Top 10 QB Rankings + Rookie Fun, Space Garbage - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/12

that's tb there there was there was i just want to point this out because i i just d i do think he is determined just determined i do think he is going to be that guy if for no other reason than the freaking magic wish that some packers fan made you know seriously years ago and they just they are always going to get the next one every single time and it's not fair as a cardinals fan is not fair but i i you know This is really his first year playing where he came out and looked great. And I just want to remind you, you know, Derek Carr's second year, his sophomore year, very, very, very similar. 61% completion rate 4,000 yards, 32 touchdowns at 5.6% touchdown rate. He looked like, okay, he's the dude. And then it was like he is a franchise quarterback, but he's not elite for fantasy because he doesn't run the ball. That's my only fear with love.

I feel like hitting the boo button if I had it for you comparison. Jordan loved to Derek Carr. All right, moving on. Number nine. CJ. CJ Stroud, 22 years old. Sorry, everybody. That he's number nine. It's my fault. Yeah, it is. I mean, Jason's got him at five. I'm at eight. Mike's at 11. His ADP is the quarterback five. So technically it's both of our fault, Mike, because Jason's the only one at the ADP. I mean, it's hard to. Like there's just no world where I'm taking C.J. Stroud in the fourth round. There's just no world. I have C.J. Stroud at number five. He is my quarterback five in rankings. There is no world where I'm taking him in the fourth round. Zero at all. That's just, I don't think it's good fantasy playing the game when you look at the range of outcomes and what he would need to do. I still think, like I got him projected to do it to be the quarterback five. But that's not good enough in the fourth round. Quarterback five.

is not going to be worth a fourth round pick from a consistency. And, you know, if I'm grabbing an early quarterback, I want a Josh Allen, a Jalen Hertz, Patrick Mahomes, someone that could be the quarterback won. Well, explain to me the gap you see between Stroud and Jordan Love because to me, I think I'm with Mike on this where I see them both very similar from an outcome standpoint. You know, Jordan Love is going in the eighth round. CJ Stroud's going in the fourth, but from a rankings perspective, you have a pretty big gap between them. Yeah, for me, it's the confidence and the weapons. Like, I like Christian Watson a lot, but Nico Collins proved he is just a, a superior player. I like Jaden Reed a lot. Tank Dell is just that, I mean, even in preseason, just he is that guy, man. You cannot cover him. And then you add Stefan Diggs. So I just see it as like a slightly upgraded version of the same thing. So.

I would much rather have Jordan Love at cost because the gap, despite being, you know, in six point, you know, being my quarterback five or quarterback nine, there's not that huge a gap. They're pretty much in the same tier, but they're in totally different places in your draft. Whereas a wide receiver in the ninth round versus a wide receiver in the fourth round, give me the wide receiver all day with Jordan Love. Do you become tempted to take Stroud if he drops to the sixth round? Because, you know, There aren't very many players as fun to roster as him in terms of the weapons, like you said. He had the second most air yards per pass attempt. The second highest completion on deep passes. Having C.J. Stroud on your roster is a blast. For sure. And obviously, this is fantasy related. Like, you know, if I'm a GM drafting quarterbacks, he would be, I don't know, would he be the second one taken? Maybe.

He doesn't run the ball that much. And so you are going, we talk about this all the time. These pocket passers, they got to throw for 4,500 yards. They have to throw for north of 30, preferably 35 touchdowns to be a weekly difference maker at the position. You compare him against Joe Burrow, a couple rounds later, who has done that twice. This is a projection forward. I love C.J. Strutt. I think he's going to be great. He's just not, he's not a good pick in fantasy for where he's going and the way he scores fantasy play. Mike, you love Nico Collins. If you end up with him early in the draft, does Straub become more tempting? Not for me in the fourth. If he's the hypothetical that maybe you're in a league where they're going to pass on quarterbacks, be a surprising scenario, but I'm sure it's going to happen out there. In the sixth, okay, I spent my third on Nico Collins and then I really want to have the stack for the upside. I'm okay in the six. It's the hardest part here.

is just C.J. Stroud could be one of the guys that does it. He could be the pocket passer that jumps into the top three this year and you win because of C.J. Stroud. It can't happen. It's just the bet to do that is very expensive and the margin of error is so small compared to Joe Burrow and Jordan Love. Like, Jordan Love did it. Jordan Love actually did it last year. And now we're just, you're really hoping that Stroud does what Jordan Love already did. So it's a weird place to beat. Number eight. Well, you just said his name. Joe Burrow comes in at number eight being drafted in the sixth round where you were just talking about hoping Stroud might fall. And, you know, done it twice. Yeah, he had a quarterback eight and quarterback four season.

You brought him up on Hungry for more last week, had 12 passing touchdowns before the thumb injury in five games, was number one in completion rate. I think the story that's kind of been pushed, Jason, is just don't forget about him. For sure. I mean, he had such a bad season last year, and that is not just, okay, he got injured, and so you forget about him as far as like he missed, you know, the second half of the season. He also got injured in preseason with the calf and started the season awful. I mean, that first month, he was a terrible quarterback. Joe Burrow was not a bad quarterback. We know that. There's multiple years of him destroying NFL defenses. He went to the Super Bowl. He's not a bad quarterback. And after the first month, once that calf was healed, you look at his next five games, unfortunately got injured in that sixth. But that five game stretch when he was back,

5,000 yard pace with 40 touchdowns. He was doing exactly what he did the previous two years. So, like, to me, I actually believe that like the ceiling of C.J. Stroud is what Joe Burrow has done already in his career. I'm always going to take Joe Burrow in the sixth over C.J. Stroud in the fourth. He's done it multiple times. He's got a healthy Jamar Chase, a healthy T. Higgins. If you want to talk about someone who looked. good in their preseason snaps, T. Higgins. Like, just the argument of is T. Higgins and won, we don't need to have that right now. Is T. Higgins a good wide receiver that if Jamar Chase is on the field, and it's those two with Joe Burrell, that to me is, like, there is huge upside for Joe Burrow. Again, C.D. Stroud could be the guy, but it's, I want to, I don't want to bet.

as heavy on a pocket passer if I don't have number seven sorry no you're good I thought you were done I thought I was done wait say say your point again just of the number seven thank you man you walked right into it Boston oh deck Prescott's next I'm not even coming back to you um DAC is 31 years old It was a blast having DAC last year, and it was from week six on. So it was a wonderful ride. Ended at quarterback three. And, you know, this was just the CD-LAM DAC connection and Ferguson. And the fact this offense was passing so much in the red zone was great. We were all worried going into last year that losing Kellan Moore was going to be a.

kind of a death knell for the offense that didn't happen. So props to Mike McCarthy for doing the right thing. Showed up big and big games. I really, I, you know, if you look at the player profile videos, we have 100 of them in the ultimate draft kit. I watched what we had talked about with DAC for months ago and we're still waiting for CD-LAM to get a contract. I still think the value of DAC, I'm the highest at 6, Jason at 7, Mike at 8. I think the value of DAC in the seventh round is the perfect balance to me of high, you know, obviously league winning upside. He proved he could do that over the majority of the season along with not overpaying the price. Like it's hard for me to say when you draft like CJ Stroud in the fourth round, like you mentioned he hasn't done it over the course of an entire year, but you're making a commitment to a player in the fourth round that you have to start every single week no matter what, which means you don't have that option to pivot. Like last year,

That was a decision people had to make. You brought up DAC and our waivers show. That was the moment in time for people. And a lot of people in that moment say, I either sign him and play a new quarterback or I stay committed to the high draft capital investment that I already made. So that's one of the challenges of taking the leap on a quarterback like CJ Stroud in the fourth round is that it is a commitment to play him or a really hard one to bench. where Dak, I think, is a pretty good balance. Yeah, you can draft Dak in the seventh and be comfortable benching him. My issue with Dak is that he's going in places where there are more mobile quarterbacks. Thankfully, he did rush for 250 yards just last year. But you look at his splits last year, and when he played a top 16 defense, he was Mark of the Beast worse, 6.66 points worse per game. And you look at the schedule to start the season.

on the road in Cleveland, New Orleans has a good defense, and then Baltimore. So you've got three, you know, tough, should be top half defenses where he wasn't that great for fantasy as far as as as as good as he was against the bottom half defenses. I would push back of just saying the splits when he's playing a top half defense, he's still right around that 20 point mark. Yes, yes. So it just wasn't the league winning. Yeah, yeah. Yes. So I think if you're. If you're playing a tough game on the road and you're still like, oh, DAC can still give me 18 plus points. And then I know that the next week he's going to win me the entire matchup. He's a quarterback to target. The career of DAC is so strange. And not just NFL career, but fantasy football career of he has really been good. He's been good.

almost every single year, and he's been great multiple times, and yet he is still a player that just gets drafted here. This is where he gets drafted every single year, and he can finish top three. Well, here's his fantasy finishes. I'm going to take out the two years where he was injured, okay? I think that's fair because the fantasy finish will be obviously low in those years. If he plays the season, his fantasy finish in his career is quarterback six, quarterback 10, quarterback 12, quarterback two, quarterback seven, quarterback three, every single one. is a quarterback one, and several of them were, you know, top half quarterback ones. Number six. Kyler, if Mike was responsible for pulling Stroud down, he is now responsible for pulling Kyler even higher because I got him at seven, Jason at eight, but Mike has him all the way up at quarterback four for 2024. And I know you have said it on the show many times.

but you see the Cardinal offense as being one of the more upside-laden opportunities in fantasy. Yeah, I don't know that they're going to be a top five offense. I'm not calling for that. I'm saying that every year there's an offense that takes a jump that you, it was hard to predict or rationally make a projection that this team is going to make that jump. But it happens every year, and I think that the Arizona Cardinals are the team that does it this year. They played it completely correct with Kyler Murray last year, despite, oh, man, the noise of what are the Cardinals going to do with Kyla Murray was extremely loud. Are they going to tank and then dump Kyler Murray, trade him away? And along the way, the coaching staff the whole time was, no, Kyler Murray is our guy. We got to get him ready. And they let him fully recover from the ACL. He was not pushed.

And once he got back on the field, he was Kyla Murray. Now, he was certainly lacking offensive skill players. He had Trey McBride last year, but a hurt Hollywood Brown and then just a cast of characters who are not, they are not main character energy is what Kyla Murray was working with last year. No, no, no. Greg Dorch is, he's got a bit part on the sitcom. He's not one of the headliners. Exactly. And he has two headliners this year. And he's back to being a fully mobile quarterback. You have to have, to make that jump into the top three, like year over year, you have to put up points with your legs. It was a great run for DAC last year, but him getting up to three, a little surprising. Where Kyler Murray, at the end of the year, if he's the top three, it will not surprise me in the slightest because he's just, he's back. He's been a great quarterback for fantasy football. QB7 as a rookie. As a rookie, QB7, QB2 the next year.

QB 10, because he only played 14 games, but he was still putting up over 21 points per game. He has been great for fantasy football when healthy, and he's healthy and now has a true number one wide receiver. Kyler Murray, to me, is the best quarterback pick that you can make. He is a layup in this year's draft. I mean, when he's been on the field, he's always been good for fantasy, always. He was the quarterback nine from the time he got back going forward on a points per game basis, and last year he had the fewest. receiving yards by outside wide receivers in the NFL. The reason is obvious because he didn't have one. And now Marv is there. Yeah, no, it is exciting opportunity-wise and fantasy. All right, Jason will be really happy because we're going to take a break. We're going to take a break. We're going to take a break and then come back with the top five, which I think is. Are these accurate? Oh, I'm excited. Okay.

All right, before we took a break, you know, Mike was kind of like, I am flabbergasted. You're flabbergasted. I understand. My flabbers are gassed. Your flabbers have been gassed. Your flabbers are fully gassed up. Anthony Richardson comes in at five. And you know what? I know why you're flabbergasted. Yes. Wow. I didn't see it until now. You snake. Number five. Okay. Thank you. By the way, thank you, Al. My flabbers were also gassed. Your exclamation is because I apparently have Richardson at four. Mike at five, Jason at nine. This is because of four points scored. Because I'm not like acclimated to having them ranked this high mentally. And I don't. I'm going to wash over you, brother. There's no way I'm drafting Anthony Richardson over Kylo Merck. That's fine. That's not happening. So my rankings are bad.

I have bad rankings. I think when you look at how we stab people out and we project people for the UDK. Also, he didn't look that great throwing the football, by the way, in his first game. Yeah, because he never, he has never looked good. But I have drawn attention to that for a while. Like Anthony Richardson, like. The great seasons of the running quarterbacks have to come with the level up in the passing game. It happened with Alan Lamar, Kyler. You do need that. Jim Hurtz, Cam Newton. They all had, if you want to be that really, really, really elite fantasy game breaker, it has to be both. And so there is far more risk with Anthony Richardson of not hitting there than there is with, you know, a Kyler. But.

Anthony Richardson has the body that can do the 15 rushing touchdowns like Josh Allen and Jalen Hertz have done. He's got a coordinator in Shane Steichen who has, you know, done that with Jalen Hertz, fast pace of play. You know, they've said they're not going to worry about him in the running game. They're going to unleash him for fantasy. purposes, Anthony Richardson has an extremely high floor with his rushing totals. And I don't mind you having him top five. I mind it so much. I have been informed that the points, like, because we do point projections down to the, you know, um, down to the decimal. Down to the yard. Down to the yard. I mean, we stat out all these guys. But it's a four point gap between, uh, four, five and six. And I'm going to fix that. But, um, one touchdown away.

But I think maybe to spin it to the positive, the fact that I am resistant to whether Richardson is a passer that can get it done on a consistent basis, and despite that resistance, being intellectually honest in my statistics and having him just end up here, because we're not going into our ranking saying, I want Richardson at this number. We're going in putting in realistic projections based on the offense and the opportunities. And I am intellectually resistant to him and yet still ended up. The results still. I think you're emotionally resistant to him. Intellectually, it seems like. No, I'm intellectually. You've got him right where it should be. No. Number four, baby. I don't. I mean, even in the preseason, some ugo passes. Oh, I mean, he hit a couple of them. To be fair. But then there was a couple of us. Even when Cam was, you know, not post-injury camp.

He still had some UGO throws from time to time. But when you have the ability to throw those just 60-yard bomb passes? In Uggot throw in the context of seeing a bunch of great is different than having, I mean, he had a game, what, 33% completion percentage last year and one of his starts? Was that the second full game? How did he finish fantasy was injured? Okay. 44% completion, number two overall in fantasy. The next week he was injured. No, no, no, look, he's there because he's there. I'm just saying like, to me, Richardson is exciting for fantasy. He's also a fifth rounder. He's not going to be my pick. You'll be both of your picks. He won't be my pick. I would certainly rather have Kyler when he's dropping in the sixth and seventh over Richardson in the fifth.

But, you know, we've talked about it many times. Like, I want the, I want the mobile rushing quarterback with the game breaking upside. I want Anthony Richardson or Kyler if I don't get Richardson or Jaden Daniels if I don't get Kyler. So the question is. I'm going to so take him in League of Record. Right in front of you enjoy that ride. Like the sophomore breakout for Jalen Hertz, he was only the quarterback nine. And that was off of 3,100 passing yards. If you draft Richardson in the fifth round, you get QB 9. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Yeah, yeah. If that happened. But the next year, that's when Hertz was absolutely incredible for fantasy football. The QB3 and 15 games averaging over 25 points per week. I'm not saying Richardson's going to do that. But that was 3,700 passing yards, a 4.8% touchdown percentage. Like, that's not why. You're committed to him in the fifth.

You're going to be starting him every week. That is, that's my, um, that's my hesitation is he is not, he is the highest drafted non-known commodity, right? Yeah, he, he certainly is and you're hoping that he can be the number one. Um, that being said, the more, the more that we talk through is like, Jalen Hurts is a great comparison, great comparison. Because I, I think that the path is there for him. But that probably means that it's not this season. This season is probably more of a low-end quarterback one because I don't think he's throwing for 3,700 passing yards. And so if you have to pull the trigger in the fifth, that means you've got to get a really outlier elite.

rare season from him. And I'm not saying it can't happen. I like this college tape. I like his passing. I don't think he's a, I don't think he's a terrible passer. That's not what I see. This gamble used to cost less in fantasy. Yes, it did. This gamble used to cost six or seventh or eighth round pay. Well, depending on the year. So it's like, man, Kyler at a value later than Richardson, who you're hoping can develop into Kyler seems. Yeah, it, it, I understand all of that. I probably. It'll be more rare for me to have Richardson as well, despite how bullish in my ranking on him because it's the question of, okay, Richardson here, Kyler a few rounds later, or say my plan goes in motion of it's going to be Kyler and I get just absolutely snipped by someone. And then it's like, okay, well, Jaden Daniels in double digit rounds who has, can Jayden Daniels put up 3,700 passing yards and 700 rushing yards?

Yeah, he probably can. Jayden Daniels is a good discussion with Richardson because it's like they're both basically brand new rookies. I mean, Richardson's barely played. Jayden Daniels has a lot more football under his belt. Football. He rings that football. But I mean, Jane Daniels has played. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, 10 times the amount of college games and just barely fewer NFL games. But with Anthony Richardson, you know, I play on sleep or an underdog usually where he's a fifth round. He's always in the middle of the fifth. So I was just curious. I looked up the, you know, in the UDK, the ADP comparison tool. Where do you think he's going on ESPN and Yahoo? Oh, ahead or behind. We'll just say ahead or behind. Later later, yeah. He's going ahead. What? He's the 411 on both platforms. That's.

That's that's PR team's doing good work, man. I think it's too price. Probably you two from like three months ago. All right, moving on. Number four. Lomar. Makes sense. 401 right now. Mike at three, Jason at four. I'm at five. The Todd Monkin system worked for the NFL, dot, dot, dot, and sometimes for fantasy. Highest completion percentage of the year, of his career. Highest yards per attempt. It would be hard to look at that offense and not say some similar things as you did with Kyler where you didn't have the past catchers you expected for the majority of the year, right? Like we were dealing with injuries to Mark Andrews. Bateman will never be a thing. Beckham was no longer a thing. Yeah, I mean, when Beckham is part of your story, you need to write a new book. But is it any better? I mean, the health of Mark, the health of Mark Andrews is.

If he plays a full season, it's massive for him. But outside of that, you got- The ride? Yeah. It's still Bateman. And, you know, and the wide receiver three is still O'Dell Beckham Jr. in the sense that it's nobody. And so, you know, you're hoping basically that Andrews is healthy and Zayflowers takes a step forward. Those two things are not even unlikely to happen. Zayflowers should take a step forward in his sophomore year. Mark Andrews. The most likely, I mean, Isaiah likely is a weapon in the offense as well. But the most likely thing to happen is that they want to run the football a little bit more than they did last year because they have Derek Henry and they can do that. And that will involve the goal line where Derek Henry is not stoppable. And last year already, he was a C in our consistency rankings. Only 47% of the time hit 20 points at quarterback. And you don't love that ride. It's bumpy.

It's really fun when you get to watch him with a breakaway run, but you didn't really have as much sealing with him as you wanted. Yeah, Lamar is a little bit different. Mind you, he's at four. Yeah, obviously he's great. He finishes the quarterback four last year, but the consistency or the lack of consistency in that ride is based upon rushing touchdowns from the team. When you look at the bills, rushing touchdowns from that team are not running backs. When you look at the. the Eagles rushing touchdowns for that team are Jalen Hertz. And so here, this is not Lamar Jackson near the goal line. This is Gus Bus of the past and Derek Henry going forward when those touchdowns come. If there's two touchdowns on the ground, which is going to happen quite often, that is a significant hampering to the quarterback production for for Lamar. So he is, he is, you know, I think.

he's where he should be, but for me he is firmly fourth. Like he's my quarterback four, but he is a tier behind the big three. Number three. All right, Mike. Patrick Mahomes comes in at three, but not on your rankings. Nope. And. You fool. Thank you, Gandalf. Quarterback three is his average draft position in the late third. We know Jason's really bullish, but you're the lowest. So, um, Are you just expecting a similar script to last season? I expected improvement over last year. The second half of the year was so bizarre for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs of looking at the games that they had lined up and every week pointing at yourself in the mirror saying this is the week. This is when Patrick Mahomes turns back into Patrick Mahomes, not this guy who's out there giving me subpar fantasy points.

Simply never happened. And the Kansas City Chief's offense to me, maybe Worthy, maybe Xavier Worthy can be the answer. But it's like the wide receiver core, we're having the exact same conversations here, Rashid Rice notwithstanding of, it's a group of guys. It's a hodgepodge of wide receivers. And I don't see that there's no Tyree Kill on this team. And Travis Kelsey is, if they actually are going to. throttle down his snaps a little bit like they did at the end in the second half of last year because they're trying to three Pete over here. How depressing was it to see Sky Morgan as many starters snaps as he did? You know, look, I think that was the Hollywood injury thing. Yeah, Hollywood got injured and in preseason, you know, you got to see some things for roster adjustments. I disagree. I think that the wide receiver core.