Early QB Rankings: Top 10 Countdown + Rodgers Traded! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/25

Emphysema Jason here to tell you which 10 quarterbacks to draft. There are 10 great quarterbacks this year and the rest are trash in my opinion. We're going to break it down from 10 to 1 and we have some cool breaking news. Check it out. Hey, this is Patrick Mahomes quarterback to the Kansas City Chiefs and you're listening to the fantasy footballers podcast. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. The fantasy footballers. That's us. I'm one of them. That's me and you, Jay. That's me and you, baby. No, Mike. We got a bear. Big cardboard bear in his place. We got the deusers. Better looking than Mike. Better looking than the deusers. And worse input, generally. Generally. Generally. Sometimes. Yeah, the deusers are in the building. I don't think we've ever replaced them with a piece of cardboard.

Have we not thrown Jay Gris back there? I think we have. Oh, we have? Yeah. I didn't notice. Welcome in. It's Tuesday, April 25th. The draft is Thursday. Draft is Thursday. And we're excited. I know Jason. This is a stupid show we're doing. Like, look, we're going to talk about quarterbacks, super important, very important for fantasy. You want to listen. I don't want to talk. about anything other than the NFL draft. I am in two days from now. The NFL draft is happening. And the only thing I'm seeing in my mind is the draft board and the trade scenarios. I'm like that giff of all the math equations flying by, except I'm the Zach Gallifanakis version. Right. And you're smoking. Oh, for sure. Ultimate draft week has arrived. We are there. We've got a big announcement. We don't have Mike, but we do have this.

This week only, we have a very special draft week promotion, the NFL draft, keeping Jason tantalized every moment of the day. I mean, I'm excited too. It's just not, it just doesn't compare to your level of overexciting, I would say. And a lot of that probably has to do with Bijon Robinson and Zach Charbonnet and some of these rookies. You want to see where they land. For sure. But this week only, you can get entered to win some ultimate draft week prizes that were given away. We do this every year. It's a special event. You can see it up on the screen if you're watching on YouTube. Ultimate DraftKit.com. We are giving away a signed D.K. Metcalf jersey. Guaranteed. If you put that on, you can jump up to eight feet into the air. And then Jalen Waddle, signed Jalen Waddle jersey as well. If you put that on, you can run as fast as a car. Thank you. And the big one, the listener league spot. We're giving another listener league spot away this week.

To enter, you can pre-order the 2023 UDK at Ultimate DraftKit.com. You got to do it by this Sunday. And anyone who has ordered any point in the past is automatically entered. So if you've pre-ordered before this week, don't worry about it. You're in there. You're in. But if you haven't ordered yet, there's never been a better time. And if you want to play in one of the most competitive leagues, one of the most fun leagues with us. with Andy Micah Jason and have a great time. This is your chance. If you're like, I don't know how to get in the league. I mean, Brooks started his relationship with the ballers as a listener league contestant. Yeah. And what place did you finish in that first season? Brooks. I didn't win. Okay. So not first. You were a winner in many ways. We're also giving all those prizes away each to separate people. So there'll be three winners, three prizes, signed jerseys.

Jaylon Waddle, D.K. Metcalf in the list in the league spot, Ultimate DraftKit.com to enter. We'll be live on Friday with our round one reactions. You can go to ballerslive.com, follow the show on YouTube, click the bell. We're going to go live around 6th Eastern. One hour before the draft, I believe. Yeah, before rounds two and three. Yep. Okay. There you go. There's draft week. Very excited. Anything I'm forgetting there, Brooks? Anything I left out? You got it. All right. That's good. Let's talk news. News and notes from around the league. Well, this was unfortunate. We saw this breaking, I believe, Saturday morning. Jameson Williams. Lions wide receiver was injured for most of the last year. We didn't get to see a player that Jason and I know both going into the draft had him right at the tippy top of the board. I believe he was my number two. Tons of talent suspended for six games now for the 2023 season for violating the NFL's gambling policy.

So Jameson Williams won't be there for six weeks. It's a huge blow to, you know, all of the dynasty managers that expected to finally get to see him on the field. Probably changes a little bit of your draft day perspective on Amun Rass Saint-Brown. If you need clarity of why he got six games instead of the Calvin Ridley season-long ban, he was not betting on NFL games. He was betting on collegiate games. Which is allowed. but not at the team's facility. Right. You shouldn't be in the NFL stadium or in your facilities betting on anything. Now, if he had gone. Cross the street to his 5G and got off the Wi-Fi. Oh, you'd never be caught. He would have been fine. Hey, pro tip, NFL players, if you're betting from in your facility, get off the Wi-Fi. They won't know. I think that's probably the truth, right?

But we're not necessarily in the business of helping them escape the gambling policy, I don't think. NFL players don't gamble. And so Jameson Williams is not going to be there. He's going to be a really weird pick for fantasy players because in redraft leagues, you're going to have a six game absence. That's a huge, I mean, we just dealt with DeAndre Hopkins missing six games for the Cardinals. James William's is not proven like Hopkins was. And Hopkins was not on a lot of people's boards because this is the type of thing where you're not on IR. Mm-hmm. So do you think that it's possible he just goes undrafted in some leagues? In some leagues. You know, someone's going to take a shot at him, and I think most leagues he will be drafted. He won't be drafted by yours truly. He's pretty much off my board. I don't want to wait six weeks for the hope. I mean, he's already a projection. If he was playing the entire season, I like the talent. And I would project that he has a good time, as a lot of, you know, high fantasy finishes.

The fact that you're starting, you know, a month and a half into the fantasy season, and keep in mind, you got to make playoffs. So it's not, you know, it's not a 17 week fantasy season. You're missing too much action to put a player, take up a bench spot. So for me, he is, he's not someone I'm going to draft in normal redraft leagues. Cowboys exercising the fifth year option on CD Lamb. It makes sense. Yeah. also came out and said that he expects Trey Lance to remain in San Francisco for 2023. Of course he did. I mean, at this point. What's the alternative? If you don't say, yeah, I think we're probably going to move on because then you're... You're lowering the price. Exactly. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. So I don't think he's guaranteed he stays there. I have heard that the teams that have been interested, like it's very cool. The market is cool. Mm-hmm.

It's amazing how much the optimism and the hope and the, you know, all the talent and potential in the world just disappears when they're not a rookie. Breaking news. We just got word and we record this show the afternoon before you're listening to it. Oh, well, well, well. The Aaron Rogers trade has. Happened. Oh, thank goodness. The trade compensation, according to Adam Schefter, the Jets receive Aaron Rogers pick number 15 and a 2023 fifth round pick. The Packers received pick 13, a second round pick number 42, a sixth round pick number 207. and a conditional 2024 second that becomes a first if Rogers plays 65% of the plays. Wow. So, I mean, the deal seems fair. A 2024. So they got their first rounder, assuming that Rogers is healthy this season. They got a first rounder for him, moved up two spots in this year's draft, which those spots really meant. I mean, you're talking a big difference between.

15 and 13 if you're targeting certain players. That feels like a really fantasy football style trade. We've had lots of trades where people are swapping one or two spots in a draft. So they basically just swap that first round and then they get a two. They swap a five for a six and then they get a second that might become a first. Yeah. And the two is in this year's draft. It's coming up in a couple days here. Wow. Okay. So my reaction is. My reaction is I didn't think one team or the other team got screwed by this deal. I'm surprised that the Packers got that much. I don't think either team got screwed here. This is certainly fair compensation. But honestly, I thought that the- I mean, it's just one first, maybe. Well, it's a second this year. Yeah, yeah. And presumably a first next year. I guess at least two- twos. At least two-two and possibly a two-and-one. Yeah, okay. Okay.

Yeah, no, that's a lot. I figured if you were the Jets and you held off past this draft, obviously, then you couldn't trade this year's draft picks, and then you put the Packers up against the payment clock of having to pay Rogers. Yeah, I mean, it's a heck of a trade. I'm curious what our Packer fan thinks of this development. I'm happy with it. Yeah, Al's happy to get him. You're moving on. Yeah. Also, Garrett Wilson. I mean, we knew, but now we know. Yeah. Nothing is, nothing is really changed. Does that go on forever? It seems like it's going to go on in. Yeah, that train is really going. A lot of people on that train. It's a long train for Garrett Wilson. Okay. All right. Well, that's cool. Now, hey, hey, hey, hey. That broke during our news segment. Lamar. Lamar, you're next. Get, get something done. Sign the contract.

Are you speaking directly to Lamar? Yeah, because he's listening. We know that. Yeah, I mean, it's probably going to get done, right? Lamar will probably be back. Yeah, he'll be a Raven. I think even if he has to just play out this year on the franchise tag, he'll be a Raven this season. All right. Any other breaking news? Nothing, huh? Have you ordered your Jordan Love jersey? Not yet. It's not on the way? But I'll get one ordered now. You're going to get one ordered now. You're not going to wait and see if he's any good. Uh, correct. Okay. Yeah, just like you did with Max Hall. Yeah, I got a Max Hall jersey. So I can't blame you there. All right. Uh, let's get into the quarterback rankings. Quarterbacks. Before we jump in here, I will say this, Jason, you were kind of, I don't know, you were kind of complaining that you don't get to talk all about the draft. Mm-hmm. And I feel like maybe Aaron Rogers did you a solid and gave you something exciting to kind of talk about here. It involved the draft. It did. And honestly, the first thing that went through my head was,

I might have to adjust. You know, I've got kind of my mock draft, not something I release, but just so that I can kind of project where I've got players going. We've obviously got our prediction show on Thursday where we're going to be saying where we think these players are going to land. I had JSN to the Packers at 15. So I don't know if them move into 13 will change that in my order. I'm looking forward to seeing. All right. We've been going through the early rankings at every position. And we just wrapped up the, oh, I don't know what to talk about on this show right now. I just, all right, Mike's not here, right? And Jason.

I think has emphysema. If you're, if you can't hear, I just, I've wanted to avoid the topic. Yeah. At some point, you just made a sound. So I was off camera and my mute button was pushed. So I think most people don't know what happened. Right. I really didn't have to bring this up. Well, at this point, you know, cats out of the bag. Let me explain why Andy started laughing. Because I tried to kind of mute a cough both with the mute button, but also like just, you know, one of those. With your mouth. With the mouth closed, but it just ended up doing the fart lips. That is right. That is accurate. So I just went. Yeah, it was like this really weird sound that I couldn't ignore because it was ridiculous. Yeah, but I'm pushing through. I'm pushing through for everyone here. To be clear, you were sick like two weeks ago and this is a new permanent thing. Yeah, this is just who I, who I am now. And I'm really happy with this new voice. Ducers. These guys are.

They're gone. They're dropping like flies. I need somebody else out here very soon. Into the quarterback rankings, we go. Counting it down the top 10 quarterbacks on our early rankings. I hinted last week during the wide receiver shows where if you want to go back, the early running back wide receiver episodes, they took up the last couple of weeks. But I hinted that we had been going through here and putting our rankings in, looking at what our... consensus names are. And we realize that there's kind of like a have and have-nots. Is that a fair summation? I mean, there's a group that you're like, okay, they belong in that upper tier. And then there's like a group of like, is this guy, is this guy 16 or 28? Is this guy 15 or 25? There is, I mean, it's different every single season, but I feel like there's a lot of clarity on this year's quarterback.

group for fantasy football with the sole exception of incoming rookies and what you believe maybe, you know, one of them has an excellent rookie season. I'm usually not in on rookie quarterbacks and outside of Justin Herbert. That's worked great. But right now, we're doing a top 10 show. And that's just what we were already going to do. But when we started putting these rankings together, there's 10 quarterbacks I like. 10 on the dot. And then I don't want anyone else. Past 10 to me, and obviously it's different for everybody, your 10 might not even be the same. But I don't want to play fantasy football with Kirk Cousins and, you know, Geno Smith and Jared Goff. Like, I just don't care. And again, this is early ranking. So I think there is going to be some, you know, the draft's going to influence things tremendously, especially if a big name receiver goes someplace. Maybe you take some shots at some deeper.

quarterbacks. You work yourself into the streaming realm. I haven't even thought about yet where Aaron Rogers in this trade being secured moves him in terms of a streaming quarterback option in New York. He's certainly in that conversation. I mean, I think with the talent he's going to have there in New York with past catching Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson and Alan Lazard and the tight ends they have, like, I think he's going to be an interesting name for people to throw out there in the right matchup. But Yeah, I mean, right now at least, we've kind of isolated a group of guys that kind of seem like they can get it done for you and the others that seem like they might get it done for you, which is tough. Yeah, Aaron Rogers should at least be in the conversation for being the 11th added to this group. Even though last season he was the quarterback 13 and was very, very bad, obviously he lost Devante Adams. And the two previous seasons to that, he was the quarterback six and the

which is our default. And so if you believe Garrett Wilson is able to take that superstar step up to being in the elite Devante Adams category or at least tier, then yeah, maybe Aaron Rogers can actually be a clear top 10 quarterback for fantasy. Yeah, I just, it's going to be interesting breaking down that Jets offense as we get into our ultimate draft kit rankings. The projections over the next month, they come out. I mean, the draft kit's out on June 1st. Yeah. And we are almost into the month after April. Oh, man. What is that going to be? I think, uh, I think the producers suck. Yeah. All right. Tua. Wow. He's just failing over there. I mean, goodness gracious. What, what is? Al's not listening to the show. Sorry. I was retweeting the, the Rogers News and bidding him for, uh, no, what about producing the show. I apologize. And you thought about producing the podcast? Yeah, because do you know what month it is right now? Because right now it's.

It's April, and it's getting late. Yeah. And pretty soon. It's not going to be April anymore. No, it's going to be something different. It's right before June. And take your darn time. This is bad. This is awful. I, fuck, Clay, I apologize. You notice his excuse was I was tweeting? Yeah, I was on my phone. Like, we were supposed to think that that was cool. What's it going to be? Owl. It's going to be May. Wow. That was the worst execution of a joke in the history of the fantasy footballers. But we got there. I apologize. That's on me. You bet it's on you. Hey, maybe it'll be a show moment. Number 10 on our early quarterback rankings. Tua Tunga Viloa, Miami Dolphins quarterback. Last year, 3,500 yards, 25 touchdowns, eight interceptions. What was incredible from Tua last season with Janlon Waddle and Tyree Kill was the...

emergence of the big play passing offense. He excelled. He was one of the best in terms of deep ball throwers in the league. He had a six touchdown game. I mean, that was something unfathomable for Tua after his rookie season. He had three passing touchdowns in three games in a row from weeks eight through 10. And you were always, I mean, I had Tua in our League of Record as my locked-in starter for part of the year. and he could have a bad game and it would change in two throws of the football. Like it wasn't dunk down the field and then, oh, maybe I'll save one. It's like the old Philip Rivers years where it was like, oh, man, we need a whole drive to come together. No, it's just, he doesn't need Tyreek or Waddle. Yeah, when you have those two guys, you're, this is why I prefer someone like Tua.

you know, over a Kirk Cousins, obviously he's got Justin Jefferson, but Kirk Cousins is solid, but he's not going to have many games where you go out there and throw for 400 yards and three touchdowns. Something outrageous, a weak winning performance for fantasy, but that will happen and has happened with Tua. The issue with Tua is really just health and whether or not, you know, you're worried about the concussion issue, but we can't, we can't predict that. We've got to go with what the medical personnel is telling Tua. And so he's playing ball and I'm going to be willing to draft him. I think he'll be of value because I don't believe anybody is clamoring over themselves to get him. At the end, he kind of had two different stretches. He had the stretch where he dominated was four weeks in a row, the quarterback won, three weeks in a row was a top five quarterback, one of those, the number one overall. And then he went on by, came back, and was a little bit more mediocre. But the fact that you can see those sealing outcomes and you have.

wide receivers that can take you there no matter what the game script is. I like the, I like swinging for the fences with the upside opportunity of Tua. And we talked about this with Waddle and this offense. They were figured out a little bit. I mean, after, after week 11, that interior passing game was figured out. Tua did not get above quarterback 13 from the by week on before he went out with another concussion. So the fact that, you know, do you trust McDaniel to kind of figure things out? Yeah, I do. You know, I talked to Kyle Uschek. Kyle Uschek believes in him. Obviously, he was his offensive coordinator back in San Francisco. Every player that you talk to that's worked with him says he's a genius. And we saw stretches of brilliance. So at the very least, even if they get figured out again halfway through the season, you would assume they're going to start pretty hot. Dak Prescott comes in at number nine.

We're adding the upside meter to the draft kit rankings where we're looking at players' potential to outperform their draft position and their projections. I'm very curious of how you look at Doc Prescott at this stage in his career because he's got a solid track record for fantasy football. He's dealt with injuries. He made C.D. Lamb a star last year but didn't have help elsewhere. He finished at 18. Yeah, part of why CD Lamb was a star is because there was no help elsewhere. Everything went to CD Lamb. His, you know, target percentage is just market share of this offense was incredible. Now you have some other weapons coming to town. Brandon Cooks has added, but you lose Kellyn Moore. You lose the offensive system that passed so much and they want to run the ball more. So the upside meter for DAC to me is not extraordinarily high for someone that is...

turning more into a pocket passer. Once he got back from injury, his 17-game pace was about 260 rushing yards. Yeah, and his, you know, I agree with you completely. I had him, I'm starting to work a little bit on these projections at the quarterback position, but I see him as like a five or a six out of ten on the upside. He's a stable fantasy producer that probably does not have... the kind of high in potential that several other, the Jalen Hertz of the world have, but is also probably not, you know, you just said it with Tua. I don't think people are fighting over DAC anymore. And so from a value perspective, if we're going from the unknown streaming candidate laid in drafts, I think maybe we're going towards these back of your top 10 projected rankings being a potential value where you can delay that quarterback pick.

and still get consistency. Yeah, you're going to need Dak to get back to his rushing touchdowns, which you could argue without Zeke there when they're near the goal line. You know, he had the mark of the beast to start his career six rushing touchdowns a year. And, you know, if that goes up at the goal line without Zeke, then that's just a bonus for fantasy. Yeah, he missed four weeks right after the start of the season last year. He got... eviscerated a little bit for the playoff interceptions and the issues in the passing game where maybe they were more dependent on him and now they want to run the football. 74% completion rate in wins, just 55 in losses. And like you said, the rushing touchdowns have gone down every year. And it's going to be an offensive coordinator change. But we all have him at nine. Let's take a quick break. Come back with our number eight quarterback.

Coming in at number eight right now, a player that I know you have tremendous confidence in, Jason, I am close, I am not all the way there, but Trevor Lawrence, 23 years old, last year, very impressive towards the end of the season, the playoff matchup, quarterback seven in best ball, eight on our ranks, and finally looks like a franchise quarterback. Yeah, I mean, and really, it didn't take long. That's his... sophomore season. He was the quarterback eight last year in his second season. And one could argue it is really his first season of opportunity without Urban Meyer ruining that entire franchise for a year. Most people need a whole detox year after Urban Meyer before breaking the new, getting back to neutral. Yeah. And so for Trevor Lawrence come through, be the quarterback eight last year, add Calvin Ridley, be in the same system for.

a second year, but going into his third in the NFL, I do not believe that Trevor Lawrence takes a step back. And I'm pretty confident he takes a large step forward. Well, part of that confidence would come from the emergence of Evan Ingram over the back half of the year. They're looking at a long-term deal, but he's back on a franchise tag. Calvin Ridley, back from suspension. You know, Calvin Ridley is not a player we got to talk about in that wide receiver countdown, but. If he's back to being the Calvin Ridley or close to it that we knew, we need to as a fantasy community not forget how talented he is. And then Christian Kirk emerged. Jay Jones is involved. They have Travis E.T.N. in the backfield. They're the favorites, I believe, right, to win the division. So Doug Peterson works great with young quarterbacks. There's a lot to like about the Jacksonville situation. A lot of positives. Jump from that quarterback 22 as a rookie to quarterback eight last year.

You know, he could be one of those guys that you're just waiting and waiting and waiting and draft to take a quarterback because you want Trevor Lawrence. And you know, you know, the Lamar Jackson's and Justin Fields and those guys are going to go ahead of him. So I think it's a huge opportunity there. If Calvin Ridley is a true bona fide, I would say like, you know, bringing to the offense a little bit of the Tyreek aspect of, hey, you can make a big play with Calvin Ridley that maybe you weren't making with a Zay Jones. You could. You could see him getting into the top six, top five. Yeah, I mean, it's always tough. We're going to bring this up a lot as we talk about the rest of the quarterbacks here. But when you're speaking of quarterbacks that don't have a very high rushing baseline, they've got to be excellent. They've got to be 30 plus touchdowns and 4,500 passing yards. I believe that that is in Trevor Lawrence's wheelhouse here. I think he'll do that this season. But they also started using him in the running game a bit more.

the first month of the season, which was their first, obviously, in this system. They didn't really use them in the running game. After that point, his final 13 games, he was on a 17-game pace of about 350 rushing yards. So it was just nice to know that there is a little bit of a baseline there. Justin Herbert at 7. Justin Herbert, I think, has a huge opportunity for a bounceback season. He's 25 years old, battled through injuries, played through injuries. What happened last year? He didn't throw enough touchdowns. I mean, that was the truth of Justin Herbert's season. He passed for a ton of yards, approached the 5,000 yard mark despite dealing with the injuries, just 25 touchdowns, which was a step down from the breakout number two overall campaign where he threw 38 of them in 2021. Last year was unequivocally a disappointment because of on a production front for Justin Herbert. Didn't have Keenan Allen for a ton of the year.

Big Mike Williams was inconsistent, lost Jalen Guyton. It was just one of those years, I would say, with this team. And look, they're going to invest in a wide receiver in this draft. And I don't know which one it's going to be. Jordan Addison. Jason does. Jason's seen the future and is Jordan Addison. But I think it will be one of the bigger name wide receivers. I think they're going to fix that up. Keenan Allen. coming into the year healthy. Mike Williams still there in an offense that knows what it has in Justin Herbert. So I've got him at five, Jason and Mike have him at seven, comes in at seven in our consensus. But I do think that it's going to be a not a full rebound to that maybe game breaking QB2 overall year, but we know the ceiling of Justin Herbert. And it's the finish in the top three.