Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Early QB Rankings Show

in the real NFL draft because he is a generational type of quarterback. He's proven he did finish that one year as the number one fantasy option. I have him ranked above Drew Brees because I expect to bounce back, but I don't like him as much as Drew Brees because... One to 10 risk factor for Andrew Luck. 10 being riskiest, one being safest. What are you expecting? So I should say that. A risk on what expectation? I'm more taking an overview of safe at the position. Safe as a starting...

QB1 at the position. That's really the question. I would put him pretty safe. Yeah, I agree. It's a QB1. I'll give him a three. But as far as safety to be, what? Do you want a number? Well, I didn't. Yeah. Okay. Two. Okay. Very, very safe to be a quarterback one. But to be a top three quarterback, I would not. Now, is there any chance? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Matthew Stafford was drafted as the number one quarterback overall, right?

Correct. The number one player in the draft. In his third year playing, he threw for 41 touchdowns. Is that correct? Same as Andrew Luck? Yeah, because... Luck at 40. My point is, there is a world here where what we've seen, because, you know, Matthew Stafford, oh, man, he was on top of the world, but now we look back and we see that... Anything make it happen. He's only thrown... Happened in reverse. He's only thrown for more than 30 touchdowns one other time outside of that. Yep. Yep.

for 30. Everything else has been in the 20s. And that's what Andrew Luck's trend looked like. So the question is, was that year the year before last, was that the outlier? Or was that the, where he was trending? Stay tuned. You'll find out this year. I vote outlier. Just throwing it out there. Then I'm surprised that you've only got him in the two risk. I'm saying, no, two risks for a quarterback one. The risk saying draft him to be a top three quarterback, I would say that's nuclear volatile.

Yeah, dangerous. And he's going to cost you more than a Drew Brees. Number seven is Carson Palmer on the consensus rankings. We've all got them inside our top ten. And it's a case of mathematics for me. One David Johnson plus one Larry Fitzgerald, plus one Michael Floyd, plus one John Brown equals Carson Palmer. Equals a successful quarterback. It's the inverse argument that you have with if Russell Wilson is going to go throw 30 to 40 touchdowns.

Someone's got to catch him on that offense, and that's the Doug Baldwin, Tyler Lockett, you know, I know you're super high on Jimmy Graham, Jason Morris. Don't you put that evil on me, Ricky Bobby. So Carson Palmer, to me, I just don't see, barring injury, I don't see the way he gives you a bad year. I just don't know how that happens. 13 and 3 team, I'm not.

I'm not seeing a way that he has a terrible year. I don't see it. Yeah, I completely agree. It's a higher-powered offense. You have three great options at wide receiver, and now you're adding in David Johnson, a spectacular release valve to get some cheapy yards and cheap touchdowns. Carson Palmer had an 8.7 average. He had a YPA of 8.7, which is...

That's crazy high. I'm not expecting that to continue. However, what we know about Bruce Ariens is multiple times a game. He will dial up the shot. And between Brown and Michael Floyd, you have two guys who they can make their money doing that. So that's going to boost him up. I'm with Andy that I don't see a way he doesn't succeed and give you quarterback one numbers. I think that there's going to be a bit of a regression for him.

But low 30s in the touchdowns, maybe the yards come down a couple hundred, but you're still going to get a back-end QB. Now, what about? But Mike and Andy? Yes. Couldn't David Johnson get a lot of touchdowns on the ground and take him away from Carson Palmer through the air? Yeah, and he did last year, and Carson Palmer still dropped 35 touchdowns. Yeah, keep it down, boys to public. I'm just, hey, that wasn't me, man.

Yeah, you need to actually sometimes respond to the voice of public opinion yourself. I'll just take over. To just show that Eli Manning is number eight on our consensus top ten quarterbacks. Maybe a surprise for people who would have expected a big bin here, maybe a Blake Bortles. I am not surprised because he has a guy by the name of Oda Beckham Jr. to throw to. That helps. He also is a volume type of passer. He just puts up.

large quantities of passing yardage, and he has a consistency in the offense this year that I think has us all pretty confident that you get a nice baseline out of Eli Manning. Now, I will say this, and you guys, Jason, you can speak to your thoughts and Eli here. I kind of don't want to play him. I don't know why that is. Of all the guys in this list, Eli is the guy I don't like sliding in week after week because he has these dud games. Yes, that's fair. He is hot. Just make you wonder.

You know, did he swoop his hair the wrong way? I mean, what happened? Very, very hot and cold. Last year, my two quarterbacks from most of the season were Eli Manning and Cam Newton. So I kind of experienced the ebbs and flows of those two guys. And one was a rock steady. You talk about how Cam Newton could really ruin it for you. I feel like Eli Manning far more often. Five games with one or less touchdown.

Yeah, that's just not going to help you out. So you've got those big boom games, and I think he's a perfect streamer. And generally speaking, you will get Eli Manning off of waivers through the year. When somebody, he'll go drafting. Because he'll have one of those games and someone will screw you, Eli, to the waiver wire. He'll get drafted, but he'll get dropped. So I agree with you, even though he's this high. This is where we see him finishing the year. Yep.

But this is not what we're saying draft order. Our rankings are not necessarily draft order. I don't want to play Eli, and I don't want to play against Eli. That is exactly what happens in my leagues. More often than that, he beats me when I think I have the, I've got a better quarterback, and Eli goes out and throws four or five touchdowns against me, and I'm like, where are you? Where were you? The last two years, Ben McAdoo has completely revitalized Eli Manning. It looked like he was going to destroy him in year one, which was.

Yes, but the last two years, I mean, over 4,400 yards, he has, in his entire career, has one other season where he had this outlier of almost 5,000 yards, but consistent last two years, over 4,400 yards, 30 touchdowns, two years ago, 35 touchdowns last year. So it's, the offense is now gearing into the skills that Eli currently has. Odo Beckham doesn't hurt things. They took...

They took a bit of damage. They lost Ruben Randall. Okay. So you got to knock them down a little bit. Right. Yeah. A little bit. Well, a little, you know, like a... Like a morsel. Nope. Nope. Here's why. Because I know Ruben Randall did get a bunch of tests. That's when the car gets into... You think it gets in a wreck and then you go up with your thumb and it was just a... You can get the smudge right off the car and you're fine. Yeah. And you know who's going to get that smudge off?

Odell Beckham. He's going to raise his level again. They're going to draft somebody. He's going to finish number one. I think they're going to draft somebody we'll be excited about. Yeah, they will. A Coleman or something. Sure. All right. Let's go to number nine on the consensus. The BB gun himself. Blake, Bortles. But Andy. Oh, no. What are you doing here? Andy, why Bortle's so low? He's...

He was awesome last year. He was like one of the best quarterbacks. He's young. He's getting better. Voice of Public Opinion. I know you like Blake Bortles, but well, he just doesn't have sustainable numbers at the quarterback position. Oh, you think Alan Robbins sucks? No, I think I love Alan Robinson, but Blake Bortles threw so much in the red zone. Stay with us, okay? We'll be okay. We still have him in our top ten voice of public opinion. Yeah, and come on, listen up, public opinion. He's good, but there's regression here.

I think the biggest regression, a lot of people talk about the fact that the team is going to be better, right? I think they are. The defense is going to be improved. He was a king of garbage time. He really was. But that's not the issue I have. The issue I have is Christopher Ivory. Chris Ivory is going to, he's going to have seven touchdowns next year. That's probably so. I don't remember the exact number I gave him, but I'm guessing he gets six or seven on the ground, which would be more than double what they had on the ground last year as a team.

Kringle could have more touchdowns. I mean, the number they put up last year, the numbers they put up last year were as epically low, red zone running numbers that you could ever have. T.J. Eldon had two touchdowns on the ground. Denard Robinson had one. And Toby Gerhardt, one week during the year, dreamt of having a touchdown. He was so close. All four, all four attempts. So close. All right. So Blake is sitting here at nine, but there is a lot of hype about him. Jason, you do have them higher than we do.

Pretty close, though. Yeah, I still think he's good. And one of the things that it's always important for us to say, this is very similar to our tight-in discussion. Because when we get to some of these quarterbacks, there are some of these, I'll give you a good example of a guy. I really, really, really like Ben Rothlisberger this year. I think he's going to be fantastic. He is my 15th ranked quarterback. We're not even close to talking about Ben Rothlisberger yet.

if we were going by my rankings, and I really like him, genuinely. He's going to have 5,000 yards next year. This is not, you know, we're not knocking guys or saying this pool is so deep of serviceable quarterbacks, and yet again, that's why we just don't waste high picks on the position. Yeah, okay. So number 10, are you ready for this? This is the last guy in our top 10 that we're bringing to you today, and then we'll have 10 more on Thursday.

You know, I think I need something for this before we get to this. Crazy man drop? No, which one are you looking for? There's something about my mind in my... My mind's telling me no. But my... Yeah, this player is brought to you by Mike. I was going to say, this is by far the biggest disparity. Mike has him at 7. I have him at 17. Jason has decided to Switzerland, this bad boy at 11. And without further ado...

No, it's not Big Ben or Derek Carr or Andy Dalton or Tony Romo or Ryan Fitzpatrick or Case Keenum. It's Philip Rivers. Old Man Rivers. So make the case. Deliver the goods. Okay. Shake the beard. See what falls out. Let's hear about Philip Rivers. Here's the deal with Philip Rivers. Keenan Allen.

I would expect Keenan Allen not to lacerate his kidney and play an entire season. Here are the numbers that Philip Rivers was putting up in the first eight games. He was averaging 344 yards a game. That's a pace of over 5,500 yards. He was over two touchdowns a game. He was over 30 completions a game. Now as soon, and if you were riding the Philip Rivers wagon with me, it was sweet.

for a while and then keenan allen went out and everything fell apart his rivers yardage per game dropped ninety yards he went down by over a touchdown a game five completions you're talking massive numbers to a massive dip because keenan allen was so crucial

to that offense, which is why I like Allen so much and why I like Rivers at the back of my quarterback one. And so you're really appropriating a value on Keenan Allen in that offense the same way we would look like if Matt Ryan didn't have Julio Jones. Exactly. If Beckham went down for Antonio Brown for Big Ben or something like that? Yes. I mean, the numbers are, I don't think these numbers are lying. So let's clarify here. You have them ranked as high as seven. Yes.

But you're talking about getting Philip Rivers at the very end of this draft. Yes. Like Jason just said, that the rankings are not, we're not saying you have to draft people in this order. We're saying that's how I believe that they will finish. You always take into account the average draft position. You always take into account the value that the other league mates place upon that player. And Philip Rivers, generally speaking, should be a guy that you can get.

Near the double digits. I think there's going to be some people who like him. I don't think he's going to be an undrafted guy or anything like that. However, you can get him very late, and the upside is there as he was right around the top three quarterbacks for the extended period that Alan was actually playing.

I don't really have anything negative to say about Phillip Rivers other than the fact he just slotted in statistically as the 17 on this list. I think he's going to do well. I do think, you know, if Woodhead's involved in the offense, it reflects well on Rivers' numbers because you get a lot of passing touchdowns to the running back. You get a lot of cheap yardage, so to speak, where you get the dump-offs and then you make up some hay. And I think this, once again, these are the...