Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Early Top 12 QB + Draft Predictions

Nothing on film has made me think for one second that he's lost arm strength or that he can't, you know, push the offense. He looks great. But losing Brandon Cooks, improving the defense, keep in mind. They gave up 28 points of game. Yeah, the last few years, they have been an albatross. And they are now focused. I mean, that's why they got rid of Brandon Cooks was, you know, to.

get that first round pick to use on a defensive need. And so I think that the team might be improved. I think Drew Brees is going to be great. But I expect, you know, I think he'll be a top five quarterback in fantasy football next year. But I would be surprised if he replicates what he did this year. And whenever, you know, as far as just straight fantasy numbers, and if you have a guy go down in production year over year, they're usually overdrafted. I mean, it's just the nature of.

All right. And they'll say in the splits that we alluded to earlier, they're real since 2012. Drew Breeze is just, he's seven points better at home. And so that's if you've owned Drew Breeze, you know this because. Yeah, that's your reality for a while. Much more difficult to be a plug and play weekly starter. So if you've got to spin that fifth round pick, now all of a sudden you're contemplating should you stream somebody when Drew Breeze is on the road. Matt Ryan.

Matt Ryan comes in at number five on our consensus quarterback rankings. Last year, the number two quarterback had a monster season. Is it a complete outlier, though? Are people going to just go bananas over Matt Ryan and the production will be impossible for him to repeat? I mean, this should be brought up too. Cam Newton two years ago. Look, you had this Super Bowl.

You know, this happens a lot. The Super Bowl team, they have that perfect season, and then you have a regression for the entire team. I mean, you just can't, nobody can produce the same way year over year. Yeah, I mean, happened to Cam Newton. Does it happen to Atlanta? Yeah, I looked into, I mean, we have obviously been doing research on fantasy for years, but this offseason, I really looked into quarterback. Century. For quarterback consistency year over year. And you do have your Aaron Rogers, your Tom Brady, and your Drew Breeze.

Go figure, the Hall of Fame quarterback's, you know, generationally unbelievable players that are, you know, very consistent year over year. But then the rest, they bounce around more than you think. I mean, you have, think about Big Ben, right? Big Ben has that one alpha wide receiver, right? So does Matt Ryan. He's got a great running game. So does Matt Ryan. Good weapons, good offense, throws a lot of yards. So does Matt Ryan. And you've got Big Ben who, you know, in 2007, he was the fourth best quarterback.

That year. Had a great year. The next year, 18th best quarterback. The next year, he was the ninth best quarterback. The next year, the next year, the next year, the next year, the next year to 19. And so for Matt Ryan, I think he bounces around a little bit. When you factor in the fact that he just had his career year, nine years into his career,

That to me seems like an outlier. And when you look at the numbers, he threw 60% fewer attempts per touchdown. I mean, that's insane efficiency. That's not going to be repeatable. And you lose your offensive coordinator. So for me, Matt Ryan's taking a big step down. I mean, he is going behind the top four guys that we just talked about. And we do have him in number five. So we like Matt Ryan as a top five quarterback. That being said, probably not taking them in the fifth round.

I mean, no, it's not the same as Andrew Luck landing in the fifth round where you have, you can really project the equivalent type of season or better for Andrew Luck with better weapons, a better offensive line because you can't really be worse. And it can be the same, I guess. But to me, the upside of picking a luck in the fifth round is so different than the downside of picking him at Ryan in the fifth round. So I don't think he's going to be on any of my teams.

But I do think he's going to have a good year. I mean, I think this team has an offense that works. I mean, this offense, the stability of the head coach three seasons in now. I mean, there are things to like about Matt Ryan. The continuity of the weapons as well is great. Absolutely. It's huge. It's not completely fair to comp Matt Ryan to Big Ben. I mean, Matt Ryan's played every game since 2010. Sure. Where Big Ben takes, it takes some breaks.

every once in a while. Physical break. He, it was, it was the highest completion percentage of his career, highest yards, touchdowns, lowest interception percentage, uh, highest yards per attempt. He had, he was over nine yards in attempt. He's never been over eight. I mean, it, like you guys are talking about this, the outlier is in almost every statistical measurable category for Matt Ryan. But, I mean, there's, he's actually surrounded by.

an excellent, excellent offense. We've seen him have productive fantasy years before, 8th in 2014, 5th and 2012. The thing for Matt Ryan, where he became kind of this a butt of a joke for fantasy is he could never get over the hump. It was always just, well, he's good. He's basically a weekly starter, but he's never going to give you that huge top three output. And we finally saw Jupiter in Mars a line.

And it was the age of Aquarius for Matt Ryan. I don't think we see that again. But I still think that he's five. Five is fine because the five to eight is, to me, it should be a guarantee for Matt Ryan with the possibility that he, that he has another great season. Yeah, see, I think the floor is lower than, than you think. If Matt Ryan finished as the quarterback 12 or 13, I would, I would not be surprised. You know, he's gone.

You brought up the fifth in 2012 and the eighth and 2014. In between that was 14th and after that was 19th. So, I mean, he has been one of those up and down guys, but he's good. He's fine. He's just not going to. He's fine. All right, let's talk about a guy who did have a drop off last year. There were reasons behind it, but still, I think you can spin it both directions however you want to. Russell Wilson never had a season since 2012 where he did not finish his top 10 fantasy quarterback.

last year. He finishes the 15th fantasy quarterback, and he had gone from 9 to 6 to 3. These are all, we should have said it at the top, but these are all, when we were talking about the rankings, that's 6-point quarterback leagues. Yes, yes. So he had gone from 9 in 2013 to 6 in 2014 to 3 in 2015, and he was being drafted very, very high last year because of how he finished 2015 and the potential for him to just get, I mean, he has such a great baseline when he had the rushing numbers. Now, last year.

Look, he hurt himself. I mean, he was limited, no mobility, which affects him both ways. One, you don't get the rushing numbers. And two, he is a pocket escaping fantasy producer. It's a spin move, man. Yeah, he needs to be able to get out of the pocket, find Dunk Baldwin, find Jimmy Graham, make stuff happen with his legs. It didn't happen last year for the majority of the season. So there was no pocket.

Last year. That is another problem. It was go and Russell Wilson. Now he's going in the seventh round. Running for his life. Seventh round is delightful. Love it. For for Russell Wilson. Through the first 10 games when he was playing on the bum ankles, he was averaging. This is Russell Wilson. The guy who ran for. No, this is Russell? Russell. Had it had a season of over 800 rushing yards, if I'm recalling correctly. It's first 10 games.

averaging four attempts for eight yards. Eight yards a game. That's big bin numbers. That's called both ankles taped up where you look like you've got giant moon boots on. That's what, that's what, I mean, when you watched. He was moonbooting it. And these are not the moon boots where you. How about the second half of the year, Mike? So the last, well, that was the first 10 games before, I mean, sure. It looked like he was not going to be healthy. But the final six games, it bumped up six attempts for 30 yards, which.

You'd hope for a little bit more, but 30 yards a game, that's a nice addition. Yeah, it certainly is. And this was, but the passing numbers were up. This was the first time he'd ever thrown more than 500 attempts, but the touchdowns plummeted. Yeah. 34 to 21. That's why I love him. So, yeah, his, you got to think it's, I don't know that he's a 34 touchdown guy, but you put him in that upper 20s.

And with the running ability, he's not really a rushing touchdown guy like some of some of these other quarterbacks, but he's a rushing yardage guy. Right. And so him in the seventh round of Russell Wilson is my favorite quarterback we've talked about so far. I might consider that.

For me, Russell Wilson is my number four quarterback. I might consider that maybe. So that's probably a no for you. Don't lock me in. But, yeah, I mean, Russell Wilson, he is, I just said it, he's my number four quarterback. I really believe in him. If you look at 2015, the way that when Marshawn Lynch went down and it became Russell Wilson's team, he took over and was awesome because.

He's a very good quarterback. And he knows his system. He knows his weapons. He's got great, you know, otherworldly camaraderie with Doug Baldwin. If you just look by the numbers when he targets him, you added Jimmy Graham. Things were looking up for Russell Wilson. But as you said, in 2016, he got crazy injured the whole first half of the year where he couldn't even move. He wasn't himself. As soon as he got healthy, you saw him be that great quarterback again. So to me right now, I have every reason to believe that he will come in.

You know, as the leader of the team offensively and be a great quarterback, if you look at his efficiency and what those injuries did to him last year, it's insane. He has spent the previous four years before last year averaging 16.8 passing attempts per touchdown, which is a great number. You know, league average is like 20. He's at 16.8. Last year, he was at 26. That is a crazy.

outlier number. I mean, when you talk about a difference of 10 passing attempts per touchdown for any guy year over year, usually what you're going to see the next year is an absolute bounce back. I mean, or the opposite. I mean, if you look back year over year, it's very, it's one of those stats that is very telling. All right. We need to talk about number seven on our consensus ranks. Derek Carr, I am, I'm going to tell you this right now, I am worried.

about Derek Carr. Really? I am. I thought you were going to go the other way. No. You drive the Derek car fan. I don't think I drive it. I don't think I drive it. You've got him seven in your personal rankings. That's not true. I have them at 11. I have, okay, in six point, you're right. I do have them in seven and six point. Yeah. Okay. All right. I was going to say, you've got him seven. I've got him eight. Mike's got him ten. Yeah, and I'm worried about him.

I'm worried about Derek Carr because there are things. Look, Derek Carr's never thrown for 4,000 yards. And yes, say whatever you want. He didn't play in the last game of the year. Never thrown for 4,000 yards. Get your baby with your broken leg. Get out there. It's one game. And the year before he didn't.

He had six interceptions. I think that's an outlier number for Derek Carr and the way he plays football. That offensive line was incredible in protecting him, but I don't think six touchdowns is on the table for him. Or six interceptions is on the table for him again. So while I like that they added Jared Cook, you give him a pass catcher out, you know, and you have some weapons in Rashard in Washington that can catch the ball out of the backfield, I just have some concerns that, look, you know, 28 touchdowns, under 4,000 yards.

It was efficiency for Derek Carr that put him in the top 10 and just barely at number 9. I have concerns. You also have, you know, he's young. He's got weapons. I just have some concerns that you could have. You know, there are certain guys that you slot in as guaranteed top 10 guys. For me, it's not that way with Derek Carr. And so in a 4-point league, I got him outside my top 10. I have him at number 7 where we have him as a consensus ranking.

I just don't think he's a locked and loaded guaranteed top 10 guys. Is that because you assume Marshall Lynch is going to have 25 touchdowns on the ground? It has nothing to do with Marshall Lynch whatsoever. So generally it's better when guys come in and put you in the red zone. But I just have some concern. Sure. There are my concerns for Derek Carr. So I've been talking about 10 zone attempts. And we love those because there's a high probability of a passing touchdown. He was fourth in 10 zone attempts. However.

He was only a touchdown on 30% of those passes. Stop targeting Seth Roberts and Andre Holt. Stop it. Will you target Amari Cooper, please? So for some context, that's 23rd of the qualified passers, which I think there was 26 of them who had 20 attempts. So very low efficiency in converting into touchdowns. It's all right. They got Jared Cook. So that number's going up.