Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Early QB Rankings, News & Notes, Mailbag

Where do our guys end up based on what we actually believe they're going to be doing on the field? And we almost have some surprises ourselves. I was surprised to see some guys who were low and some guys that were high on my list. And for me, I just put all my keepers at the top of my list. So, no, Jason's right. We do try to do this in an unbiased fashion. All of the numbers you see today are standard scoring. We will release all of our rankings onto the website with standard scoring.

with PPR and half PPR scoring. Six point touchdown is four point. Yes. You can see, because every league's different. We're going standard scoring. So I mean, so these are four point per passing touchdown. Four point per passing touchdown. Six point per rushing touchdown. Minus two for each fumble and each interception. And so the first guy on our consensus rankings is a quarterback out of the college of California. He is the second most popular thing in Wisconsin. I just heard this today.

He is behind. Yeah, what's the first? Cheese. Oh, man. This is not a joke. There was a poll taken and cheese came out more with more favorable results than Aaron Rogers. Cheese, man. I love cheese. So does Eddie Lacey. Oh, fat Lacey joke. I can say it because he's one of my guys. I love Eddie Lacey. So Aaron Rogers, far and away, everybody's number one here, which.

It might be easy to say that was the expectation, but I don't think he is on everybody's list. However, he is on all of our lists. What do we like about Aaron Rogers? All he does is throw touchdowns. All he does is win. I mean, the guys, he hucks it all over the yard. He's got big play receivers. Randall Cobb is back. Devante Adams is growing. Jordan Nelson is Jordan Nelson. He's a super stud.

And Lacey takes pressure out. And they're just, the offense is amazing. He constantly throws 40 plus touchdowns. He does run the ball a little bit too. Yeah. He's just, he's, Aaron Rogers is the best quarterback in the NFL. Yeah. And the thing that I love about him this year, he, did he finish number one last year or two? I believe two. Yeah, two behind luck. The change from last year to this year.

Oh, he finished number one. He did finish number one. Breaking news. But the thing is, his continuity is incredible. I mean, they brought back literally every single person. They didn't have Randall Cobb for half of the previous year. Now they played a whole season together, which was awesome, finished number one. They re-signed their line. Their O line is intact. Like you said, Devante Adams is going to be getting better. There's nothing better than continuity when you project.

a player, which is why these guys are where they're at. Yeah, barring injury, we know for sure that he's going to be, what, top three? I mean, what's the lowest he could finish? If he's healthy. If Aaron Rogers plays 16 games and is a bum, and I mean, like, we draft him and he stinks and everyone is disappointed. The whole year long, he finishes top five. He finishes fifth, and you're going... We're coming in here saying he's a disappointment as the number four. Exactly. As the number four. Exactly.

I was going to say three. Three is about the lowest. I can see Aaron Rogers going with full 16 games. One of the things that separates Aaron Rogers from the rest is his propensity to avoid the interception as well. He is a just incredible touchdown to interception ratio. I have him projected for only seven interceptions this year. I believe he had six. Five last year. That's just when you look at him compared to a guy like Elaine Manning, Jay Cutler, even Andrew Luck.

The interception numbers are hugely different. And so he is our far and away number one. I don't think we're giving you too much breaking news on Aaron Rogers. But he is our initial number one, and we'll probably stay there barring some type of preseason injury. Like a meteor smashing into Green Bay. Yes, meteor. Last year, he was actually the number three.

ADP. So he was the number three quarterback by average draft position. Manning. Manning was coming off a historic season and then people were chasing those points. It was Manning won, Breeze two last year. The second guy in our list was the number five ADP last year, which was a little higher than I guess I expected it to be, but people knew the talent. Our number two, and we all have him number two, is Andrew Luck.

from the Indianapolis Colts. Mike, break down Andrew Luck for us. Well, Andrew Luck continues to grow as a quarterback. The offensive scheme decided to throw everything out the window last year and said, Andrew Luck, the show is yours. We're going to throw. Do you want to throw on the one-yard line? Good. You're going to throw. And his interceptions showed that because he, what did he come up with last year? I was going to say 14, but that's my projection. He had 16 last year.

He runs the ball. He had 273 yards. He had three touchdowns on the ground. He has a tremendous cast around him. T.Y. Hilton has overcome my skepticism, and I'm buying into T.Y. Hilton now. He gets Andre Johnson, who was a Hall of Fame wide receiver with enough left in the tank to really produce. Dante Moncrief is there who the...

The sleeper community was very saddened by the Andre Johnson signing, but Moncrief is there. He will grow. Frank Gore. Two tight-ins as well. Yeah, and I haven't even gotten to Dwayne Allen and Fleener. And Dwayne Allen, I believe, he probably, he is a top five tied-in to me. Just not just spitballing, but I believe he'll be a top five for me. He just, he's very good, he's a very smart and very athletic quarterback.

He's another guy I think that has a pretty high floor in terms of we're looking at him probably inside the top five regardless of what happens. They're very dependent on him and their defense isn't premier. Right. Well, as long as they keep throwing. And they throw in the red zone, like you said, with Dwayne Allen and some of these other tools like Frank Gore or someone out of the back field. Do you have anything else about Andrew Luck you want to add, Jason? I think Mike took care of most of it. I would say the rushing yards are.

nice, and his youth is nice from a fantasy football perspective. He's still ascending. Yeah, there's no reason. Zero reason to think that he is capped or that he would go backwards, considering he got more weapons in the offseason is getting more into his prime. So I like him. The real question for me, looking through our three rankings now, as we complete the top two, is for Mike and I, this is absolutely the end of the first tier.

statistically. Now, you've got the third consensus player actually pretty close in points to Andrew Luck, but for Mike and I, when we went through and looked at our points, the tier drop-off here is so large that it's about the same. If you take the next player, the third through almost the rest of the top 12, you've got about the same gap in points as you've got from these top two guys in Andrew Luck and Aaron Rogers.

to everybody else. And so, you know, I know that we are a big proponent here. And even when we were putting these projections together off the air, you know, you Andy had said, one of the things you learned while doing this is you're not drafting a quarterback early. But I started looking at these numbers, and I'm going to make a case today that...

drafting Aaron Luck. If you draft Aaron Luck, I'm on board. Yeah. I used the ooze from the Ninja Turtles and I have created the old Green Bay Colts. Yes. Steaming hot fantasy tip. Steaming hot fantasy tip. Here it is, listeners. The,

I do not think that it is a bad idea to go after. If you're in the early rounds, Aaron Rogers or Andrew Luck, because if you look at the, if you look at how often those first rounds running backs and wide receivers are going to blow up in your face and going to leave you with nothing and you look at how.

Not often Aaron Rogers or Andrew Luck or really any elite quarterback are going to end up with just a wasted pick. And you look at the point spread between those two guys and the rest, just like you would say in the tight end position with taking grunk because he's such an advantage at the position. I think you're foolish. I think I would be foolish to tell someone that you are foolish to draft him. I am, I'm vomiting over here. Yeah.

If I was going to jump into any part of your argument, which I'd have to be pushed to do so. For me, my tier drop was Aaron Rogers and the rest. You guys said you had your two. For me, that point gap happens from Aaron Rogers to Andrew Luck. So if you wanted to argue, if I wanted to try to argue with you, which I won't.

It would be the Aaron Rogers or no one else argument, especially because luck hasn't been premiered for multiple, for multiple seasons. So that gap is there for me as well. I've got him 20 points higher than luck, but luck is still 20 points higher than the next. Mike, I know that you abhorred taking quarterbacks early. So I really want to hear your take. I want to hear because you have a history as well of winning.

Fantasy football championships, and that's what people want to do. So tell the listeners why Jason Moore is such an idiot. I mean, you don't got to be mean about it, but, you know. This is all just super deep strategy, but the thing you can do with a quarterback is you can stream the position. And what I mean by that is week to week, I will play a matchup, and I will get high-level production out of

out of a player like last year, nobody wanted any piece of Ryan Tannenhill. But if you were paying attention to his numbers and when he would play a poor defense, he was putting up high-level quarterback one numbers in those games. And so you can Frankenstein together a quarterback position where as long as you are using your head and looking at matchups and planning ahead, you can piece together a...

a top six quarterback and not just plug them. What Aaron Rogers gives you the safety of, you just, I plug it and I forget it. What you cannot piece together is a high-level running back one. You cannot, you're not going to be able to stream that matchup, stream the matchups with a running back because other people, too many other people are trying to do it. And I got to tell you, you have already convinced me. Because, I mean, I'm not off of my position of the value of being able to take those two guys.

But you do bring up a really valuable point is that it is very different. I think the best analogy here would be to the tight end point gap, right? So the tight ends, you've got Gronk and everyone else, and you stream that position, but you're not streaming guys. I mean, you're guessing. And when you stream those guys, you're getting lucky on a touchdown or something like that. When you stream quarterbacks, you can look at...

those obvious defenses, and you generally do get their top-end production. So, like, for instance, two years ago, Andy Dalton, Holloway's number one guy, he finished the year, the third best in fantasy, which is ludicrous because half of the time he put up zeros. I mean, the guy was a bum. You couldn't win a championship if that was your guy week and week out. However, if you're streaming quarterbacks, you're getting...

Aaron Rogers, Andrew Luck type production from week to week when you play those smart. And here's the thing. You're listening to this podcast through the season. You're going to know who it's going to be because, you know, not to be what our reviewer said we weren't, but we're, you know, we know what we're talking about sometimes. We will be talking about streams of the week and things like that. Here's another thing.

Players reach for quarterbacks early in the draft a lot of the times. So when we're talking about even the value of Aaron Rogers, a lot of the times he's going ahead of where we would even place him, even if we were taking a leap on him. More than that, one of the worst things you can do as a fantasy player is to draft a guy that you have projected as a three, four, or five at the quarterback position and stick with him. Because you can bury yourself in bad matchups. I've seen guys draft. A perfect example.

Perfect example would be a Cam Newton who is a top five, six projected generally ADP-wise. I don't, I think I wrote down what he was last year. He was the ninth off the board last year. Probably because of his- He was coming off-surgery and things like that. Well, and his wide receiver core. But Cam Newton's a good example of a guy who if you spend a high pick on a quarterback, you're stuck.