Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Top 20 Quarterbacks, Numberfire's JJ Zachariason, News

All right, 1011, 12 is Eli Manning, Colin Kaepernick, and Tony Romo. I want to publicly apologize to my two co-hosts here for how high Colin Kaepernick has ended up because of my ranking. You should apologize. Just for you guys. Apologize to me for how low Eli Manning is. Wait, where is Colin on our consensus? 11. That's the number I have him. You have him at 11. I have him at 11. I think I have him at 7. So.

I really like Kaepernick because of the same arguments that Mike made for Tannehill in the sense that his numbers have improved almost every year in the league. It's going to be the same Russell Wilson argument. He has to run for a certain baseline of rushing yards to give you value. But the thing is, just like we talked about with JJ, so we don't need to talk about Kaepernick too much. But he is available so late that if you take a chance on him and you swing and miss, don't come crying to me.

Yeah, if you swing and you miss on Kaepernick, this is what I will concede, is it so late, you can easily get back up, dust yourself off, and grab another quarterback and try again, and grab a good one like Sam Bradford. I agree. So, Kaepernick is somebody to take a chance on. Eli Manning, we like Eli a lot. Yes, that was one of the best offensive years of his career.

He threw the ball over 600 times. He's now in the Van McAdoo system. We've talked about how uncomfortable and how bad that team looked the first few weeks, learning the new system, and then everything you saw it clicking, you saw the offense start moving. And then a guy you might have heard of, O'Dell Beckham Jr., came onto the scene and just dominated. So I really like Eli Manning. I like the weapons there.

The jury's still out for me on Cruz, but I think Ruben Randall is good enough. Larry Dennell had times of flashing, and they're a passing team. They're not going to be able to run very well. If they want to score points, it's through the air. Tony Roma at number 12, Matt Stafford at 13, Sam Bradford at 14 and trending upward, I think for all of us.

But let's talk about Stafford for a second, because we mentioned it. He had a 41 touchdown year in 2011. A lot of attempts, but those have been going down under the Caldwell regime. But you get Calvin Johnson back. And that you cannot underestimate the value of Calvin Johnson to a quarterback. So I put him more in that 2013 numbers range, which is right around 30 touchdowns, still going to throw interceptions. But...

This will be, hopefully for him, the first full season of having Tate and Calvin together healthy. If they're healthy, you like Amir Abdullah, Mike. I do. From what I understand. I do. A little bit. Ebron. E. Yeah. I mean, you've got some other option. Potential weapons. So if those guys all stay healthy, can Stafford surprise people and be a value? He could. What's interesting about Stafford's numbers last year?

is over 4,000 yards, only 22 touchdowns, but 12 interceptions. He was actually a very good NFL quarterback. He was just not a good fantasy quarterback. I am notoriously hard on snapback Stafford, but I have to give credit for what he did last year and what they win 11 games. Yeah, they were great. The Lions were a very good team. I think they'll be a very good team again this year, which means you're going to be winning a lot of games again.

I like Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate. I just, I'm not high on Stafford on a week-to-week basis. All right, let's move on 15, 16. One quick. I think, I feel like maybe we're too low on Romo. People do this every year. With Roma? Yeah. I don't think they do it every year with Roma. I think you could be right now because of the amount of rushing attempts last year. And, you know,

Romo fits into, so 15, 16, 17 is Rivers, Palmer, and Bridgewater. And I was just about to say, Philip Rivers is one of the guys that I think people just kind of like don't want to draft. And Romo might be in that category too. They were actually polar opposites last year. Romo started very slow and won many people championships because he was dominant. Including you. Yeah, including me. He was very, very good second half.

Second half of the year. Philip Rivers came out scorching hot, and then the second half just completely fell off. So if you draft both of those guys... There you go. You can probably get them because nobody wants to draft either of them, at least in drafts that I've been running through. And so I like Rivers. I think Rivers is perennially underrated. He's going to be there. He has Keenan Allen. He has weapons.

But they will be a run-first team. I think we talked about that. So he's a good streaming guy. So Carson Palmer at 16, Bridgewater at 17. What can Bridgewater really be? Because we like what he looks like on the field, but what can he really be? Bridgewater can absolutely be an RB1. Really? He's going to change over to running back? Yes, he's going to change over to running back. He's that talented on the legs. Yahoo gives you those multipositional things. That would be awesome.

Because then you could start two quarterbacks in one quarterback league. I would definitely take Teddy Briggs. He'd be the top running back. Yeah. No, he can be a, he can absolutely 100% be a quarterback one. He has the talent to be a long time.

Pro Bowl caliber NFL quarterback. I could see him reaching. I mean, if we're talking potential here, not expectation. I could see him very easily throwing over 4,000 yards, getting near 30 touchdowns, doing things that push him up into the range in his sophomore year of essentially what we're looking for Ryan Tannahill to do. That's height. That's potential. Total.

I don't expect that to happen because I think they're going to be a little bit more conservative because they're going to have the ability to run the ball with Adrian Peterson and be in games where they're not having to play as up-tempo. And being that he's still a sophomore and that he's still...

tends to check down a little bit more, but he has the talent and the skill. I expect a huge third-year breakout. I was going to say, I'm not ready. I'm not ready this year for Bridgewater. I think he's fine. I think he's going to be a good NFL quarterback that doesn't translate over to fantasy like people are projecting in some leagues. And the other thing I'm concerned about with him is he is, you watch him play. He's small. He's a small guy, and he looks like he could get injured to me. So...

Mike, you've got him the highest. You've got him 12. I've got him 17. And, Andy, you've got him 22. So. Yeah, I think for sure that he'll be a back-end quarterback one. And speaking of ceiling, I think the highest he could be would be of seven or eight cubic. But I... Okay, so you, yeah. But I can get behind that philosophy that maybe he can get to that back half first guy. But for a guy who, for a 12...

a back half. Don't you see him going? I see him going very high in certain leagues. There seem to be certain leagues where people are just drafting him super high. Because we always say it just takes that one person to be high on a player. But we're talking about a group of players right now where you don't necessarily have to focus on just one quarterback. You got Palmer, Bridgewater, for you guys, Kaepernick, Romo, Bradford. They're all in this group of...

a tier that you can look at while it's slowly depleting and then jump in when it's almost empty. I wanted to look up the average draft position really quickly of Bridgewater and, okay, so Rivers is still going ahead of Bridgewater. That's what I was curious about because I was thinking in a lot of leagues I've seen it the opposite where Bridgewater is going ahead of Rivers, but that's not the case yet. So maybe the hype train isn't.

And like I said, they're all so close to each other. Sure. No, it's preferential. These are the type of players, though, that show when you get to the seventh or eighth round and you're getting scared because some of the bigger name quarterbacks are being taken off the board, you don't need to pull the trigger on a quarterback there. There are guys that are 16, 17, 18th quarterback off the board that are still have high potential and you can stream great.

All right, so 18, 19, and 20 are Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, and Andy Dalton. Okay. What is that hands? The hands are up. The hands are up. Their hands are, I need you guys to accept my apology up front. But I think that right now, Andy, don't do it, man. I don't think Andy Dalton is getting the love that he deserves. Wait, wait. I think Romo, I'm like, you know what, Romo, he should probably be higher. You guys like, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. No, Andy Dalton is the guy who should be hired. Well, but I mean, Andy Dalton isn't where Roma was. Andy Dalton, we're seeing as 20th. You know, we're seeing as the last third of the quarterbacks. A couple years ago, he finished. Correct me if I'm wrong. But he finished as the number three quarterback. Is that wrong? I believe that is accurate. That is accurate. Three on the paper, 20 in our hearts. Yes, exactly. And so my point is.

AJ Green is back and healthy. We just talked about how great he was. You've got a lot of weapons there. I agree. We're big on Tyler Eifer. We're big on Sunu. But Andy Dalton, because, you know, I don't know if it's just because he's the red-headed stepchild. But we just don't like him. He's 22 right now on ADP. So he is further down than we have him in our consensus. He is the 22nd quarterback off the board. Yeah. And he will absolutely be streamable.

Yeah, I will completely agree with that. Because he is a boom-bust guy. He has this big games where he throws three touchdowns to Andy Dalton, and then he has three games where he doesn't. Oh, my goodness. Dude, my brain is gone. You're on fire, man. Yeah. Andy Dalton throws steps back, throws to Andy Dalton. Didn't he catch a touchdown pass last year? He did. He didn't throw it. But that's next. That's the next step here. Andy Dalton, the Andy Dalton. Jason needs help. That is, that is the ultimate double stuff.

If you can get a quarterback to throw to himself. I mean, the point is fair if we're at 20 and that's below ADP. I mean, if you want to stream them, you can. I don't like doing it. I also, when you look back at the game logs last year, regardless of the injuries, you saw this direct correlation with Jeremy Hill high carry numbers on wins, low carry numbers on losses.

I mean, I think two of the three last losses, Hill had like eight and ten carries. And so if they get behind, then Dalton's slinging it. But I don't think they're going to behind too much. I mean, I think they're projected for nine wins, something like that. So before we move on, I think we just have to talk about one name that was not in our list of top 20 guys. Thomas? Thomas Brady. Yeah, and there are plenty of reasons for that. My sunglasses are going on my face. Deal with it.

Yeah, he's 21 on our consensus rankings. The big reason is the games he's going to miss. Yeah, I have him statted right now at 12 games. Yeah. So if it comes out that he wins the appeal and he's playing 16, he'll be up in our consensus because I'm going to change my stats.

I agree. And just so people know, you can go to the website, the fantasy footballers.com, click on the rankings tab. You'll see our rankings. We're going to update them. I know I'm going to update mine tomorrow. Jason did some updates tonight that he's going to publish. But let me give you 21 through, where do we go to? Let's go 21 through 30, just so people know some names. 21, Brady, 22 Marietta, 23, Cutler, 24 car, 25. Bortles. Bortals.

26 Griffin, 27, Castle, 28, Winston, 29. Gino, who is eventually going to return, and Nick Falls at 30. So that's... So we're just going to leave two teams off. Okay, so Hoyer 31, McCown, 32. So that's the entirety of our quarterback rankings. I thought I changed... Maybe I hadn't updated my Gino to Fitzpatrick.

We don't have time for mailbag today, but send in your questions. Go to the website, the fancy footballers.com, click on the submitted question button. You can also call us, leave us a voicemail question, 302-464 TFFB. Good show today, guys. Another shout-out, and thanks to JJ Zacharisen. The quarterback topic is an interesting one. I like being able to kind of go through it in detail, so we don't just come on the show and we say, ah, stream a quarterback. Well, what is that mean?