Tier Drop Candidates + 2018 Rookie Review: QB & WR

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Third pick of the draft. New York Jet quarterback busted a sweet 69% of the time. Good 31% of the time. Grade 8% of the time. None of those numbers are good if you're wondering. No, no, no. And his overall finish was 27th. So consistency at the bottom of the league. The one nice thing was that the, you know.

his best two games of the year were two of the last three games. You know, you started to see some flashes. That's what you want out of a rookie. You know, when you're comparing Darnold to Baker, he's not as good. But Baker had one of the best rookie, you know, NFL quarterback seasons of all time. And so, yeah, Darnold was not that great, but he did have the games where he showed you the flashes. Over the last four games, six touchdowns, only one interception.

66, 63, 68% completion percentage, and had the big game against Green Bay, 3, 41, and 3. That's what you're talking about flashing. That's the kind of thing that we did not see from a... Josh Rosen. Robbie Anderson? Can we do like a he who shall not be named? For Josh Rosen? He needs a whole Voldemort. I don't even mind. I think that... Look, I'm getting a lot of hate right now on Twitter for not liking Josh Rosen.

as a potential bounce-back candidate. Because most people that I've talked to, especially Cardinal fans, they understand that he had no offensive line, no running game, no wide receivers. I understand that, too, people. But you would have wanted to see one or two games that looked like one of these darn old games. Games where he made a player or two that made you say, oh, he can overcome a bad offensive line on this play. He can overcome a bad wide receiver on this play.

I didn't see that. And we'll talk more about him momentarily. But for Darnold, you saw that. Now, Robbie Anderson, he finished his wide receiver 35 with Darnal. And Nunewa got hurt. He was not way up there. But you saw some rapport with Chris Herndon. He was a better player against bottom 16 defenses. And it seemed to me my eye test. You guys confirm her to deny this. And it fits with that statistic. When he was up against it, when he was facing a top defense, when he was put pressure on it, he was committing turnover. Crumpled.

which is the problem he had in college? Crumple Stiltskin. Remember Algae Crumpler, the tight-in? I completely agree with you, Andy. He didn't step up in the difficult situations. He took advantage of the easier situations. But, you know, that's a rookie. This is a guy that, you know, what I talked about with Baker, taking that risk and using my draft capital and a draft before it happens, I didn't see enough, you know, with Darnold or...

maybe not so much with Donald, but with the situation, the Jets, the offense, everything there, I'm not taking that leap in drafting him before it happens. With Donald, I'm going to wait until he becomes, you know, a Matthew Stafford-esque producer in the NFL, and then I'll take him in years future. Mike, any thoughts on Darnie? Completely agree. Donald Schwarzenegger? Yes.

Let's move on to Josh Allen. Get to the end zone. Get to the end zone. Josh Allen, seventh pick of the draft. He's going to be so fun. To talk about? Yeah, just the off season, just the offseason watching what happens to his ADP. Listen, the aforementioned to quarterback. Baker.

Great games. So that means what? Top three finish on the week? Yeah. 14% of the time. Sam Darnold, 8%. That would be one time. Josh Allen, 36% of his games were top three finishes. And because he's a rookie, and you can kind of throw out, I mean, maybe you guys don't, but I throw out everything up until week 12, until we got to see him do what he was doing. From week 12 on,

Do you know what he was great? Do you remember what quarterback rank he was week 12 on? I'm going to guess based on the numbers, six solid games or pretty solid games. I'm going to guess QB4. QB4 is good guess, Mike. Do you remember? Yes, I do. It is QB1. All right. That's decent. That's pretty good. So you look at a guy like Josh Allen and the rushing yardage, which by the way was the second most rushing yards per game by a rookie in history.

All of the rushing... At the quarterback position. All the rushing totals, it washes out inconsistencies elsewhere that every rookie quarterback has. So if he ascends as a passer, it seems like gravy for Josh Allen owners. Right. Yeah, when you've got the body and the athleticism that Josh Allen has, when you look at fantasy football in the quarterback position, it's very Cam Newton-esque. I mean, we made fun of Cam Newton's accuracy for years on this show.

when he was not a great quarterback. We joke about, you know, when he went down and a backup would come in that they finally have, you know, a better quarterback. But for fantasy football, with the way that they score rushing and with the big body to be able to keep...

Doing that, you know, we'll talk about Lamar Jackson as well in a minute, but I think Josh Allen could sustain rushing numbers like that, just like Cam has done for a long time. And so, yeah, for fantasy purposes, Josh Allen's another guy. I'll definitely be willing to draft late in my draft. I want a shot at one of those Baker or Josh Allen upside type picks. Josh Allen or Baker Mayfield, I take Josh Allen going away next year. For fantasy. Next year. Yeah, I lean that way as well. Eight fumbles.

That was one of the 89 attempts, 631 yards on the ground. He's an example of, look, he didn't have a wide receiving court. No. At all. I mean, Robert Foster, Zay Jones, Isaiah McKinsey. He had to deal with Kelvin Benjamin for half of it. And injuries to LaShaul McCoy threw out. And he flashed. He gave you games of elite production. And he led the team to competitive.

games. I'm not trying to say that Josh Allen's the greatest quarterback ever, but for fantasy purposes, he did some very special things over the last six weeks of the season. Like I said, it's going to be very fun to watch what happens. Where's his ADP going to be? I have no idea. I cannot get a feel for how the general public is going to proceed with Josh Allen. You have to imagine that, because it's impossible to go the other direction. You have to imagine they add pieces.

That the way the offense, the optics of his receiving weapons has to be better after this offseason than what he's had. As well as the offensive line. Remember, they lost three players right before the season. One retired. One was injured. One was earlier. But, yeah, I mean, I agree. The situation around him will be better. But, man, I just can't see these guys. The general consensus, you know, the average draft are really taken.

a shot on these guys when there's, you know, Jimmy Garoppolo back and in San Francisco and, you know, who... I'll take Josh Allen with my last pick. I'll take Josh Allen as well, but I think he'll be there late. But will you be able to? I don't know. That's the question. Yes, because I don't see anybody taking Tom. They're going to take Tom Brady over Josh Allen, right? Yeah, and Kirk Cousins. They're going to take Big Ben over Josh Allen, right? I would take Ben over him, yeah. They're going to take Matt Ryan over Josh Allen. Yep.

I would take Matt Ryan. So we're going to get through enough names where they're all loaded up on quarterbacks. They're going to take Jared Goff. They're going to take, you know. So he's interesting. You're right, Mike. Yes. Getting back to your main point. Interesting. All right. Josh Rosen. Less interesting. Lamar Jackson. The last two quarterbacks I want to talk about here before we move on to wide receiver rookie review. Rosen was bad. Putrid. He was a bust by fantasy category.

gory standards in 93% of his game. He was only classified as good, which is a top tall finish once. Just one game where he was all right. It's good. Most picks sixes. Fantasy is not everything. No. I get. The quarterback can be good in real life and put up bad fantasy numbers. But woof. Yeah, but the most. Buzz your girlfriend. The most pick six is in the lowest yards per attempt.

for any quarterback with at least nine games played. Yeah, that's bad for both fantasy and real life. Look, there's a reason the Arizona Cardinals get to pick number one this year. It was not good. The Bradford Rosen combo averaged 13.3 fantasy points per game. The Cardinals never had a top 12 performance at the quarterback position. This was on par with the Nick Foles Case Keenum, Jeff Fisher led Rams. Oh, don't say that. In 2015. Larry Fitzgerald?

The best finishing wide out for the Cardinals 26th. And no, I mean, here's the thing. Most Cardinal fans, and I'm a Cardinal fan in case you're curious, they write me and they say, how could you expect anybody to do better? I couldn't. But this was next level bad. And like I said, no flashes of success. And I don't, I'm not a bot. I don't believe in the sunk cost fallacy.

in terms of quarterbacks in the NFL. We've seen enough Christian Hackenbergs, E.J. Manuels, Ryan Tanna Hills, whatever the case may be. Swing and a miss. If you miss, you miss. So look, I can be wrong, and I'd love to be wrong. They're my hometown team. I think the Cardinals need to move on. They need to move Josh Rosen to a team like the Giants to Washington for a second or third round pick. And if I were them, I would draft another quarterback. That's just where I'm at. Hey, dolphins. Dolphins, come get your guy.

Come get you some Rosen. Oh, man. Yeah. I have no guy. There's nothing to add here. I have nothing to come. Mark Jackson's more interesting. I would give him one at least one more year, though. Yeah. Look, you bring in Cliff Kingsbury. You change the offensive system. You draft a couple pieces. Could Josh Rosen, who I actually really liked?

I like this college tape. He was my number two quarterback on my board going into last year's draft. I was so excited when the Cardinals drafted him. There are ways in which he can rebound. No doubt. There were some things you saw on the field, namely his accuracy, which he was very accurate in college. And then in the NFL is just air mailing or putting balls at people's feet. It was just bad. All right. Lamar Jackson.

On the other hand, 14% great games, 43% good games, never busted in any of his starts. Never fit that bust category. So he was a top 12 guy. Well, you got a quarterback and a running back every time he suited up. You got a running back and a quarterback every time he suited up. Yes, in one position. It was very, very nice. So where do we look at him for next year? This is his team. He fumbled the ball a ton.

He did not seem to, he wasn't able to carry on the momentum that John Brown had from the beginning half of the year with Joe Flacco. John Brandon ended up at wide receiver 42. I assume if you own a wide receiver on Baltimore, you run for the Hills at this point until we see more from Lamar Jackson. Just a comment real quick on the wide receivers. I like to get a snapshot of like how efficient was a player. Did they way overproduced with their opportunity? But the three main wide receivers.

for the Baltimore Ravens, Michael Crabtree, John Brown, and Willie Sneed. Their finish at the amount of targets they get compared to their finish of total fantasy points, it's not just bad. It is horrifying to look at how far below their targets they actually finished. It is absolutely insane. We'll talk about that stat. I like to call it meat on the bone.

Did they underproduce? But it's just hilarious. It's hilarious to see, oh, well, there's the Ravens wide receivers all together. So, yeah, I completely agree. If you have a Baltimore Raven wide receiver on your dynasty team, you better.

I have no advice. I have no advice to give you. Just don't draft them. If you're in a dynasty league, then you hope that it's John Brown. He's a free agent. He'll sign somewhere else. You're not going to be starting those wide receivers. Hopefully someone like Mark Andrews at tight end can step up. Lamar Jackson will be drafted ahead of Baker and ahead of Josh Allen. That's what I was going to ask you. Do you prefer Lamar Jackson over both those guys? No, I would prefer. I would definitely prefer Josh Allen.