QB Steals, Sleepers, and Late-Round Winners - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/16

the draft pick of Cortland Sutton with another. Yeah, but you're talking somebody like Brandon Ayup. You're saying to drafts a wide receiver in the ninth round. I'm just, I'm trying to illustrate the differences between those choices. If you draft Jalen Hertz, where he's ADP is, that is the Sutton range. You, you are trading Jalen Hertz for a Cortland Sutton. I'm just trying to ask the question of what, you know, would you rather have Rashad Bateman and Jalen Hertz? Or would you rather have a Sutton Matthew Stafford? Those are the kinds of choices fantasy players have to go through. The downside here for Matthew Stafford, I mean, again, we don't fully know what's going on with the elbow. There's just been a lot of negative reporting coming in about the possible tendonitis. I don't know exactly. Are you worried about that? It's at least on, at least it has to be on your radar. Like, they haven't shut him down. He's still throwing. And Matthew Stafford. You don't control my radar, Mike. That's mine. All right.

And he's tough. Like Stafford has played through numerous injuries in his career. So I'm not saying like I'm completely shifting where he is, but you have to factor that in against these other guys. And last year, what was, what's his passing touchdowns? 46.8%. Okay. Over 40 touchdowns. The Los Angeles Rams last year, let me pull up the number again, had 10 rushing touchdowns. 10. This is the Rams. Like you go back two years, 19 rushing touchdowns, go back three years, 20 rushing touchdowns. Like that's a number that I would expect to at least balance out a little bit. Maybe this new Matthew Stafford Rams, they just, they do, you know, they keep it real heavy on the passing touchdown side. But if that number jumps to 15, just to illustrate what Jason is talking about, if those passing touchdowns come down, and it easily could, it could just turn into.

Cam, they didn't have a full, it was like Sony Michelle for half the season or whatever. If it's truly Cam Acres, a healthy Camacres, and a healthy Daryl Henderson, I would expect them to score more than 10 rushing touchdowns. Previous four years with Jared Goff, 22, 32, 28. All right, let's move on. Let's talk about Bargain Stafford. Yeah, I'm seeing names here. Really, 11 through 15 are a bunch of non-running, pocket passing, touchdown dependent. Upside is there, but you have to, you know, you have to paint the picture of it going the right way, but they're all in that category because they don't run the football. Kirk Cousins at 13, bargain Stafford, who's bargained Brady. I like Cousins a lot. There have been some very, Jason, maybe plug your ears. There have been some very.

Very positive Adam Thielen reports of late. Looking like vintage 2016 to 2018, Adam Thielen. Oh, that's not possible. You also have, his health is all that matters. I'm telling you right now, his health is all that matters because when he's on the field, he finds a way to dunk on every analyst that has ever doubted him, including last year. Now, he may have dunked through how did you score that many touchdowns, but all the optimism and all the things we like about. Kevin O'Connell, the offense being more pass heavy, Justin Jefferson being a gamebreaker that's going to be double covered on every play. There is a story here where Adam Thielen ends up being a big value. And again, this is just to say Cousins has multiple weapons. He has been a very steady quarterback. And, you know, is this one of those situations where we're like, well, we should have seen.

40 touchdowns coming from Couss. Yeah, Cousins is a great value this year. He's not the type of quarterback that is going to electrify and give you, you know, five number one overall fantasy finishes. But if you want to bypass on the Kyler and Jalen Hertz, get the Cortland Sutton and go with a later quarterback, to me, that's Kirk Cousins. The difference between Kirk Cousins and Matthew Stafford this year, I don't see as drastic. They... Both, you know, and I look at a quarterback going ahead of Kirk Cousins in Derek Carr. Derek Carr gets a new weapon and they're like, oh, maybe he'll throw for, you know, 4,300 yards and now he'll get up into the 30s for his touchdowns. It's like, that's what Kirk Cousins done the last two years. And now Kirk Cousins goes away from the defensive-minded head coach and they get an offensive guy in there who's going to run more three wide receiver sets.

throw the ball more. And they have a worse defense. And a much worse defense than the Rams. And his baseline, you know, the last couple of years has been 4,233, you know, 4,235. Yeah, since Jefferson got there. So I really, really like targeting Kirk Cousins much later if you don't get one of the top guys. Mike, talk to me about Aaron Rogers who comes in at 14. That feels bad. Yes. Yeah, this doesn't feel right at all. Again, four point per touchdown rankings. Rogers is a touchdown thrower. And so six point per touchdown for passing touchdown makes a big difference in where he ends up. He was also the quarterback six last year. Got paid $150 million. I know that losing Devante Adams is going to impact him. But at least statistically, it hasn't been a big impact when he's had to rotate through receivers. He's lost Jordi. He's lost Cobb. He's lost.

you know, a number of meaningful players over the years. And there is some promise here, right? Alan Lizard is there. Romeo Dubs. Christian Watson will eventually be back, even if no one wants to touch him right now. Aaron Jones, AJ Dillon. The problem is it's like this is very much like the Kansas City Chiefs of everything is hope. I have huge hope for Alan Lazzard. I think he can be a double digit. touchdown player that you can get really late in the draft but for looking at just the numbers for for erin rogers yeah he he almost always figures it out but we have those couple years of 2018 and 2019 where he threw 25 touchdowns and 26 touchdowns because his and his touchdown rate plummeted for him down into the league average and slightly below the league average so that it

Having said that even those years, he was the quarterback 7 and quarterback 10. So where we have him does, it feels really bad and really low where we have him. But this is just where our projections put him. It's so, it's really scary to bet on a completely unknown set of wide receivers. Mahomes at least has Travis Kelsey, where we know that that connection is fantastic. But all the pieces around Rogers is his newfound. rejuvenation and love like if all the stuff that's going on with rogers in the off season one of the things he talked about was he's he's back in love with football he kind of you know some self-reflection he's got some some self-happiness now likes the game again so he that of our rankings you think this one feels by far like the scariest of will look really bad and rogers just continues to be great you think his uh gpg will go down

is GPG. Yeah, the grimaces per game. You think if he's a happier fella, you think he will. It may, but I also think that that could just be like that's just his competition face. He can't control that. When push comes to shove, I have a hard time saying that I wouldn't draft Rogers over Stafford or Kirk Cousins if I had that choice. Just because he's Aaron Rogers and he'll go out and he'll play against the Rams defense and be the number two quarterback on the week or he'll go out and play against. you know, a challenging opponent. And he has a nice start to the year, Minnesota, Chicago. Hey, man. I mean, he lives to destroy Chicago. Yes, he does. I believe he is the owner of the Chicago Bears. He reminded them. We just lost the city of Chicago. They know. They're aware. They live there. They're trust in the process, man.

Yeah, look, I talked about one of the tips last week was to draft high volatility players, players with high upside that can go out and win a week. If you're talking about the difference between Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rogers, if they're at the same place in the draft, if they fall to around the same place, which I just had that happen in one of my drafts, I took Aaron Rogers over Kirk Cousins because I do think that the peaks will be higher. And so he will win me more weeks. That being said, This is a team and a new setup and a new system here that I do think his lows will be more than we have been used to. Even last year when he was the quarterback six, he had six games outside of the top 14 quarterbacks. So just where he really didn't come through because this is a really good defense in a pretty easy division right now. I don't think that the Lions of Bears are really scaring people, even if there's hope. And so if the team gets up, A.J. Dillon.

Aaron Jones, they can really control this game, get an easy win, and you can have a lot of disappointing games. But when Aaron Rogers needs to throw, I don't care who the receivers are, he'll get his touchdowns and he'll have his monster top three, you know, finish on the fantasy week. Finished at seven, finished at 10 with Devante Adams back in 2018 and 2019. So that is where he can be. You know, he can end up in that range. I forgot he'd jump from. 26 touchdowns to 48 between 2019 and 2020. Yeah, he was back. Derek Carr coming in at 15. Look, there's not anything positive, fantasy-wise, you can say about Derek Carr last year. Now, as an NFL quarterback, he is more highly valued than he is in fantasy. But it's hard to say that Devante Adams is going to walk in the door and completely fix Derek Carr's entire history fantasy-wise.

His highest finish on any week last year was seven for a single week. That's with 4,800 yards passing. And that was QB7 with 19 points. That's a bad week. He wasn't even, I mean, if you look at our, if you go to the website, the fancy footballers.com, we rank consistency on the player profiles. Their car's consistency was 41.2%. That is the percent of games in which he exceeded 21 points. That's just considered a decent benchmark for the quarterback position. So four out of ten games, you've got decency from Derek Carr. And that's the reality. That's not an insult to Derek Carr, the player. That's just an indictment on his fantasy value. And I don't think Adams can fix all of that. No, he can't. He's going to make Derek Carr better. But, I mean, we've got eight seasons of Derek Carr being a quarterback. And he's had good, he had a Mari Cooper and Michael Crabtree. And he's had good weapons before. He has never once finished as a quarterback one on the season in four point.

per passing touchdown leagues. He's never been a massive touchdown thrower. His touchdown totals over the last several years, 23, 27, 21, 19, 22, 28. So can he get to 30? Sure, sure. Yeah, in this division. Why not? Absolutely. You know what, Carr, you get to 30 this year. I just declared it. You're allowed. But like. Kirk's going to be at 30 for sure. Stafford's going to be at 30 for sure. It's funny because Roger's going to be 30 for like. Yeah. Stafford has Cooper Cup. Kirk Cousness has Justin Jefferson. This is not a, those are at least equal weapons compared to Devante Adams. So that's just the reality. That's why we haven't ranked at 15, four point leagues. Other players, you know, you know, out of the five that we mentioned today, let's start here, DAC.

Stafford, Cousins, Rogers, Carr. Are any of those, who's got the highest odds of finishing in the top eight? Aaron Rogers? Aaron Rogers? I would say Rogers probably. Yeah. It does feel that way. Him or Dak? Outside of the top 15 quarterbacks, our next five. Daniel Jones, Tua, Tungaviloa, Trevor Lawrence, Matt Ryan, Mac Jones. Yeah, you're not really... There's two guys there that I'm interested in, and it's Tua and Trevor Lawrence, because there are situations that have changed where you can make the narrative that they will step up. Now, Tua... We've seen a lot more of. He has much, much, much better weapons when you've got Jalen Waddle and Tyree Kill. Those players can do a lot for you, but he doesn't run the ball so you're going to have some of the Joe Burrough stuff where even though your weapons are great, you might not be great for fantasy. The one that I'm most... How do you like to play New England, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnati for two is... I would not like that start. Opening schedule. No, thank you. But the quarterback that I'm most interested in, that's kind of the later guys, is Trevor Lawrence, who...

When I exited last season, I had left for dead. I gave no room for improvement because he just looked so inaccurate. He did not show me a lot of flashes, but diving deeper and looking at how putridly that offense was run last year and the fact that he still got 3,600 yards passing as a rookie with... Urban Meyer and no weapons. And now they go and they get him Evan Ingraham and they get him Christian Kirk and Zay Jones. These aren't. Yeah. Travis E.T.N. is back. And, you know, he passed a lot to the running back last year. So you could have a lot of those inflated stats the way that Drew Brees used to have just by dumping the ball to a running back and taking it from there. I do think that if there's one quarterback.

later that really surprises and next year is talking about oh man he's the pick it would be Trevor Lawrence it would be the player who was drafted number one overall is supposed to be otherworldly you know the Peyton Manning the Andrew Luck maybe he is the dude he's still 22 years old right now opens against Washington who gave up the most quarterback fantasy points in 2021 so if you do want to risk something Week one, you know, you have the chance that you have a starter to Jason's point. Is there anybody else on the remainder of the quarterback list that you want to call out as interesting by way of streaming candidate? I will say it. It's Daniel Jones because he actually is mobile. He, you know, just over the course of his career, he's even if he gets tripped up a little bit by the turf monster.

We've still seen big plays out of him. You know, his sophomore year, over 400 rushing yards. That's not elite, but we're not talking about elite fantasy quarterbacks right now. If they can figure it out in New York with the new Davel system, then Daniel Jones will have, he will have weeks where you are very happy to stream him against a bad fantasy, a bad defense. The reports are not great, though. Like right now. Oh, is he still looking like Daniel Jones? Yeah, he's still looking like Daniel Jones. Well, that's one of his weaknesses. Yeah, I totally. That's why I'm very hesitant talking about this. But when quarterback's in this range, like I have Matt Ryan is going to be fine. He will be just so right in that sweet spot of QB 12 to 15ish where you're like, yeah, I didn't lose because of Matt Ryan. But he certainly.

I don't think he helped me win. And I would say that's how I feel exactly. You probably lost because he didn't help you win. Okay. And the guys in this range, that's how I feel. That's how I feel about Mack Jones as well. Like just, I don't think that he's fine. He's a good quarterback in a great situation. But the way that you find with him as a quarterback too in Superflex? Mac Jones or Matt Ryan or Mac Jones. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think the pocket passing guys who aren't going to go out and win you a week. but are consistent. Those are the guys I really like as my second quarterback in a Super Flex league because they give you a really high baseline and hopefully you have a solid quarterback one. If you're not in a Superflex and you're just looking for another late round dart throw who can go out in one year week, I think is Justin Fields. Yes. Just because of the mobility. He could run for 8, 900 yards. If he runs for 900 yards.

He's a top 12 quarterback this year. It doesn't even matter if he sucks. He's a top of quarter. Run the right direction, though. Towards the opposing. I would agree with that. Miles Sanders missed practice on Tuesday. He is looking to hang out with Antonio Gibson, the way that news is broke for Miles Sanders over the last month, struggling with pass catching. You have Kenneth Gainwell. You have other backfield options. Miles Sanders had a brief point in which I thought maybe we'd get some. something special, but really him and Antonio Gibson are not trending the right way. And Gainwell is very good. I think Gainwell is going to be like in a Dynasty League. He's someone that I would try to steal for free. Even if it's not for this year, it's kind of like last year, we told a lot of people go get Romandre Stevenson because there was kind of one year left is what it looked like with Damien Harris. And that's how I feel about Gainwell going forward. Because if he shows...

a little bit more in his sophomore year than he did in his rookie year going into next year. I think they will allow him to take more of the reins. That is going to do it for today's episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. A couple of reminders for you, the ultimate draft kit giveaway. Make sure you head over there, ultimate draft kit.com. Make yourself eligible to win the UDK for life. Also, we will be doing a mock draft episode later this week. I believe Friday, but I can't. I'm looking for a nod Friday. Oh, yeah. I think the deusers will be involved in this one as well. I mean, they may never be involved in another one after we get done with them. But I think we're going to give it a go. All right. Make sure you follow us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and we'll catch you tomorrow. Goodbye.

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