anywhere near that in ADP because we're going to be talking about four point passing touchdown scoring. But I want to talk about Dak Prescott, who has essentially always been.

a fantasy force where just a couple years removed from, you know, almost 4,500 yards and 37 passing touchdowns last year. Yeah, he did throw a lot of interceptions, but for fantasy football, he, once he came back, right, he broke his thumb, week one, and then from hit, from his second game back, because I'm eliminating the first game back after a broken thumb. So this is weeks eight through 18, DAC. was averaging nearly 20 points a game. He was the quarterback six in total scoring. Like he came back and he was still a very solid fantasy starter. And it's looking at the Cowboys. What can the Cowboys actually be? Because we have the chatter of what we're going to be run heavy team. You sure about that? Because you have C.D. Lamb.

a top five wide receiver, Brandon Cooks, a guy, an absolute burner who doesn't look like he's lost a step. And whenever he has a quarterback, Brandon Cooks comes through. And then you have the guy you gave the money to, Michael Gallup, now a year removed from his ACL injury. Who has been in camp, apparently having great rapport with DAC right now. So you have three, like I think this is a really strong wide receiver room. And then at the running back position. Tony Pollard is going to be the starter. Tony Pollard is undersized. You have Malik Davis. He's undersized. You have Ronald Jones. If he makes the team, he's undersized. As of right now, a feller named Rico Dowdell is in line to be the number two running back because he's actually 215 pounds. If you've never heard that name, I don't blame you because until the unofficial death chart had come out for the Cowboys, he's not someone I had really ever paid attention to due to the fact that...

In his entire career, spanning back to 2020, he has seven attempts in his entire career because he's floated on and off of the team. And maybe this is the year that it all comes together for Rico. That's TBD. But my point being, you're not going to, if Tony Pollard is your main guy, you're not going to be able to run him 20 plus times. He will break down. And you have three great wide receivers. So this team, I think, is going to throw more than. They're letting on in the... Or than the assumptions, just based on the change. Look at the team. It's just... And Brandon Cooks was not just a... They picked them up. They traded for him. Like, they went and got it. All right. Let's jump into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, this was a big surprise because we had multiple reports yesterday from official sources that...

Kareem Hunt simply needed to pass his physical with New Orleans and would sign. M. Knight got the script, though. M. Knight got the script and threw a little twist in there. Apparently, he was called by the Indianapolis Colts before stepping onto the field with the Saints. Now, are we sure? And was offered more money. And so right now he is visiting the Colts. Both teams could use him. The Colts probably more. I mean, Jonathan Taylor, if he's not with the team, he's on the pup, he's got an excused absence, he's dealing with the contract, dealing with the ankle, which the ankle is the same ankle that bothered him all last year. And I will say the videos of Johnny Taylor when he was been at practice and he's just in street clothes, like I'm not a doctor, but the guy's just, he's not moving around like someone who looks like they're ready to play NFL football.

So Zach Moss broke his forearm. Dion Jackson has missed time in camp and was the de facto starter last year. Evan Holes a rookie. They could use Cream Hunt. And if Cream Hunt signs in Indianapolis, he could be the starter at least until Zach Moss comes back. Oh, if Taylor is missing time. If Zach Moss and Cream Hunt are there and Jonathan Taylor is not, Cream Hunt is the starter. I think they'd share the time. Sure. I'm not saying he would be a workhorse back, but I, you know. Well, you know how I feel about Zach Moss. I do. I do know. We've talked about it. And Jonathan Taylor yesterday left the training facilities with the cults. He's no longer in Indianapolis. He's going to train on his own. So things just keep getting worse and worse. I hadn't heard that one. They said he has a prolonged excused absence. Yeah. It's like, oh, it sounds like, oh, you want money and we're not going to give it to you? There's the door.

Jalen Waddle exited practice Wednesday with an undisclosed injury headed to the locker room under his own power. So we'll follow up there. I saw a report just now that I don't know how verifiable this is, but that it was he got the wind knocked out of him. Let's hope that's what it is. And he had to go to the locker room for that? To get more wind? Is that where they store it? I think he just left early. That was towards the end of camp. Damien Harris. Damien Harris, Bill's running back. Sornie, missing practice. I mentioned yesterday goal line work right now is being split between Damien Harris and Latavius Murray. Tavius Murray has been very effective. We viewed the lens of these guys being added to the bill's roster as, you know, Damien Harris is more valuable than Murray. The bills don't look at things that way. They look at it as we've got a couple productive backs that are good around the goal line and we're going to use both of them. But Damien Harris has just literally constantly been injured. Yeah. So it's not a great sign.

for this roster. Marlon Mac left practice. Arizona Cardinal. Brooks. Brooks, you got to get Marlon McNus in here. This is you. Oh, yeah. I will say this. When Marlon Mac is the backup and then he is injured, there's just nobody there with James Connor, who has been reportedly catching a ton of passes in the 11-on-11s. All right. Any other news, Brooks, that you've seen coming through, the wire? Not yet, sir. Okay. Watch, watch that wire over there. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Quarterbacks. All right, we're into the top 10 quarterbacks on today's show.

Try to bring you some information that you haven't heard before on these guys. Because obviously household names when you're talking the top 10 at the quarterback position. But some of the angles, some of the directions that they can go. I mean, last year, you had players like Justin Herbert that were disappointments based on their average draft position. Players like Joe Burrow that outperform or met standards that some people set for them. So Mike brought up from the top 10 things to remember show earlier in the year. All right. That late round quarterback is changing. You know, we do discuss this statistic every year. 45 different quarterbacks. 45. It was 45. Wow. Had a top 12 performance last year. That is the second most in over a decade. So that's great. Yeah, you can find value on the waiver. The problem is that you do have to get it right. You have to have.

you know, predicted that outlier week for certain backup quarterbacks on the waiver wire, which we do every year. We try to give you the stream of the week, the best matchup, the best situation. And I think we as a community, we do a good job with that. The difference and the reason why late round quarterback is changing is not so much because we can't find the waiver wire quarterback who can come in and throw 250 and 2 and 2 and crack that top 12 number. We can find them still. The problem is 250 and 2 is just not. good enough when there are quarterbacks that are throwing, you know, 3.50 and 3 and then running another 50 yards on the ground. And, you know, the gap between the elites and the back half quarterback ones is too wide to overcome right now. That's the difference. You rewind seven years ago and you just did not have quarterback scoring at the top what they are doing right now.

It's true. And you used to look at it and say, hey, 22 points in our league format from a quarterback. I'll get you by. You know, 22, when your opponent's putting up 37 and a half for 38 because of a top tier running quarterback, that does make it challenging. You've got to make up for it someplace else. So at number 10, popular breakout candidate is a breakout in our UDK. He's sitting at eight and nine in Jason and I's rankings and number 10 on our consensus. What are you doing, Michael? Trevor Lawrence. This is where he is and four point for me. For Jacksonville, Mike has him at 50. Oh, no, that's 15. Sorry, 15. And he's expensive, Dak Prescott. That's who he is. Oh, me. Wow.

Oh, man. Mike hates Trevor Lawrence. I did not know that. No, I do not hate him at all. Couldn't you look at him as like, like I think Jason and I look at him as maybe like cheap Justin Herbert? Right. And you're saying expensive dad Prescott. Mm-hmm. That's what I'm saying. Man. So why don't you, why don't you make the bear case here? The bear, it's, it's not a bear case in that like Trevor Lawrence is going to fall in his face by any means. I mean, last year he. Thank you. He finishes the quarterback 8, and he has great weapons around him. My point is that Trevor Lawrence is, you know, he's more of a pocket passer. He can move a little bit. We had 330 rushing yards as a rookie 290 this past year, but five rushing touchdowns, that's overperforming, especially for 62 attempts. And I think that the, just the nature of him being a pocket passer, and we're...

And you have to project the breakout, which a lot of people are doing. Just that is driving up his ADP to the point where I'm more nervous that he, what if it's exactly the same as last year, which is, you know, a little bit over 4,000 yards, upper 20s and passing touchdowns. And that would, I think that's a very likely outcome for Trevor Lawrence. And that would be a massive disappointment for what everyone is expecting him to do right now. Is that true? Is it true that that would be a massive disappointment? His ADP is where he finished. You have him ranked where he finished. Yeah. QBA. I mean, I know you're hoping you'll get better than that. When you draft Trevor Lawrence at quarterback eight, you are hoping that he takes that leap forward, that he is 4,750 yards and that he's cracking 30 plus touchdowns and really elevating to that next level. So I think you would be disappointed.

Even though you, you know, he won't destroy you. If you draft him at quarterback eight, he finishes a quarterback eight, you're okay. But you're, you know, when you're taking these slightly later quarterbacks like him, you are trying to find the diamond that wins fantasy league. Trying to find the touchdown outlier. Yeah. And but I believe that he can do that. I think, you know, I say crack 30. If you told me he throws. 36 touchdowns this year with the addition of Calvin Ridley, with the receiving room he has, year two in this system, a year two away from Urban Meyer. That's true. I mean, I view skies the limit for Lawrence. You know, from week nine on last year, he was the quarterback five in fantasy, and that includes a game where he was completely unneeded and didn't score anything because it was against the Texans and it was like, oh, I.

don't need to throw the ball today. So I do think his upside is tremendous. And if he were to crack the top three this year, that won't surprise me. He's definitely in the category of great players that could become superstars this year. Like he's 23 years old, third season, elite wide receiver potentially being added to the room, continuity for another year. He's definitely in that category. He's not. priced at a great discount. I agree with that. But he's also not being projected right now to be a top five guy either. So last year finished at eight, like you said, first half of the year was not like the last half. Nice start to the year, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Houston, Atlanta. So we'll take a quick break and come back with a couple of guys, the only running or the only quarterbacks in our top 10 with an ADP after round six in a moment.

All right, we are back with the number nine quarterback, Deshaun Watson of the Cleveland Browns. Watson is being drafted two picks behind Trevor Lawrence right now. I am extremely bullish on Deshaun Watson this year. It's been said on the show. I have him at eight. He's being drafted as the QB10, Mike at 10, Jason at 13. You know, this has been one of those like, you know, sometimes we agree, sometimes we disagree, sometimes we strongly disagree. historically this offseason has been a strong disagreement in particular between Jason and myself with what Deshawn Watson will provide for fantasy managers as well as whether he can return to form. I have an expectation that he will. Jason has thus far said that he does not believe he will do that. This was the last time we had seen him before Cleveland, QB 555. Six games with Cleveland last year, four were unmitigated disasters. His first four back.

The final two, very good fantasy finishes and production in those two games. So, you know, as he goes, so will Nick Chub, Amari Cooper, David Noghoku, and potentially Elijah Moore and company. You know, it's what you believe about the real Deshaun Watson, the player on the field. He is one of the players I will be watching the most. for preseason, assuming he plays in preseason. He did. I think I saw him. He confirmed he will be starting. That is great news because my issue with Deshaun Watson was not just, oh, his results were bad. The film watching him, he just missed passes. He looked like he was in his head and played very poor football. And I think when you're in front of a crowd and you've got all of the mental hurdles that come along with being Voldemort,

I want to see him perform in preseason and say like he looks like his old self or this is more of what we've seen. And until I see it, I just don't, I don't want to predict. Maybe it's just like just anti-bias where I don't want it to work out well. And so I project that upon him. But I will be watching in preseason because he does have the world where he is the most valuable pick in fantasy this year. Nobody really wants to draft him. He plummets down. If he ends up in that top five quarterback where he used to be, then all of a sudden you have a late round quarterback value, which is, as we know, a really, really valuable thing in fantasy football. If he bounces back to form, I mean, Andy's pointing out, yes, correctly, last time we saw him, you know, when he was in Houston, he was the QB5, three straight years in a row. That was 2020. I mean, that will have been.