Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Early QB Rankings Part 2: Values, Sleepers & Streamers

Schedule, I don't know how a team managed to luck into that many weeks in a row, eight weeks in a row where he was averaging 2.6 touchdowns a game. Passing touchdowns. What a run. I mean, that carried a lot of fantasy teams into the playoffs. Yes. Where unfortunately he couldn't help you because he was hurt. Hopefully you bailed out. Number 15 on our consensus rankings is my number eight quarterback. Ooh. I don't. I don't hate it. This is my hottest of takes on my initial rankings.

I wasn't even sure how I felt after I got done with the projections, but it's Andy Dalton. It's man with the fire. It's here. Andy Dalton, last year, you had a lot of change happen around Andy Dalton. You had the loss of Geo Bernard early. You had the loss of Marvin Jones. You had the loss of Muhammad Sunu. You have the loss of Tyler Eifford, okay? I almost got a handful of past catching changes.

for Andy Dalton. You had a lack of production from Jeremy Hill in the running game. And you had a quarterback that ended up finishing 17 in fantasy production. One of the things that I love about Andy Dalton coming into this year is obviously he's basically free. You know, you're talking about a 12th round pick. But the potential for some...

And you lost AJ Green at the end of the year, by the way. Yes, you did. So you have the potential. There's the full hand of five players. You did it. But you have the potential for some positive regression in the touchdown category for Andy Dalton. What did you have? 18 last year? That's a ridiculously low number for a guy that still threw over 4,200 yards, which is the kind of numbers that, like, Matthew Stafford's putting up.

The touchdowns, that's anomalously low. And you don't have a history with Andy Dalton where he cannot finish inside that top 12. He's done it two times before as high as number three overall. AJ Green's still there. Geo's going to be back. Another year for Tyler Boyd.

Even 2015, a lot of times people just look at the finishing numbers. The guy was destroying everybody. He was the 18th best quarterback, then 17th. So that's where he belongs. But that's not true because he only played 13 games. And really, I think it was only 12 if you look at. How early he got hurt in that game against Broken Thun. Yeah, exactly. During those first 12 games, he was on pace to be a top six quarterback. So when you look at this past year, they lost, they lost Muhammad Sunu. They lost.

Marvin Jones. He lost so many different weapons. And you had him go from a previous five years, every 20 passes was a touchdown for him to this year. Again, just like we talked about Russell Wilson last show, it was every 31 passes was a touchdown. That is, that's too big a gap to believe that that's going to repeat, which means he's going to bounce back. His touchdown number should improve. And I agree with Andy, when it comes to at the end of a draft,

Andy Dalton will be one of my number one targets. Yeah, I love it. And there's a lot being said, you know, well, his offensive line has fallen apart. Well, last year they weren't very good. Statistically, they were 25th in allowing 2.6 sacks a game. Andy Dalton still threw for over 4,000 yards. I mean, it's, he's done it with bad pass protection. If he can get some healthier weapons, which you would think that's going to happen, it's.

He should return to the norm. And what I like about Andy Dalton, this is when you were looking at Matt Ryan last year, you see a guy who's near the top for yardage. His accuracy is excellent. He's checking all these boxes in passing categories, but he's way down in touchdowns. That's a perfect late-round target.

because you can feel confident that the yards and all that other stuff is going to remain the same, but the touchdowns should come back. Matt Ryan is a perfect example. Let's talk about a guy going in the sixth round. Number 16 aren't our consensus rankings. Oh, that sounds like a guy we're not taking. Cam Newton. Cam Newton. You should have given the stop operating heavy machinery warning for this because there's going to be some upset people.

Are there? I mean, are people, after last year, are people still, I mean, I guess, going in the sixth round. What do we do with Cam Newton, guys? It's, Cam Newton is extremely tough because I will, I feel like I've been the toughest critic on Cam Newton on this show. But I will also readily admit, of these group of guys that we're talking about, Cam has the easiest path to being a top five guy. And Jason has him at 12, by the way. He's the highest than our.

And out of our three. But here is the problem. Cam Newton's passing stats historically cannot get it done. And the rushing is everything for Cam Newton when you're talking fantasy. However, last year, the first season of under 100 carries, the first time he's ever rushed for under 500 yards. He got beat up. And yes, if you watched him play, he was getting hit hard, getting hit often. I looked back at some of the prolific.

running quarterbacks, and when did those really high rushing numbers start to go away? Donovan McNabb, after year six, it really fell off. John Elway, it was pretty much every year, but I mean, he was a mid-200 rushing yard guy anyway, so it wasn't like these outrageous 500-yard seasons. McNair, year seven, Randall Cunningham, he had six prolific rushing years and then it, as a starter, and then it kind of fell off. Well, guess where Cam Newton is?

He's right in that range of these other big time running quarterbacks when all their high level rushing stats went away. I took a look at how would Cam do if his rushing stays the same as last year, but you get his just average because last year was really, really bad for Cam. I was throwing the air. Like that was.

I think that's... It was too low. He's better than last year. He's better than that, but he's certainly not as good as two years ago, the MVP season. But if you average just what he's done, his entire career through passing, and give him last year's rushing, quarterback 17. So it's just, it's, if the rushing goes away, if those rushing touchdowns and rushing yards go away.

Cam Newton is not that top five, top ten guy anymore. Yeah, it makes complete sense. It's always been based on his rushing. When he came out rookie year and on, it's just how does his rushing go? And what I saw last year was when he got really beat up and banged up, they stopped using him that way. He had a hesitation. But I don't blame him. I don't blame him either. But the reason I really don't blame him is because Carolina's record was so bad. It was like this year is kind of their aspirations were gone.

pretty early and are you going to keep killing yourself for a lost cause coming into this season i i guess what i'm saying is i don't i'm not calling for the uh the abomination of his rushing statistics the uh the abolishment the yes that's that's a much better

word for it. What, what, abomination. Yeah, you did said, well, yeah, you could have worded it. You could have grammatically organized it in a way that said, you know, I'm not calling for his rushing stats to be an abomination. See, on this podcast, you get, just putting words in the right order. You get fantasy football advice and, uh, grammar instructions. Yes.

So, you know, his upside is clearly there. You do have to keep in mind, though, he lost Ted Ginn. Ted Ginn has always been a huge fantasy asset for him to be able to take those long bombs. Now, if they replace him with something like a John Ross, exactly. But if they take that number eight pick, as many people think and grab a four net or a McCaffrey. You're not getting Ross then. Right. I mean, I'm just saying, then that shifts at a different direction and back to the running it. Yeah, I mean, Cam Newton comes with tons of risk at its current ADP, so.

That's the whole problem. No way in the sixth round. Is he worth it here? I have him ranked 16. I totally acknowledge the fact he could be a top five guy. He's done it four times. And he has to be. He has to be a top five guy if you're taking him in the six. You're saying I know he's going to because if you don't get that value, then you've wasted that pick if he's a quarterback 12. Let's go with Big Ben number 17. On our consensus ranking. Get bodied. I got no guilt.

I have no guilt about burying Mr. Big Ben Rothesberger. In fact, he was one of the guys that when I went through and individually stated, he dropped the most out of where I had kind of initially thought he'd be. I've got him down at 19. What? I don't blame you. Look, all you've got to do is look, he's been playing since 2004. We have a track record for Big Ben. He's not going, he doesn't have anomalous rushing touchdowns or rushing yards to count on. Big Ben can't play 16 games.

uh he's done it what twice in three times three times yeah but granted there's a lot of there's 15 he had a top five year he's had two of yeah in how many years 13 years yeah the last eight years it's just too much risk the seventh round pick for big ben i pass please i yeah no thank you completely and and to speak to the injury concerns the last eight years he's only played 16 games

once in eight years. During that stretch, he averages missing two games a year. Because he's in 14 car crashes a game. Yeah, and so you go, okay. I'm just imagining. Just trucks coming in off the edge. Well, it's like the car commercial of Bo Jackson where he grabs a car.

You know, the worst thing, though, for me is if you are drafting, this is draft season where you're going to go in and you're going to say, this guy's my starting quarterback, what you're looking for in a draft is you're looking for a guy late who can take that step up and be that every week great starter where you don't have to stream. I would rather have drafted Matt Ryan last year and have a great starter every single week than...

then draft a guy who can be good sometimes and bad other times. You're not getting that from Big Ben. Like necessarily, we know for sure that he is not an every week starter. He has such a long history of his home road splits being crazy bad that you can't start him on the road. On the road, at home he is 13.2 points better at home than on the road. And what that does is that mean he?

He is 16.6 points on the road. You want to know just on the road. I'm taking road games versus road games. The only guys last year who were, you know, fantasy starting quarterbacks or NFL starting quarterbacks worse than Big Ben. Fantasy-wise were Carson Wentz on the road, Flacco on the road.

Trevor Simeon on the road and Jared Gough on the road. That's the group he is with. So if you want to go ahead and draft high, a big Ben, and then every other week be starting Jared Gough or Trevor Simeon or Flacco on the road, that's what you're getting. I hear when people swallow poison, they think about golf on the road. And then that gets that right out. Marcus Mariotta or Ben Rothersberger. Ooh.

That's not close for me. What dance would you rather? Oh, it's Marioota for sure. Marioita has, I believe, the ability to get better against those poor defense or against those good defenses. Big thing is so attractive because he has these games where he puts up five touchdowns and he has Antonio Brown and maybe Martavis Bryant and Levion Bell out of the backfield. Swings swings things for me. If we know for sure Martavis is back.

Ben will get a bump in my rankings. I don't know if he's going to shoot up to be a top 10 guy. But that 2014, where he was great, he also played all 16 games. But I mean, that's Martavis Bryant is involved in that. And so he's, if ADP is not a factor, I would probably still take Ben over Mario. All right. Let's talk about number 18 on our consensus quarterback rankings, a guy that actually could be a steal. Maybe.

Could, could. If you like 37-year-olds. All right, Carson Palmer comes in at number 18 on our rankings coming off a year that was disappointing for tons of Cardinal fans. And Carson included, played 15 games, finished number 18 on the fantasy rankings. In 2015, he was number five. The questions are all over the place. One, this team changed into a running team last year. 20 touchdowns on the ground. David Johnson led the way.