Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Early QB Rankings Part 2

Yeah, no, it definitely does. To have a safety valve where you can get extra yards, you look at the year before where he had Levi-on-Bel healthy, and his yards were through the roof. Also, Levi-on-Bel can catch a few passes through. Yeah, just a few. Get a few touchdowns. Well, I was going to say the touchdowns through the passing game can help. But losing, you know, you say, oh, so he gets Levi-on-Bel back. That's great. But as Mike mentioned, you lose Martavis Bryant, who's another elite talent.

He's more important to Big Ben than Levy on Bell is to Big Ben. Yeah, a lot of big play potential with Martavis that you lose if codes can't become, you know, at least a percentage of what he offered or somebody else. Yeah, yeah, sure. So let's move on to number 12 on the consensus rankings. I think our first of several surprises today to me, he's certainly not there because of me. Yeah, that's fair. He is 16 on my rankings, though.

So not too bad. Mike has him 10, Jason has him 14, and his name is James Winston. I will say this. If you project James Winston's yardage numbers off of the second half of the year, which I think is very fair to do. For a rookie. For a rookie who is learning the system, who is really being given more of the reins over the course of a year. It's not just improvement on total efficiency. It's also volume. He was on pace for, I think, 43, 4,400 yards. And so...

I've also heard very good things. I know there's various coach speak out there. We tell you to be careful of it in the off season. But from a weight standpoint, you really can't coach speak somebody's weight. Yeah, he's getting his cardio on. Yeah, he's down. He played as high as. 250. 250 last year. I think I heard he's down to what, 215? $2.25. Wow. Maybe $2.25-ish. Yeah. I'm going to vet that number, but it's a good sign. Yeah, he's on that Eddie Lacey, Tony Horton program over there, doing work with the cardio.

And look, I love James Winston for fantasy this year. Okay, he's at 236. He played above 250 last year. Well, that's still a big deal. James Winston, youngest rookie to throw for over 4,000 yards. Wow. So you're talking something that's never been done now. Granted, he had a pretty low passing percentage, under 60, which is not what you want to see with a 58.3. And...

You could see that when you watch them, especially the first half of the year, especially game one. Oh, my goodness. James wasn't, he thought he was ready. He wasn't ready for the NFL. And the game, you could see it start slowing down, and he acclimates more to the game. And he's not, especially coming out with Marcus Marriota, he's not, you think, okay, he's not the rushing quarterback. He's not going to run. But he got over 200 yards on the ground and six.

Touchdowns. Those type of numbers really make a difference for, I mean, you take a look at the difference between him and Big Ben. Now, I don't expect him to get six touchdowns again next year on the ground. That's fair. But the 200 yards, that's a huge difference between him and Big Ben, who gets pretty much zero every year. I mean, it's kind of mind-blowing how few yards...

Big Ben Gets at all. But Marriota, you mentioned with Winston. You mean Winston? Yeah, you mentioned with Winston that he was the youngest quarterback in the history of the NFL to throw for 4,000 yards. He was the youngest quarterback in the history of the NFL to throw for 3,000. Even if you go take it down to just getting 3,000, we don't realize how young he is. 22 years old right now, so he's 21 last year. And in 4. Point.

Per passing touchdown leagues, he jumps from 16 to 11. He gets into my top 10 because of what he does offer you. To 11? Yeah. But he's not in your top 10 then. I'm sorry, into my top. I meant as a number one. Sorry, I meant a number one. I thought my brain was exploding. Yeah, 11 is in the first 10 numbers. 11, 150. But he climbs up is my point because he does. I think he's, I think I put him down for four rushing touchdowns this year. Like Jason said, six is kind of a.

A pretty high number. Obviously, if he gave you that, I mean, just more power to him as a quarterback, a fantasy quarterback. But I gave him four, and I think, you know, you've got the weapons there. We've talked kind of ad nauseum about the fact Dirk Cutter is there and it's stable, and Doug Martin's still there, and Mike Evans in his ascension. I think they probably draft a wide receiver. That's my personal opinion. We'll find out here soon.

The weapons are there. I mean, it's really going to help. And one other thing you need to keep in mind with James Winston. So I've got him in my own personal rankings, one spot behind Ryan Fitzpatrick. I stated Fitzpatrick as if he's been re-signed with the Jets. Which he is. In my head. In your head. But the truth is, is that James Winston has crazy upside.

His ceiling is much higher than Ryan Fitzpatrick's ceiling in my world. Because if he comes out and throws for 4,400, 4,500 yards, I wouldn't be blown. I wouldn't be like, whoa, I'm never seeing Fitzpatrick coming out and throw him for 4,500 yards. Because you've never seen him throw for 4,000 like James Winston did in his rookie year. Exactly. So your upside at his range is nice. Yeah, I really like both the sophomores this year. We're going to talk about Mariotta a little bit later.

At number 13, we're going to talk about Derek Carr coming into year number three. Somebody who really had some impressive games last year had some games that kind of, well, I mean, didn't do much for you. It fell apart there towards the end of the year. But he did throw for almost 4,000 yards, 30 plus touchdown, so he's one of those 11 guys that did that. And an interesting fact here is that his sophomore season was very comparable to Andrew Lux, except for Carr had an even better year than luck did as a sophomore.

We talked about luck on the last show and how in year three went out and threw for 40 touchdowns. So you heard it here from Andy. Oh, no. Forty touchdowns for Derek Carr. Not quite yet, but what are your guys' thoughts on Derek Carr? The offense. Amari Cooper is obviously a huge weapon. Crabtree proved to be a reliable weapon last year. I don't know what you guys think about Latavius and Walford and some of those other guys, but Derek Carr.

Number 13 puts him right outside that top 12 QB1 range. Where do you guys have car in your mind? All of these guys at this range are so close in our points. In fact, he's actually tied for 13th in our consensus ranking with two other guys.

But when you're at this level of ranking, very similar to what I just talked about with Winston, what you're looking for this late in rankings is upside. I'm not worried about risk when I take a guy late or at the back half of quarterbacks going. I'm looking for upside. And Derek Carr showed he can sling it. Last year, one of the things that doesn't show up very well on the box score is how bad Amari Cooper was hurt.

physically hurt. I remember watching the games just thinking like, why are they leaving him in there? He couldn't run routes. It was literally like he was hobbling while running routes and they kept him in the game. Now, it's hard as a quarterback to be efficient when one of your wide receivers can't get open because he's hurt. And you remember his terrible statistic.

Umari Cooper's statistics that were so bad in those games. Well, Cooper's going to be healthy. And if he had kept the pace that happened before that injury, we're talking about Derek Carr even better last year than he had. And so he's got high upside to me. I think that it's really going to depend on what they do in the draft. I've, I've an interesting question about Carr. Maybe it's a differentiator for you guys in the draft or in the future. One quarter of his games for the season are against

the Denver defense and the Kansas City defense being in that division. That could be a point towards how good he played last year in spite of those matches, but he still has to do it this year. So does that impact your view on him versus somebody like in a different division with different defense? You have to take divisions into account. You have to because they play them twice a year. It'd be stupid not to. But.

Is Kansas City's defense going to be better or worse? I think it's still to be determined. Okay. And Denver? Do you think they're going to be as good as they were last year? Tough to be as good as last year. When they've lost so many pieces. Still a great passing defense. So I think both defenses are going to be good. But the point I'm bringing up is that they've lost, each defense has lost significant pieces. So coming into this year, it should possibly be. Maybe don't overemphasize that, you're saying. Right, exactly. Breaking news. Now this.

Probably won't be breaking news to anybody listening right now. Because if you don't know, we're recording this show a little early. Mike is on an anniversary trip. That's right. During this. 10th anniversary. So we recorded the quarterback shows before he left town because we wanted to keep him involved. We had to let him... Well, the people demanded. Sure. That's what we told him. But the breaking news is this that just came through here, is that Percy Harvin has said he is retiring. Really? I was...

I was about to be blown away. When you said Percy Harvin, I thought you were going to say he signed somewhere, and I was going to be shocked. That, man, kind of sad. That disappoints me personally. I was a really, really big Percy Harvin fan. I was what? No, that guy was a huge Percy Harvin. He was a Minnesota fan. And we were together in the Percival Brothers. Knowing the fantasy power of Percy Harvin in Minnesota. So that's unfortunate.

Well, and, you know, he had unique skills that almost nobody else in the game had. To pay the bills. Yeah, well, not for long, though. So anyways, farewell, Percy. It's sad that I don't get to see you sign and disappoint another team. But Derek Carr, to me, is one of the perfect guys. If you're going to wait late, and maybe you're going to hold two guys.

You hold Derek Carr and somebody else, and you can play those two matchups. You get Derek Carr because you know that his early schedule is great, and you know you can ditch him once the division games are coming up. All right. This next guy is part of a group of people basically tied in our consensus rankings, but certainly not tied when you look at them individually. Jason has him at 7. I have him at 25. That is shocking to me. That I have him that low. You're that low on him.

And I'll explain that. And Mike has him at 13 right now. And this is Andy Dalton. Yeah. So Andy Dalton, I guess I have the floor, huh? Andy Dalton is to me... I think I have the floor. You have the ceiling. Well done. What happened last year, he was on pace to be one of the top...

four quarterbacks last year. We have a track record from two years prior, where he finished the year as the number three quarterback. So you're talking about a guy who can do it. He slings the ball, and when they get down near the end zone, there are some quarterbacks that don't have that repertoire of...

passing skills in the red zone, and there are some that do. And Andy Dalton does have it. And weapons to do it. And weapons. Now, the downside is he's lost Marvin Jones as a weapon, and he's lost Mohamed Sunu. So I'm a little, I'm not super hot on Andy Dalton. But he is a guy that I think for, you know, that we're forgetting about a little bit. I think as the draft gets closer because of losing Sunu and because of losing Marvin Jones.

His draft stock's going to fall, and he's still a guy with one of the best wide receivers in the league, one of the best tight-in targets, who's done it on multiple years? So I just think, who around him would I say, oh, I've got to have someone else other than Andy Dalton? Well, the one that jumps out to me is, obviously, you're on the Andy Dalton train as opposed to the Big Bin train. You have Dalton much higher than Big Ben in your rankings.

To me, I can make a lot of the arguments you made against Big Ben against Andy Dalton. He said one year of more than 30 touchdowns, one year of more than 4,000 yards passing. It's interceptions. Huh? Interceptions to me, I'm looking at my rankings, and the difference between Big Ben and Andy Dalton is interceptions. Last year, you saw Andy Dalton protect the ball very well. And so I think that that's one of the things that's separating him in my rankings. In addition to that, and we brought this up a minute ago about Big Ben is the fact that Big Ben does not run the ball.

Andy Dalton always gets a couple of touchdowns on the ground, and he'll get you, you know, 200 yards. Yeah, and it's a confidence. It's the differentiator for our rankings is a confidence level. Do I believe that Andy Dalton from the beginning half of last year is what you're going to see this year? Hugh Jackson is not the offensive coordinator of that team anymore. But their quarterback coach is who got promoted to the offensive coordinator. Yeah, I understand. I understand. But you do have a change in potentially the philosophy of...