Early QB Rankings: Top 10 Countdown, Grandpa Vibes - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/23

to have that success at the end. You want to make the like bear case. It's the Big Ben had that monster 40 touchdown season and then, you know, people categorize Big Ben as a later round pick every year. Joe Burrow comes in at eight. Oh, man. What do you do with Joe Burrow? You throw last year away. You have to. You have to throw it away. Well, and you got to throw the, then you've got to throw his rookie year away too. Well, it was. So you only get one year. And the Super Bowl is a special year. It's like Matt Ryan. Like if you want to make a sad case for it, Matt Ryan had one year run into the Super Bowl, MVP. Yeah, I mean, the truth is I prefer to have in fantasy football, I will continue harping on this for eternity. I think the scoring is broken. I think it is stupid. I think that rushing yards and passing yards should equal the same for quarterbacks, but they don't.

And so I prefer always to have a mobile rushing quarterback. If you want one of these pocket guys, which is pretty much all the guys we've been talking about, Jordan Love, DAC is mostly a pocket guy at this point in his career, you know, your Herberts, your Burroughs, you can absolutely have an awesome season. Burroughs finished top four. But you have to have around 35 passing touchdowns, 4,000 plus yards. It has to be... a perfect season from the pocket. So let's have a broader discussion there because that gets brought up a lot. In the middle of the year, Mike identified Dak Prescott as somebody to pick up. He was so convicted about it that he let me take him off of waivers instead of him. Made a mistake. It tells me a little bit about maybe a methodology that should be approached with some of these pocket passers that are dependent on 35 to 40 touchdowns because it's going to happen. There's going to be five or six of these guys that or maybe that's too many. Yeah, that's too many.

Jordan Love 2 or 3. 32 last year and was number 2. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, in totality, yes, but DAC, you know, DAC had 36, but his pace over the last 12 games would have been, you know, whatever, 48. 5,000, I believe. 5,000. So all I'm saying is is like, do you take an approach if you're not investing high on a pocket pasture, if you've decided to wait, to stay water, to look for that schedule lining up when we're five or six, seven weeks into the season? and we know who these, because it came down to conviction about the past defense. You knew the schedule was going to be good, and then they're lined up to knock them down. Like these guys, because they have shown a capability to throw 40, when the schedule is conducive, they can go on a heater. So there could be something to be said if there's a handful of them, and you're not going to be able to know what the turnover is on defense in the passing game until you're a few weeks into the year. That's all I'm saying is it's like,

Because in some regard, do you feel like you could just, okay, is it DAC? Is it Love? Is it Stroud? Is it Burrow? Like any of these pocket passers, are you just hoping you get the right one? And in that case, you should drop the lowest one and then pivot. And I agree completely. From a gameplay theory you want to take the lowest one here, give yourself the freedom to move, to stream through the season. Those things usually work out better. However, When I'm looking at these guys, like for instance, right now, it's obviously early, but the ADP has DAC and Joe Burrow right next to each other. And so you've got to make a decision. You're probably going to be on the clock and you can take either one and decide who do you want to bet has that big 35 touchdown season. Dak just did it with 36. But Burrow to me, he's had north of 32 twice already. And he's had four total seasons. Last year was a throwaway.

injured first year was you know only 10 games as a rookie so in his two healthy seasons he was throwing that amount of touchdown so i lean more on that side uh he's still got the great weapons with chase and as of now t higgins could add someone in the draft that's my argument for joe burrow that's my argument for that's my argument for strout that's why all three of those guys are above love for me it's not the you were right about everything said about it's weapons yeah can you rely on cd chase And then the weapons that Stroud has, there's a level of, like, baseline confidence you have with those. That I have Higgins. Higgins is not Jamar Chase, but I have Higgins as a, like, an excellent wide receiver. So, like, of the, of the, of the crew, T. Higgins probably is the best wide receiver, too, to me. Of what crew? I was, like, don't going through, like, thinking about the Texans, I would, I'd rather have T. Higgins as my wide receiver, too, over.

Tank or Nico. And for the Packers, the same thing. I'd rather have Jamar, the combo of those two guys. So that's where I'll go with, if I'm going pocket passer, I'm probably going Burrow. So see, here's what's interesting. We're about to talk about, you know, the kind of final one of these pocket passer guys in the same group in C.J. Stroud. But Stroud's going two rounds earlier. He's a fifth rounder versus seventh round. CJ Stroud is seventh in our rankings, but he's going as the quarterback four, which means he probably won't be on any of our teams if that kind of ambition is there. Unfortunately, yeah. And the risk is tremendous, but also the reward could be very, very high. This is a player that, you know, you're adding Stefan Diggs to and Joe Mixen to an offense where he showed just unparalleled command for as a rookie.

a trust from the coaching staff to chuck it downfield as often as he needs to, and still survived past the Tank Dell injury. Nico was banged up all year, Noah Brown was banged up all year, offensive line was banged up all year. We talked about it tremendously with the running game, and yet, you know, it was like ignored in the passing game where the runners couldn't run, but yet C.J. Stroud could get out of the pocket and make things happen. Like, the reason he's being drafted there is because the ceiling for him is. is Mahomes level. Yeah. Which is why he, Mahomes is the only pocket passer drafted in the top five or six of running quarterbacks because his ceiling is so tremendous. And that's some people want to appropriate that to Stroud. And I do think it's in his range of outcomes. So that's what I wanted to bring up. I want to bring up because I think most people listening, they know Stroud, they know his weapons, they, they, they like them. We group these guys we've been talking about so far pretty much together. Like,

Maybe we've got Stroud number one of these players. We see his ceiling as the highest, but for the most part, we think that the most probable range of outcomes for all of these pocket passers is near each other. Therefore, we'll take the later one in ADP, you know, save a couple rounds, grab another running back wide receiver, bypass C.J. Stroud and grab, you know, love a couple rounds later. But of these guys, the only one that you really think is we've... you know, we've seen enough from everyone else to know that they're not Patrick Mahomes. They're not the future goat. But C.J. Stroud still has that in his range of outcomes. Is it worth really taking that shot in the fifth round on the chance that you actually have the true difference maker, like not a difference maker, but the difference maker? Do we believe that as a high enough possibility in his range of outcomes that it's worth pulling the trigger a couple rounds earlier? Not in redraft, no. I do believe that in Dynasty.

I believe that C.J. Stroud will be one of the faces of the NFL for 15 years. But I don't believe it enough this season, you know, where he had, he still had an up and down year. We were impressed by plays. We were impressed by a game here or there. This is a player that had the same problems that you mentioned about DAC, struggled against top 16 defenses, significantly fewer points against them, one-year deal with Diggs, and we don't know what he's got left in the tank. I think that there's enough bear cases to be made to where you could.

If you spend such a high pick, you're locking him in as your starter. Yes. Which is what happens. And so if I can get those other four guys we just talked about later, and they all have the capability of throwing 40, I don't see myself in on C.J. Stroud as much, unless I just want to have fun. I mean, there is an aspect of like how much fun it would be. I love C.J. Strath. I think, I think rooting for him on my team would be a blast. Watching him play is really, really fun. And when I looked, And I'm like, oh, he only had 23 passing touchdowns, which is not a bad number for a rookie. Don't hear that and be like, whoa, that, you know, he can't level up. That's every, like, from rookie year to sophomore year in the NFL, if you're a good quarterback, passing touchdowns is what really changes when you get near the goal line. So I expect that to go better, but it's still surprising to me because I feel like I saw 60 passing touchdowns. Like, I remember every single one of them last year with Stroud. He was so much fun to watch.

Yeah, yeah, and he turned an offense that no one expected into something meaningful in fantasy for two wide receivers. Nobody expected to be meaningful. So he was tremendous, and you add digs, and you remember Josh Allen's first year with digs, and you've got that trifecta weapons. I think you brought up, Andy, that he shares a lot of the problems with DAC in the sense that he struggled against the better defenses, which he did. Mike, you brought up with Dak. They finished first. They're going to get a harder schedule this year. They have to play the first place schedule. And same with the Texans. Yeah. And then just an interesting historical look over the last decade, rookies that have hit the 4 plus percent in terms of a touchdown rate, which is the percentage of their attempts that turn into a touchdown, they mostly hold steady like these guys. So Jamis actually went up. And so did Marcus Mariotta, which is pretty wild, just based on attempts.

But it's no one went, no one like skyrockets, you know what I mean? So that's my only, that's the concern is C.J. Stroud, electric player, but can we get, can we get 35 times? He just seems like he's going to be the victim of his own hype in fantasy costs. He is a full on. This is just, you're taking your flag and you are putting this thing in the ground saying this is the player who's going to be the difference. in fantasy football, which is on a quarterback in a single quarterback league at that ADP is, it's a very scary proposition. We have completely and utterly talked to me 100% out of C.J. Stroud. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no. And I love C.J. Stroud. I think he is a very good quarterback. Like we said, we love watching him. Reality versus fantasy. Yeah. Yes. I would. For fantasy purposes, where he's drafted, how he plays, what my expectations are for him and what his.

very small probability outcome would have to be to warrant where he's going. You're like, I'm out. You're like, CJ, no way. Yep, C.J. No way. Sorry. Kyler Murray comes in at six, 26 years old. Being drafted as the quarterback 10. We all have them higher than that. Last year was a loss season in a lot of respects just with coming back from the injury. He came back in the week. Came back in week 10. Got zero. production and availability oftentimes from Hollywood Brown. He didn't have the weapons, you know, and this year we expect, I expect Marvin Harrison to be the wide receiver won in a few days. We know for sure, for sure, for sure, that there will be a big name rookie wide receiver added. Still, the highest odds are for it to be Marvin Harrison, but it could be O'Donzee, it could be neighbors. The Cardinals have built their entire offense around

a hole to be filled with wide receiver one in the draft. They just don't have one. Michael Wilson is the wide receiver one. And he basically was the wide receiver one last year with Hollywood Brown disappearing. I wish Kyler was not an Arizona Cardinal because we're Cardinals fans and it seems very Homer. But the truth is with his dual threat ability, his low price in ADP, he is the target of targets right now. When he came back last year with terrible weapons, Off an ACL, he was still the quarterback nine in points per game from week 10 on with no options. He would have added on a 17-game pace, 518 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns off to ACL first year back. So like now he adds some great wide receiver in the draft, has a year recovered from the ACL. Every game he's been on the field for fantasy purposes has been sensational. He's been a top.

fantasy quarterback pretty much every game. It might not be like the one, two, or three, but he scores a lot of fantasy points. His floor is very high. So to me, he is probably the best value in the draft because when I look at who could blow up, who could end up with that top three season, it's usually someone with that dual threat ability. You know, you're Lamar, your hurts. And Kyler has that, and he doesn't cost much. So if it doesn't work out, you can move on. He just, it lines up to me to be a, a very valuable fantasy asset. All right, quick break, and we'll hit our top five. All right, at five, Anthony Richardson. Now, this is not my fault. I've got him at eight. That is your fault that he's not four. Well, you both have him at four. You are all in on Anthony Richardson, a 22-year-old return to action after an injury-plagued season that saw him and John the Taylor never play together. Look, the hands are a little shaky.

Thinking about him at QB4. Yeah, this is an interesting one. He's being, this is about best ball ADP. So you guys are even more bullish than the, those taking the shot on him in baseball right now. And I feel like my, my words on Anthony Richardson, I've said them many times. Extremely small sample. You don't like two full games? No, I don't love it. And then, you know, you had... You don't love four injuries through four games? This is a different way to go about an argument. You are taking the words out of my mouth. That's right. That's right. We know what we're doing here. We have disarmed you. No, I mean, it's, you know, when you've... Having said all those really terrible things. Three total passing touchdowns in his career.

And so, and then, you know, a little bit of the Jonathan Taylor and him goal line situation. Do they want to put that shoulder into arm's way to start the season will be a question. I know you don't want to take the Anthony Richardson out of Anthony Richardson, but you also would like to not take Anthony Richardson out of the game. Yep. So to me, there is risk. And I'm, I'm probably not spinning that QB6 capital. There is tremendous risk. Everything we said is 100% true. He's an injury risk. We have no large enough sample size to be confident. No one can be confident. Mike and I, I think, are gambling men, you know, where we want high return on the odds. We don't want to make a draft pick where it can be slightly better than ADP. I don't want to take a draft pick where I'm trying to pretty much make sure it's just...

What I drafted. I'm looking to win the league, be the one out of the 12, and you have to take risks on people who have otherworldly upside. And there is some evidence. It's a small sample. It's impossible. You know, two full games, you don't know. But in those two full games, he was the quarterback four, and he was the quarterback two. So he was, I mean, if those trends continue, you've got a true outlier alpha human being, you know, on the Cam Newton level. If you talk about who, what kind of. Like, I love Kyler. I love Kyler's rushing ability, but Kyler's not going out there and getting 10, 11, 12 rushing touchdowns. Right. He's not built for that. Whereas Jalen Hertz can, you know, Josh Allen can, Anthony Richardson can. And so we have seen enough glimpses. And so this is a player where it's just game theory. Like, if he comes out and crushes it this year, everyone will be in on him next year. Obviously, he's someone you've got to pay up for like Josh Allen, Jalen Hertz.

This is the only chance you have to take any kind of a discount. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. You move on. You cut them. You stream them. But I'm willing to take the shot because I don't think there's anyone else in this year's class that could end up as the quarterback won in an otherworldly fashion. You said otherworldly again. That's so many worlds away. He's just letting you know. Do you know how many worlds away he could be? We're talking next to. Is this like space jam? Yeah, all right. Matt LaFle or Shane Steichen. Those are the two head coaches. I have a tremendous amount of confidence in what they put together on offense. That gives Richardson and Love a lot of upside. I don't know where Richardson is going to end up in redraft. You know, you talk about getting any kind of a discount. I do feel like you have the same problem with Love that you have, or sorry, with Stroud as you have with Richardson, as in where you draft him, you are committed to him as your starter. Maybe that'll be fine. I think you're not.

in this sense. You are out so you'll have to pick somebody else. Yeah. Right. No, it's that his floor, if you're wrong, is bad enough where you can move on. Like, CJ Stroud, he's going to be good enough every game where if you invested in him, you're going to keep playing him. Whereas Anthony Richardson could come out and fall on his face. He could come out and just dud two weeks in a row and you're like, okay, I cut my losses. took my shot and take the L. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I like that. It's like taking the draft pick. We always talk about like your last draft pick. It's someone you want to be able to cut after a week if. Hey, I just want to be able to cut my fifth round pick. See, that's where it's, that's why he's not in the conversation for me, but I get it. I get the upside. At four is Patrick Mahomes. He'll be on his way to.

attempt, a third title in a row. 4,100 yards, 27 touchdowns, 14 picks. This was the quarterback 18 from week 10 on. This was a storyline last year in fantasy, Mike. It was brutal. You know, you're not going to have at a minimum rushy rice for a couple of weeks, maybe more. To start the year, Travis Kelsey is older. It's almost impossible, I think, to trust any sort of rookie. walking into a situation that didn't work with Hardman and didn't work with Skymore, didn't work with Rice in the very, very beginning of the year. So if they draft Troy Franklin or somebody at the end of the first round, I don't think that player makes a huge impact in the first few weeks. So do you think it's bumpy road to start the year for him? And if so, does that change the way you look at him for fantasy draft assessment? Yeah, I mean, no one is going to be on this show saying, like, you shouldn't draft Patrick Mahomes.

he can't be the quarterback one, any of that. He, he's, he's, I think he's on, Superman. I think he's on a schedule to do it, isn't he? He is. He's always like the, the back and forth you're talking about. Yeah, he was number one last year, uh, in 2022. And then he was not, well, okay, he was four in 2020, but he played 15 games. So, and he was over the first half weeks one through nine in points per game. He was the quarterback three. Yeah. So the, the, the truth is, you know, finishes the quarterback eight. I think that that's probably near around where he finished, probably finishes around quarterback 6, 7, 8. You've got his number one wide receiving option being Travis Kelsey in a situation where much to our chagrin, much to, I believe what could happen. Like if they use Travis Kelsey as the dude, he was out there 100% of snaps, you know, like he used to be. And they just said, we're going to run you into the ground.

I think that'd be really helpful for fantasy points for Patrick Mahomes. I think Kelsey could do it. They're not going to do that. You saw it last year. You saw them pull back a little bit of Kelsey, give him more breathers, allow him to be awesome and rested and ready for the playoffs. They care about winning Super Bowls. It works. It worked. They did it. So it's one of those situations where I don't know that they need Mahomes with this defense. to go out there and be Superman again this year. Yeah, only five games hitting the over for Kansas City and their defense second and points per game allowed. Like that's just, that's not conducive to what we need for fantasy football. And the way that just the NFL has changed, the way that they play against Patrick Mahomes, this stat is absurd because I didn't even realize how bad it was. One passing touchdown of 20 or more air guards.

His yards pretend to have gone down. Like Patrick, Patrick Mahomes, that's what he does. Yeah, those bomb touchdowns. And the personnel combined with the way that the cover two shell plays against Patrick Mahomes, it took those away. They can. They won the Super Bowl. Yeah, no, I know. I know. So impressive that they can do it. They're like, we'll just beat you however you let us beat you. They're so smart. It's, it's really unfair. Yeah, but we want big touchdown. I know. Number three is Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson and the Todd Munkin system last year, 3,600 passing yards, 24 touchdowns, added another five on the ground with 821 rushing yards. Had the most starts of his career, so he stayed healthy, had the highest completion percentage of his career, so he was accurate, had a new offensive coordinator, helped him to eight yards per attempt. That's the highest of his career. He also scrambled more than he's ever scrambled in his career.

Number one in fantasy points per dropback, fourth and yards per attempt. You know, the passing, like the accumulation, you know, in total yardage, it wasn't, you know, extreme touchdowns in terms of total yardage, just 3,600 yards. But at the same time, that was a career high for him. That was something that they put into place. There's been some talk this offseason bringing in Derek Henry that they may dial that back a little bit. but we missed Mark Andrews for a big part of the year. I think Lamar Jackson's very, I think, I think three is right. I mean, three or four, knowing that there's variability, knowing that there's these weird games that Lamar just disappears for, they don't need him. Those are going to happen. They've always happened. But comfortable, cozy, every week starter, Lamar Jackson. Yeah, I wish he was, it's weird because you usually have these really mobile guys.

who are very consistent. You know, you look at Jalen Hertz, it's like you don't really have a lot of down games or Josh Allen, but somehow Lamar is able to be very inconsistent. He's, he's boom busts. Five rushing touchdowns versus 15. Right. Yeah. 47.1% of the time exceeded 20 points. So that is a C in our consistency. Yeah, exactly. So I, I don't love him nearly as much as those big bullish quarterbacks that can. be a little bit more relied upon around the goal line for rushing touchdowns, especially now with Derek Henry. You're going to have Derek Henry just scoring these touchdowns. Not that you didn't already have that with Gus Bus. So you just got to factor that in. When you talked about you've got an every week starter, yes, but you don't have an every week helper in Lamar Jackson. Yeah, he can win you a week for sure. But it's funny. You said those bullish quarterback. I mean, you're talking about two quarterbacks. Three.

Anthony Richardson. I put Anthony Richardson and... I mean, Jonathan Taylor's getting the ball around the goal line. I'm telling you that. That's going to happen. Anthony Richardson, when given the opportunity to be one of those, was injured two separate times trying to go into the end zone when they didn't have Jonathan Taylor. I'm not willing to hand him that. Jalen Hurds, Josh Allen, proven over time, but Tony. That's totally fair. I'm saying physically, I'm saying as a human specimen, the bullish... giant man. It's bull-like. Bull-like. So not bullish as in you are making a bull case. And optimistic. No. Bullish as in like Minotaur. Put the horns down, run. I mean, he's bigger than Jalen Hertz, isn't he? I mean, Jalen Hertz is not, we're not saying it because he's, yeah. I mean, we're not putting not in the, not in the rumpus. Look, it's a tush push.

It's not put the shoulder down. I don't know if you've watched an NFL broadcasts of Jalen Hertz, but I've heard that he can squat over 600 pounds every single week. What? This is the first time hearing about that. Well, Hertz is at two. He had 15 rushing touchdowns. I don't think he's going to have 15 again. Probably not. With Saquan there and the lack of Kelsey at center. Yeah, he threw 23. passing touchdown. So his numbers are very similar, actually, across the board to Lamar, except for he threw twice as many interceptions. He ran for fewer yards than Lamar, and he just saved it by Tush pushing 15 in. So if that changes, that would be a couple of quarterbacks that could flip in fantasy finish. That's all I'm saying. I think it's fair to bring it up, but we're at this point, like what Jalen Hertz here and Josh Allen won,

Is there a true, like, are a real, real rock-solid argument to not have those guys up there? No, not yet. The consistency of 76.5% of his games crossing that threshold, we look for an A consistency. He's done this over years. And while his passing was down a little bit, I do think the offensive coordinator change could be helpful. And if you look at the weapons, you know. AJ Brande-Avante Smith. That's great. That's a really good receiving core. I mean, as good as it is for any team in the league. The last season, so Josh Allen comes in at one. Last season, Josh Allen was, his average draft position was about 12. Really? Yeah. And somehow worth it. You know, Mahomes was in the 20s last season. Jalen Hertz was in the 20s last season. So.

Josh Allen, we know the resume, right? We get to the top of these rankings. We don't have to tell you that they're good at football. Loses Stefan Diggs, though. Loses Gabe Davis. Yeah, that's worth mentioning. Transformation of the offense to a degree. A little more run heavy in the second half. Any concerns with Josh being worth, like would you take him at 12? At 12? No. Probably not. I don't think he's, is he going at 12 this year? I feel like he's dropping to more the back of the second. But at 12, this year without Stefan Diggs, there are question marks. He's still going to be the first quarterback draft. It's just a matter of what other running backs and wide receivers are there that I'm confident in. Josh Allen has been worth it the last two years. And we don't usually draft quarterbacks high because you can replace them, you can stream them. But over the last couple of years, Josh Allen's been really a difference baker that's not replaceable.