Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - The TRUTH About Fantasy QB's in 2016

He eats up on bad defenses. Well, yeah, but that's a, that's a mark against him. Yeah, I agree. I don't think he's the type of guy that next year can ever be trusted as a weekly plug-and-play starter, right? We're going from guys, you know, that Matt Ryan or Drew Brees or, you know, even Russell Wilson, if he's healthy, should be able to be in every week starter. Bortles is a streamer. You have to play the matchups with Bortles. And obviously,

considering he finishes the number nine quarterback this season, despite having an atrocious season, he's got those big games where you can look and say this matchup is winnable, play him. So draft-wise. And he runs the ball a little bit. Next year, grab him late and pair him with someone else. So you should be fine. The latest fantasy football calculator draft, he was the 14th quarterback off the board. Yeah, so no risk. Yeah, that's. Russell Wilson is number 10. Would you take Russell Wilson or would you rather have Stafford or Prescott? Next year.

Now, you got to remember, Wilson went as high as 32 in Stanley League. Yeah, he was the new hotness. I wonder if people will look at his final finish and take that as that's what he is. People got burned this year after drafting him high last year. That means next year he'll be. Same story with Newton.

Right. Wilson and Newton are the two most interesting draft quarterbacks for me because both have shown you top three years. And Wilson's done it for multiple years at the top three. Russell Wilson is going to be a great draft pick next year. Yeah. Last year, we're not exactly 100% sure why. I just looked up the numbers. So between weeks one and nine, last season he was the 17th ranked quarterback. Are we talking Wilson? Russell Wilson. This year between weeks one and nine, he was the 17th ranked quarterback, identical.

Right? The second half of last year, he finished as the number two quarterback during that time. Second half of this year, the number four quarterback. What I like about it, what I like about it is one, people got burned in their drafts. And the first half of this year, the continuation from his hotness last year, there's reason.

There was all the injuries where he was an immobile pocket quarterback that looked like he couldn't move and he didn't have an offensive line to protect him. Once he was mobile, he got it going again and looked like last year. So I think next year, we've already seen Russell Wilson, as Andy said, finished as a top three fantasy quarterback before. I think he's going to be a great pick next year. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited about a bounceback here, hopefully something that lasts the entire year and we don't have a...

third straight year of him being a 17th ranked guy to start the year because you can't stick with that. That's the problem. You draft that and you pay, if you paid a draft premium, now I think it'll go in the sixth round. I think it'll go on the sixth round, which I'm happy to pay. Yeah. Seventh round, I've already got a good team that I've drafted in those first six picks and I can take a gamble on a high upside quarterback like Wilson. And I'd take, I'd rather, if I knew I could get Wilson in the seventh round versus that when I said luck in the fifth earlier, I'd probably take Wilson in the seventh.

Yeah, grab two more good players. All right. We're back out of the top 10 here. We have Derek Carr, Andy Dalton, Marcus Marriota, Philip Rivers, and Tom Brady. Kind of an outlier down there thanks to the 12 games. So let's talk about these guys here. The things that stick out to me were the consistency of Andy Dalton and Philip Rivers. They finished 12 and 14, but their consistency was 18 and 24. Who's the most disappointing?

Or do you kind of just say, okay, you didn't have Keenan Allen, he didn't have Danny Woodhead, so who cares about Rivers? And Dalton didn't have AJ Green and Dalton didn't have Geo Bernard. I mean, it's kind of similar situations for those two guys. Rivers disappoints me more than Dalton did. For me, when I look, not only did you not have A.J. Green, but you also lost Muhammad Sunu.

and Marvin Jones. I mean, he was going, you know, we knew it was going to be tough sledding for Andy Dalton. He lost his top three wide receivers from last year. Philip Rivers still had a good core of wide receivers to throw to minus Keenan Allen. And Rivers was a touchdown machine. To me, Andy Dalton showed there were times this year where I saw him be what I think he is, which is a pretty darn good quarterback. I expect AJ Green to be back.

I expect, you know, you're not going to have a rookie year Tyler Boyd being kind of shunned as a rookie. And they'll probably address the position further this offseason. So next year, Andy Dalton is a guy to me that is always undervalued and is a good quarterback. If they can get weapons for him, I'll like him. Derek Carr obviously slipped down the list. He had a great start. Almost 4,000 yards, 28 touchdowns, only six interceptions.

which was impressive to me. He's really maturing and growing in one of those guys that you can certainly look at and say, hey, he could be a top eight quarterback easily. Could be. He missed a game. He could be. And he still has the, he eats against bad defense. It's almost 300 yards game against bad defenses, but top half defenses toward 30 yards. I mean, those are pretty substantial differences where,

I like Carr. I think that he could be there one day, but you're going to have to... One of the best offensive lines in football. Right. Two great pass-catching weapons in Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree, great pass-catching running backs as a trio of them. But you can't count on him against great defenses. Right. He plays Denver twice. And he plays the Chiefs twice. Yeah. That's four of your 12.

Possibly. It could be four of your 12 games. Yep. We talked about Dalton. Marcus Mariotis. The last thing I wanted to say about Dalton was this year he threw about seven touchdowns less than his average. If you average out his first five years, seven touchdowns down. So if you put those, you know, that if he just threw it, if he had an average year, he would be fine. I think you're, if you're listening.

And you hear some of these same phrases, which is, well, he could, you know, this guy can come back next year. You know, Derek Carr could be top eight. Andy Dalton, he's got reason to bounce back to the mean. In Philip Rivers, you got Keenan Allen back. You're getting the picture, right, at the quarterback position. Because we haven't even talked about Mariotta and Brady and Winston and Newton and Rothesberger. These are guys not even mentioned, Eli Manning. You know, there's 20 names. He should not be mentioned Eli Manning. Okay.

gross this year. It was gross. Terrible. Yeah, it was really bad. Forget fantasy. You just watched the game. He must have been on a boat every week. Marcus Mariotta, 15 games, sat a game, obviously the injury. But Mario to finish 13th was the ninth most consistent, had a couple top two performances. So those monster games where, for the record, Dalton, Rivers, Bortles, none. Those guys never put up a top two performance. Mario daughter did that twice. It wasn't.

It was in the passing game, right? 26 touchdowns, nine interceptions, looked great, built a rapport with Ashard Matthews, but still had some games that were let you down. Yeah, Marcus Mariotta, it reminds me that the situation is very similar to deck in that, I mean, you have a decently mobile guy. The offense is not built on his back. It's built on the running game.

but Dak has Des Bryant and Marcus Marriota has Richard Matthews. While I like Matthews, he's no Desbrons. He's not Des Bryant. And I don't think that they will have it. Maybe they draft one. I mean, they've got some good picks in this upcoming year. So maybe that's what they do and they address that situation. But I feel like Mario, I think he's going to be drafted too high for me. I think he'll be, yeah.

I think people are going to latch onto him this office. Especially if they pick up a stud water. He's probably going to end up around the Stafford area. And so it sounds like you guys would be much more excited about drafting Stafford than you would be Mario. Yeah, I would.

I probably would as well. I'm not quite as down on Mario da. I'm not down on him. He impressed me a lot. The reality is here. I mean, I mean, you just said it. We haven't talked about Brady or Cam Newton or Rothlessberger or Winston. I mean, there's just so many quarterbacks. You don't need. I mean, I'm fine with just about anyone we have mentioned. Obviously, no Eli Manning and Tyrod Taylor.

might not even have a team. We don't know yet. But otherwise, give me any of them. And I don't remember Andy who you were saying. You're like, well, the yardage is just gross. I mean, you have Marcus Mariotta against top 16 defenses averaging 190 passing yards. And I know he has the 22 rushing yards. Oh, it was Tyrod Taylor. He has 22 rushing yards. That kind of balances things out a little bit. That's, you know, you're adding.

basically 50 yards, 50 passing yards with those rushing yards. But it's, I don't think that it's, I don't think it's going to be there next year for Mario to be that top level fantasy quarterback. All right, I want to talk about Tom Brady. He may be the last quarterback we discussed on today's show. Brady ended up at 15. We know the story. He was suspended. We also know the impact that Rob Gruncowski has. And I'm looking at his splits, right? Because the story about Brady is obviously,

You know, he can win you any week. He has those monster performances. This year, the story was a couple of things. You had 18 rushing touchdowns from Lagart Blunt. You had Rob Grankowski's injury. If you look at the splits with Grankowski this year, without Grancowski this year, it's about a three-point difference for Brady. You drag that back to 2011 until now with and without Grancowski. It's about a three-point difference. When Grancowski's there.

He averages about three more points fantasy-wise than when he's gone. And so you know that impact, but it's not a devastating impact. What is Brady next year? Foof. Because he ended up the ninth most consistent despite missing the four games. So obviously, you know, he puts up numbers. Right. I think he's probably going to be overdrafted next year because he'll be one of the top.

three or four quarterbacks drafted. And while he is good, I wouldn't give up the capital it will cost to get Brady, who is not a fantasy elite guy. When you look at Brady Breeze. Breeze. Yeah, I would take Breeze. Breeze will go much, maybe not much later, but he'll go later. And Breeze is just, you know, they are a passing, passing, passing team. Brady or Matt Ryan? Ooh.

Jason is just staring me down. Oh, man. Brady or Matt Ryan, I'll take. It depends on how far I can get Matt Ryan to drop. I would rather take Mike Ryan, you know, three rounds later. But if they're near the same, I'm taking Tom Brady. Yeah, if they're near the same, I'll pass both. All that means is if they're near the same, because I know Brady's going to be high, that means Matt Ryan's going to be high and I'll pass both. All right. So Brady ended at 15, ninth most consistent.

Missed the four games. Obviously belongs in that upper echelon with Rogers, Ryan, Luck, Breeze. I guess, you know, Jason doesn't like Matt Ryan. But, you know, I'm... Hey, man. Hey, these things happen. I think Matt Ryan's good. I think Matt Ryan will be a six to ten quarterback next year in fantasy. I'm just going to throw some other names out there just for your understanding of where guys finished. Winston was 16. Newton was 17. Big Ben was 18. If you remember how high he was drafted, way too high.

53 was his ADP and standard leagues. Our listeners didn't draft them. We gave massive warnings on Big Ben. And we were really ripped for that. Oh, because the beginning of the year, like, didn't Big Ben start with like a game or two that was just amazing? And then it was like, oh, man. Let me guess. Was he playing at home? Before the season started, we were being ripped for Big Ben thoughts. Carson Palmer was 19. So just to accentuate, Big Ben played six games at home.

Eight games on the road. Are you looking at the splits? At home, this season, this is just this season. Right. And this is not a outlier. You can go back many years for Big Ben. But this year, the six games at home, over 31 points a game on the road, just over 16 points a game. That's about it. Come his production in half. And that's what he gives you on the road. Week one and two, he had three touchdowns in week one, three touchdowns in week one, three touchdowns. Week two, I was feeling like a dummy.

for saying don't draft Big Ben when he was in the fifth round. And the best part about Big Ben is that he will be drafted so high. He's a Hall of Fame quarterback. He's going to go so high. It's just a free bypass pick. And it makes no sense. How is he that bad on the road? Other than Big Ben and Breeze, we should walk through some of the other quarterbacks on our own and see if we can find any monster home road split guys that we're not maybe as aware of. Sure.