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

Division games against Denver and Kansas City. He averaged 177 yards and 0.3 touchdowns. I mean, and unfortunately for Derek Carr, he has to play those guys a combined for games. And I don't think that their defenses are going to be any worse. He was, however, a QB1 eight times. So that's a fantastic number, a guy that you basically drafted super late and then plugged him in and just let it ride. You threw the dice and let it go.

But we have Amari Cooper coming into, I want to have some confidence in car. Amari Cooper coming into his third year. We believe that a breakout could be coming for Amari Cooper. Michael Crabtree is still an efficient passing weapon. One, I guess who's the running back? I mean, I guess with the rumors it's probably still Marshall Lynch, but we don't know at this point. Can you imagine this team?

if it's not Marshawn and it's they don't have that you know like that big power back and they just say screw this we're going to go with Richard and and Darrell watch or not Darrell, uh, Dwayne Washington. Not Dwayne either. Goodness. DeAndre there you go. I'll just dewash. Yeah. Dewash. Huh? Yeah. With Derek Carr, I mean, I agree with some of the things we're saying about the possibility of.

disappointing for being our consensus. However, his upside, you've got to also talk about the fact that he's only had three years in the league. And in those three years, he's only done basically more than most all of the rest of NFL history for each year. Like his rookie year was great. His sophomore year, I mean, you say he's never thrown for 4,000 yards, right? Because in his sophomore year, he only threw for like,

3,999 or something close to that. It was a few yards away, which was the fourth best sophomore season since 2000. That's the data that I have. That's going to continue forever, though, the way that the passing NFL is. I mean, I think it's a little hyperbolic to state. I mean, if Dan Marino played today, I promise you he's going to put up better numbers and he's dead. And that, I will say this. That completely makes sense. I mean, if you look at.

Two of the other top fours that I just said were James Winston, which is current and Blake Bortles, which is current. Can I ask you this, though? Because I'm not trying to cut you off or change the train of thinking. I want to ask you this, though. I'm not saying that I think Derek Carr is going to flop compared to last year. What I'm saying is I don't think last year was all that special, and I certainly, do you want to spend a sixth or seventh round pick? Is that where he's going?

Yes. Wow. On where, on what you got last year. No way. Give him every success that he had last year and then give him an extra game. He's a 4,100 yard 30 touchdown guy. No way. No, that's not. That's not worth a six round because if you compare some of the guys that you get and really, you know, our next show when we deal with the.

the 13 to 24 quarterbacks. That's really where you're going to be making hay in fantasy. But are you taking them over James Winston in the 10th round, Mike? Certainly not. Or over Kurt Cousins in the 8th round? I'm just Stafford or Phillip. I'm just not. You give me 4,000 yards. 30 plus. So 4,030. If you give that to me, those are great numbers for me. I think they call those Brian Hoyers. Those are Hoyers? Yeah, give me Brian Hoyer.

Delightful. Dak Prescott comes in at number eight. We got to start cruising, guys. Dak Prescott finished six last year. I believe. I, yeah, that's the question. That is the question. Because, and Jason has done some things, Jason's done some things statistically to convince me a little bit more. I've got him in number 10. I mean, okay, 10 and 11. We have them consensus number 8, so obviously there are believers.

in this group. I'm highest at seven in six-point scoring formats. What do you have only? Do you have only four interceptions last year? Correct. And two of them. I think they call that like a Nick Folsey-in amount of... Well, but Nick Foles, I mean, defenders were just dropping his interceptions while Dak was being very conservative, and he was, he picked his places extremely well. He was a quarterback one. Okay, scratch it. Let me start this way.

Five guys put up double-digit quarterback one weeks. Aaron Rogers, Matt Ryan, Andrew Luck, Drew Breeze, and Dak Prescott was a QB1 10 times. However, he was the only one of those five guys without a top three finish. So he was just extremely steady. And which...

I mean, that's still good. That's still excellent for your quarterback position. If he's giving you quarterback one numbers almost every single week, the touchdowns were low, 23. Granted, it's his rookie year. He played a nice portion of the season without Des Bryant. I expect that connection to continue to flourish. But he had the six rushing touchdowns. And I took a deep dive into this last night because rushing touchdowns for a quarterback can be fluky.

Right? We've seen, we saw Kurt Cousins, his rookie season, have a large amount of them, and then they almost vanished last year. But here's the deal. His first rushing touchdown, his second read, it was quick read if the guy's open, nope, run. Then a quarterback sneak. Read option, read option. Play action boot. His second read was run it in. And his second read frequently is run the ball from the six-yard line, and it's very efficient.

because of their offense, because of their weapons. So I don't think that six rushing touchdowns is a complete, unrepeatable number for him. I think he can get at least four. So his numbers obviously helps a lot. I mean, that's a big difference. When you look at, you know, I was really curious, okay, so what other examples do we have of?

great fantasy production from a quarterback in their rookie season. And do they then regress because you got film on them? You get that sophomore slump and things like that. And I looked up. So since 2000, the best, you know, the top 10 fantasy finishes since 2000. Two of them were last year in Prescott and Carson Wins was also up there. He was a top 10? He sure was.

So yet to be seen, yet to be seen what, well, that's, it's rare. It just adds to the point where nowadays, if you play and you're a rookie, you put up a top 10 season. So, you know, the other guys that have done it, Cam Newton, he came out gangbusters his rookie year. He's the best of all time or at least since 2000. And his next year, he had another great year. Robert Griffin, he got injured the following year. So, you know, incomplete data. But Andrew Luck.

He repeated. James Winston, he improved. Russell Wilson repeated. Andy Dalton improved. Marcus Marriota repeated. These are the next names on the list. And then I took a look and said, okay, well, the top 10, like the, you know, I don't like when people, they look at the averages of, okay, what does a rookie do? What does a sophomore do? And they take the average of like all rookies and all, you know, rookie quarterbacks and sophomore quarterbacks. That's dumb. This is fantasy football. We only care about the best.

I don't want, you know, Jared Goff and what he does influencing, you know, the data set. Anything, really. So I took a look at the top 10 finishes as a rookie. The top 10 finishes of second year quarterbacks, third year quarterbacks, fourth year, all the way through eighth year. And the thing that blew me away more than anything was the second year.

Because the average from the second year through the eighth year, the top 10 finishes, the average is 338 fantasy points per game or per season. Whoa. The second year, which I expected to be very low because, you know, how many guys are great in year two, was 341, which was actually higher than the average. Like rookie year is 300. So then it jumps up. And from there on, I mean, you're basically in the 340s, 330s.

every season from then on out. So given that he had such a good rookie year that those guys who have done it before seem to repeat in their sophomore year and that in general the best sophomore seasons are as good as the best third year, fourth year, fifth year seasons, I believe Dak Prescott repeats and I like him a lot. Number nine, Kirk Cousins had a monster year last year. The yardage was through the roof almost 5,000 yards. Finish number five in 2016, six point per touchdown leagues.

Right now he's going in the back of the eighth round. There's fear that I think is overblown with losing Pierre Garcin and Deshaun Jackson. I think that he can do enough with that offense, with a growing Jameson Crowder, with Terrell Pryor, and with Josh Doxon slowly coming into the fold. I think he can do enough myself. I like Kirk Cousins. I like the potential for him to put up a similar season. I think he had 12 interceptions, 25 touchdowns.

And he scored four times with his legs. So give me the cliff notes on Kirk Cousins, and then we'll jump into number 10 here. So that's the thing for Cousins. It's the losses, including Sean McVeigh, the offensive coordinator for the last few years. He is gone. They've been replaced with Matt Kavanaugh, who was the quarterback's coach. So to me, that's said at least a positive thing that you have a guy who's focused on.

getting the best out of Kurt Cousins. He's coming in to help with the offensive play calling. What was interesting for Cousins, he was eighth in 10 zone attempts. But like Derek Carr, he had a bad touchdown percentage of 21%. Do you consider those two bad percentages, outlier percentages? Well, here's the difference for Kurt Cousins. Last year on 39 attempts, he was a 41% touchdown guy. So yes.

So there was a huge drop. And if you watched Washington play, they frequently fell apart in the red zone. And it was just extremely bizarre. This team can move the ball with no problem. That's where you're talking about almost 5,000 yards for Kirk Cousins, yet only 25 passing touchdowns. That doesn't jive to me. And so I think that the touchdowns can come back up. He was a quarterback one.

nine times. He was third in the league in yards. So I just, I'm not bailing on Kirk Cousins. I think that there's, there's still plenty to like about him for fantasy football, even with some, some built-in concerns. I argued last year with you on one of our debates that Kirk Cousins was not going to be a quarterback one last year. And I was clearly very wrong on that. Not only was I wrong because he was, but I was wrong because he and.

pressed me on his film. And every time I watched him, he looked to me to be a legitimate quarterback, a great fantasy asset. And so I am on board with Kirk Cousins. And as I statted these guys out this year, he didn't finish in my top 12 again this season. It's very different. That's with me believing in him. But when you lose your top two weapons, I mean, again, we said it a while ago. Andy Dalton lost two of his weapons. He regressed drastically. Matt Stafford lost a weapon. Well, he pretty, I mean, I, well, you.

We disagree on both of those contentions. He didn't lose his top two weapons. Jordan Reed is... No, no, no. He lost two of his weapons. Okay. Which, I mean, obviously Andy Dalton did not. You said that Kirk Cousins lost his top two weapons, and I would argue that Jordan Reed...

is a higher of higher importance. Sure. He lost his top two wide receivers. Two thousand yards receivers. Two thousand yards. First time that's ever happened. Okay. And so like Andy Dalton did not lose his number one target in AJ Green. I mean, he did for a few games. But he lost Muhammad Sunu and he lost Marvin Jones. And you saw basically last year with Andy Dalton, his, you know, the previous five years, Andy Dalton averaged 20 attempts per touchdown. And then last.

season when he's got, you know, that changeover was 31 attempts per touchdown. So I'm just saying I think it's going to be difficult for Kirk Cousins to repeat what he did last year, especially with the new coordinator. So he's, he's all right. He's fine with me. But I'm not expecting any, I definitely don't think he's going up. They've got him on that franchise tag. He has to keep playing well. That's the rule, right? Yeah. James Winston, number 10 on our consensus rankings. He's somebody that I don't think.

Mike wants to keep doing what he's doing. He wants him to improve here. He's 14th and 2015, 12th, and 2016. You know, he's in Enigma. Yes. And he's scary to play. Yes. And he's got reasons to believe when you add a guy like Deshaun Jackson, and yet there have been times when the weapons have been put into place and guys have not lived up to it. Where do you have James Winston compared to...