The TRUTH: Top Tier Fantasy QBs in 2019 + Super Bowl Buy/Sell - Fantasy Football Podcast

as I know, Matt Ryan was not benched. He was injured, but this was not the game he was injured. This was a game where Matt Schaub came in and threw for 460 yards against Seattle. Wow. I have like a gray spot in my memory. I do not remember this happening. I didn't remember it either. No, this is impossible. The Shob Cloud. You weren't paying attention? I refuse. Another stat from this past year before we break down.

the players. In 2018, we had 20 different quarterbacks who completed better than 65% of their passes. That's an NFL record. That's crazy. I mean, that's a lot of quarterbacks throwing for 65% or more. Well, I think there was questions last year. Is this a trend? Is this the new type of short passing game on timing routes with the new defensive rules that we're going to see more of that? But it went down this year to 13.

And then this should have been kind of in that argument about streaming quarterbacks, but nine of the first 10 quarterbacks selected in the 2019 fantasy drafts finished lower than where they were drafted. That is, I mean, that right there, like we talk about, okay, there's 40 quarterbacks that finish top 12, but you're not going to play Matt Schaub. But what you are going to do is draft quarterback. And of the top 10 quarterbacks that were drafted, all of them, you know, except for Lamar, finished behind where they were drafted. So that speaks volumes to the late quarterback.

is where the value within the position lies. Yeah, it's kind of a, it's a whole positional problem. They're just value too high. If nine out of ten finished below where they were drafted, they're just value too high as a position as a whole. Whatever psychology goes into that, you know, they're the most important position in football when you watch the game. They're the MVP year over year. And you even score the most fantasy points. And when you draft your team,

That completionism, okay, I'm going to take this position, then that position, then this position, then that position gets into it as well. Having a shiny quarterback for your roster, it really makes you feel good. Yeah, you can go undefeated preseason with that. Yes. Yeah. When you spent the pick on Patrick Mahomes coming into this year, it didn't matter what the rest of your team looked like, yeah, well, you see Patrick Mahomes starting for this team.

But oftentimes it's Aaron Rogers, who you feel great about. And then he. Russell? Terrible. Wilson. All right. Breaking down the truth, starting with Lamar Jackson. A reminder, great games at the quarterback position. We're calling great games 25 or more points. Good games more than 17. Bus games fewer than 15 points. Four point per passing touchdown scoring. That's right. And then Lamar Jackson, number one, at the position, number one in consistency.

He busted one time. He was good, 93% great 60%. We don't have to stay on Lamar Jackson for a long time other than to say, I mean, what a season. Over 3,100 yards, 36 touchdowns, another 1,200 on the ground, seven rushing touchdowns. So what is there to add about Lamar Jackson on the year? He was awesome. We know the truth. Yeah, the truth is he was absolutely sensational.

The true competitive advantage for your team, though, aside from him being the outlier, the top alpha quarterback of the year, you took him very late. You took him, or maybe not very late, but you took him late in drafts compared to where other people were grabbing their quarterback, and that made the difference. On average, he was the quarterback 12. So in a normal 12 quarterback league, he was the last starting quarterback taken.

He was the best. He's just phenomenal. He tied Peyton Manning and Patrick Mahomes with the most quarterback one weeks. He had 14 weeks where he finishes his quarterback one. And keep in mind, he didn't play week 17. Right. I mean, and that was last year for Mahomes. Yes. So that means two of those record-setting years are back to back now. And they both provided that, you know, it's just really impressive for both of those guys. Great year for Lamar. We know the truth. If you had him.

You were probably a champion or you ended up near it, and he was a difference maker. Now, number two, at the position, rather quietly, it seemed. Yes. Dak Prescott. Consistency rank came in at number three. 81% of the time gave you a good game. That is what made DAC special. 31% great. Surprising? Yeah, I mean...

It is a little bit surprising because he had some down games where at the end of the game, the garbage time that was, you know, infuriating got him back to good performances. So more often than not, he was really solid for fantasy. But I think if we pause the show after quarterback one and said, okay, everybody in your car, say who was quarterback two, I don't know how many people would have said, oh, yeah, Dak Prescott on the season was the second, you know, highest scoring fantasy quarterback. Yeah, he had a.

Bad fantasy playoffs, which sticks with you. I mean, in weeks 15 and 16, he was 16th and 23rd on the week. But he was another value pick for your team. I mean, he was the quarterback 17 in average draft position. He ends up with 30 touchdowns, another three on the ground, almost 5,000 yards passing. And, you know, Jerry says number one priority is getting him back on the field with the new contract. I think we all expect that to happen.

He did struggle against top 16 defenses. He was minus 9.82 fantasy points against him. And he also, much better at home. Not that I'm holding that against him, but you should pay attention to the fact of how much better he was, nine points better at home. You add in the home court advantage for him, home field advantage, and the way that he dominated bottom.

half defenses. I mean, it looks very similar to a wide receiver. Oh, who plays for the Cowboys? Who was his wide receiver won. So hopefully Dak Prescott does not go the way that Amari Cooper goes for fantasy. Hopefully he can get a little bit more balanced out there with Michael Gallup moving forward and doesn't just have to only rely on Cooper. All of his bad games were on the road, really.

I mean, at New Orleans, at the Jets, that was a surprise game. At New England, okay, we expected at Chicago, okay. But at Philly. That was the one that killed you in Week 16 against that secondary. You thought you'd get bigger things from Dak. But coming in at number three on consistency, this was just a great year from Dak. Do you think, does Dak finally get fantasy respect? Nope.

You don't think so, Jay. I don't think he'll get enough fantasy respect. He should. He's literally never once in his career not finished as a top 12 quarterback. But I think he'll be another late round guy next year because he's not flashy. There's changes in the whole coaching sphere for the Cowboys. And that could be good because Kellan Moore is still there as the offensive coordinator. Now you're bringing in a head coach who kind of has a history of throwing the ball.

A little too much is kind of how they felt in Green Bay. So, yeah, I think DAC will probably be a good value, especially because what Andy pointed out, the fantasy playoffs were three of Dak's worst weeks of the season. So he didn't help anyone win a championship. No one's riding high on Dak. But if you look at the first 11 weeks of the season, you know, it's not a coincidence that he played...

good when Amari Cooper played good. And when we talked about the truth of Amari Cooper. Superman plays good. He played well when Amari Cooper played well. You know, it's not, we talked about it on the truth of the wide receivers episode that I think Andy and I are in the boat that believe that he being Amari Cooper was just really injured and not as effective himself. And that should have an effect on deck. So if maybe Cooper starts off and continues to be healthy next year,

I think that's a great fantasy option. I think there are a lot of names we've yet to say that we'll get drafted ahead of Dax. So I think to Jason's point, QB17 off the board, no. He won't be that again. Not if they bring back his weapons. But, you know, we'll see. Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson. Listen, guys. Number three.

Fantasy finish. Oh, Russ. Oh, you're so special. I won that bet, Mike, because you said he wasn't good. I said he was going to be top 12. We had a bet. I won. He's number three. Consistency rank of Russell Wilson. 13. You wish you bet on consistency rate, Mike, because you won that argument, but I won the bet. He was very not consistent. I mean, 44% of the time you got a good game from Russell. 31% bust rate.

There was a period of time from week seven through 14 where you were happy one time. The fact that that can happen, the fact that the truth about Russell Wilson, the truth is the number three finishes a lie. That's the truth. It's a lie for your team. If you can go seven weeks or six games and you can get one game you're happy with from your quarterback, that means finishing it three doesn't mean anything. It really doesn't. It should not factor into how you draft Russell.

No, you're right. One thing we were looking at when we were looking at all the different splits and this and that. You know, Will Disley. Yes. He was a, whoa. I was hope that I got it. Big, what I'm saying. Yeah. So Will Disley. We miss you, Will. Was phenomenal to start the year. He was, you know, he was the consistency ring. I was working on the tight-in consistency metrics today.

you know, if you take out his injured game, he would have been the number one most consistent tennis because he was just unbelievable. And that coincided with Russ being unbelievable. Russell Wilson was 10 fantasy points better per game when Will Disley was active. Yeah. So, you know, whether Will Disley is able to get over his second horrific injury in back-to-back years is yet to be seen. But the expectation is he'll have Will Disney next year, which is good for Russell Wilson. But.

Mike's argument in preseason of this being a team that wants to run the ball and how much you can rely on enough passing volume to be the week in and week out quarterback is a legit concern. Because sure, Russ can always put up monster games, but can you rely on him to be plug and play? Because if you draft a guy like Russ, you're playing him every single week and you're going to get the bad ones with the good ones and 31% bust rate,

That's too high. No, and we make, you know, Mike brings up Omari Cooper and Dax's correlation on their inconsistency at times. But Russell and Tyler Lockett, it's the same story there. Sure. And we talked about that a lot before the year where it's like, hey, I want to buy into Tyler Lockett. But reliability, consistency, that's a question. So, you know, Russ is a great quarterback. Nobody doubts that Russ is one of the best quarterbacks in football. What's wild about his splits?

against top and bottom half defenses. He's over eight points better per game against the top passing defenses. I honestly like you can build theories of is this because they're playing a good defense and they put more on him. I'm just saying the run game doesn't work and because it's just an overall better defense and so they have to turn to Russell more. I'm not an overall better team that can score on them and he's got to play catch up.

I posted, I had a Twitter day dedicated to Patrick Mahomes on Saturday, posted five or six stats. And it was incredible how Russ was just right there with. It was like they were on a different tier of quality at the position. You know, over the last two years, Patrick Mahomes was throwing a touchdown every 14.5 pass attempts. Russ is one for every 15.

So it was like if he just got to throw more, he would put up those kind of numbers. He's number two over the last two years in total touchdowns. So he's just always right there in terms of not turning the ball over. They just don't ask him to do as much as Kansas City asks Patrick Mahomes to do. But if they did, he could do it. So the truth going into 2020, Andy, are you going to look for Russell Wilson as a guy you want to be?

Your starter, your quarterback won because he obviously is a phenomenal real world quarterback puts up fantasy points, or are you worried because of the passing volume on the consistency, and you'd rather not invest? It's impossible for me to try to value that question outside of considering what I have to pay for Russell Wilson. So I'd rather have DAC than I would Russell Wilson based on history and game plan. And knowing that my choice of Russell Wilson is a commitment to him.

as my guy, and then I'm going to have to absorb all of that, the ping pong ball. Like playing him on a week-to-week basis, I'm not going to complain, but I would feel like I don't have the ability to pivot off of him. And what you would be absorbing, just as an example for people, from week seven, which is pretty early through the rest of the season, if you played Russell Wilson, he had fewer fantasy points during that stretch than Jimmy Garoppolo and Derek Carr. Oh. So I made the right call there.