The TRUTH: Top 10 Fantasy QBs + Scramby Daniels - Fantasy Football Podcast for 1/16

Uh, Jalen McMillions, uh, at the end of the year was a touchdown machine. And those things really helped take Baker to become an elite fantasy asset this year. But we have enough seasons of his data where it's not just the truth of this year, but the truth of this human and this player. I don't think he's as good for fantasy as he was this year. Nine times this year in the top 10 at the position. One time last year. And if you remember, just so this is, this is the truth, right? This is, this is kind of a little bit of a reflection of what the thinking was.

The great fear was Dave Canales departure. Yep. Now you've got Liam Cohen getting head coaching job offers. Good departing to Jacksonville. And so you, you, you looked at that and you say, Hey, what did I like about Tampa coming into the season? They brought back the same offensive talent, right? Like they were, they brought Baker back, committed to him. Evans was back. Godwin was back. Rashad white was there. Like there was a lot of consistency. The offensive coordinator didn't, uh, it changed, but we saw that Baker could execute in a different offense. And gosh, that guy's had, and how many offenses has Baker gone through at this point?

Sure. If you, it's funny to think about Baker. Cause if you go back to, he's in Carolina, right? They let him and Darnold go. His career was made by that one unbelievable drive for the Rams. Yes. Where he shows up off of the street, leads them down the field, makes every throw. And all of a sudden it's renewed in people's minds that he could be a court. And I, I remember when Tampa signed him, I was like, Oh, well, what? Like, yeah, this doesn't feel like your future. I have, but he definitely feels like their future now. And the fact that he is the face of a franchise again, kind of having gone through what he

went through, I could see him elevating his game over his career averages for sure. Going forward, just saying like, I now have a support system, a team, a well run organization around him. So he can certainly succeed. I don't think it'll be to the degree of 40 passing touchdowns ever again in his career. But he is, he is a good quarterback and the rushing, he's not that different than what Burrow did this year. The rushing is what we hope sticks because you look at the last several years, you know, he came from college. He was a mobile quarterback. He ran a lot, but his whole career is 131 rushing yards, 141, 165, 134, 163, 378 rushing yards.

I mean, if you do that, that's a baseline where you don't need to throw 40 touchdowns again next year. You remember before he became the quarterback for Tampa, it was Kyle Trask talk. People thought Trask could be the start of it. The good old days. I wonder who would talk about Kyle Trask like that. I don't know who would. Jason. Weirdos. And his weird love for Kyle Trask. I like to state that. It does give me an idea of, because we're always trying to figure out, is there, what you should do for the footies. We need a footie for, like, the dog.

The dog of the year. Oh. Who's on that x-ray? Yeah. Who's got that dog in there? Yeah. Who's got multiple pit bulls inside? Now, is that a fantasy corollary stat? That's the hard part. Who's got the dog in them? We will decide. You'll know. We'll know. That's a film study. Watch Baker this year. Award. The dog. The scramby of the year? No. I mean, he's. Like a Denver on it? I'm not taking it out of, I'm not taking it away from games, but like, when you watch Baker play it, I'm like, oh, this is a man. Multiple plays where people are taking him down on a set.

Yeah. Bosa. He's stiff-arming him, dragging him for yards. Yeah. That's pretty good. That wasn't athleticism. That was dog. It's a new stat in the UDK. We're adding the dog factor. It means nothing for fantasy. He's got four wolves. You know what I mean? I knew that was coming. Baker at five is wild, though. A couple bow-lows. I had Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield. Like, I had gone from Josh Allen in Dynasty to Kyler, I thought. No, I went from Josh Allen to Baker. Yeah. It's just weird how things change. Speaking of changing, Jalen Hurts comes in at six, drafted as the QB2.

Was he a bust? No. He's not a bust, but he was not the player you drafted in the third round. He didn't deliver on that for your team. Number three in consistency in the first half. The second half killed you. Number six in consistency, but, you know, he had a big stretch of games, week 11 through 16, where he didn't play in week 17, your championship week. Week 16 was 33rd, got hurt, got the, you know, not his fault. But that is scored in this. Yeah, it is scored. And then he had some mediocre weeks earlier. 27% great, 53% good, 13% bust.

So, yeah, he never hurt you. I mean, I guess that's the question. Beat up bad teams. I won't declare it. Yeah, he was way better against bad teams. I won't declare that it's a bust, but do you think that he was worth the pick? I think he was probably worth the pick. He was a very consistent part of your... Yeah, the middle of the season was, like, that was a run where you were, you won four games in a row because of Jalen Hurts. Yeah, and if you, I mean, obviously, it's cherry picking. He hurt a lot of people in the playoffs when he, I mean, this was, like, probably the biggest

injury of the season from an individual game standpoint in the playoffs. Yeah. Right in the beginning of the game, plays 16% of snaps, and he goes out. And that was devastating for fantasy. But if you remove that, because we're talking about what's the truth of the player, when he played a full game, which is the only thing you can really rely on. You're never going to take prescriptive action based on a player missing a game early, unless it's T. Higgins. And you go, what's going to happen again? This guy was the third in consistency. He was the fourth in consistency.

Even in the second half, if you remove that game, they weren't all massive bangers, but they, they, he'd never let you down. Here's, here's the change of value proposition, though, is that this will be Saquon's team again. And you went from 3,800 passing yards to 2,900, right? You're under 3,000. So you're now talking about 1,600 yards to 1,800 yards fewer than the top passers. He went from 23 touchdowns to 18. That's 15 games, though. Basically, 14 games. He scored 14 times on the ground. Fourth consecutive year with double digits on the ground. But we saw at the end of 23 and during some of this season, like it did not feel like Jalen

Hurts was the player that was going to take the game over. It felt like Saquon Barkley might take the game over. He had a weird strategy this year. Hurts did. It was called not throwing it to A.J. Brown. Yeah. I mean, if we're, we had to change our view on Brown during the year. If we're looking at the Eagles, the Eagles are happy to, you know, previous seasons, even last season, their defense was terrible. Their secondary was one you targeted. They go out and they draft two rookies. They hit on both of them. Jalen Carter, you know, was way better this season.

Just got, you know, grew even more into his man body. And the Philadelphia Eagles defense has been awesome. So the second half of a lot of these games, you know, you have games where Jalen Hurts is finishing with how many passing attempts? It's just, you know, I'm looking at the game log here and holy moly, completions, like hitting 20 completions from the bye week. They had a week five bye week. Okay. Super early in the season. He only hit 20 completions once because they didn't need them to. They won all those games. So this is kind of a team makeup to say, you know, kind of to speak what you're talking about, Andy.

This is, they're not going to need to air it out. He's probably not going to, you know, throw for 4,000 yards with this type of a defense. It was Saquon on the roster. We would take 3,000. Yeah. I mean, he would have crossed 3,000. 300 fewer passing attempts than Joe Burrow. Yeah. This is, this is the issue. That's wild. The rushing, unless the tush push goes away, which I think it won't. I mean, that's kind of been tried and died. I would say that it's just such a guarantee that he gets 10 plus rushing touchdowns. Is that fun to not, like Burrow is fun, right?

Burrow is fun to have on your team. You just, he throws the ball so much. The game is just in his hands. Is it as fun right now? Because Hurts with the, the passing numbers would be, he'd be the worst. It would not be good. But because of the rushing totals, he just kind of figures out a way to piece the game together. Is that as fun of an experience? Is it as fun? No, definitely not. But it is. It will be Daniels or Hurts next year for you. Oh, Daniels. I would much rather have Daniels. Will it be Burrow or Hurts?

No draft pick not considered. Yeah. It's tough because. Where's Higgins? On the team. Yeah. I'll probably go Hurts. It's like, it's more fun to have Burrow, but having a quarterback where you know if they get down to, to the one yard line. It's your touchdown. You're like, hey, that's, that's pretty fun. It's like a, a, a free bingo square. That, that would be fun. I've, I've never had that. Um, all right, we'll take a break. We've got four more guys. Jared Goff. Introducing. He was a 10th round pick. He was, he's not drafted in a lot of leagues. Consistency rank of seven.

First half, 11 second half, seven. I don't know what his fantasy story really is. Let's figure this out. Cause 19% great games, 44% good. 38% busts yet throws for four, 4,600 yards, 37 touchdowns. Doesn't run. No rushing touchdowns. Gave you these outstanding, insane weeks, but also busted 38% of the time. Like this is to me, I will clap. Oh, I'll clap for Jared Goff. That's like a golf clap. I'll give a golf clap to Jared Goff because you're a great NFL quarterback, but I don't want that experience. This is not like what I want on my fans. Jared Goff's a QB two streamer.

That finished at seven. Yeah. Cause he can, he's, he's the streamer who can have gigantic games. Like when, when you're, when you're desperately looking at the waiver wire and you're like, Oh, this guy has a good matchup. I hope I get 200 to 250 and hopefully we get two touchdowns. Like when you stream Jared Goff in the right situation, four touchdowns is not impossible. Yeah. He's, it's, they're such a weird office cause they're, they're insanely overpowered, but frequently, I mean, until Montgomery got hurt, it was like, you have a, you have one David Montgomery touchdown per week that Jared Goff is not allowed to throw.

It was helpful down the stretch. All the, for fantasy purposes, all the injuries that amassed on the Detroit lines. Cause to start the year, the lions were, their defense was outstanding. You couldn't run on them. And it looked like you finally couldn't really throw easily on them. And so then their running game could take over. Although they didn't always, sometimes they would continue passing, but towards the end of the year, you know, weeks 14, 15, 16, 17, uh, he had to air it out. You lost David Montgomery. And guess who got hurt? So the beginning of week, it was a, it was a nice combination, but this is, you know, you

talk about a pocket passer, like Baker has been a pocket passer. Burrow is a pocket passer. No, this is a, this is a pot. He averages three rushing yards a game. He had five games where he finished with negative rushing or this is, he ain't moving. Well, I don't like a fantasy situation where if the team's plan went the way they wanted it to go, your player would not score a lot of fancy points. I agree completely. And that's where, you know, it's like Jalen hurts is not that right. Not quite, but it was more of that this year when the identity became someone else.

We didn't see that with Lamar, but with golf specifically, if they could, if they could run it on every down and play defense, that's what they would do. This is the first time that we've had 4,600 yards, 35 touchdowns in a team with 14 wins where the guy doesn't win the MVP. I mean, Marino and Warner and Brady and Rogers, one Mahomes year. And then we didn't get it. And then, uh, golf this year won't win it. No, he will not, but I mean, like basically if, if Alan and Lamar hadn't broken everything, like Jared Goff probably wins the MVP.

Yeah. Uh, the home road splits. Cause we like to mention it with the dominator. He was only three points better at home. That's not domination. No, no. That's more, more balanced. And then Jared Goff next year could potentially have a Ben Johnson problem. I think he's gone for sure. Their OC where, uh, as this recording, cause the Ben Johnson news could leak probably whenever. Uh, but it might have to wait till after the Superbowl again, but we're just not sure, but I'm with Andy. I think Ben Johnson will take one of the jobs this year. Seems like Las Vegas too.

And then it will, yeah, at least yeah. The rumor mill is heating up for that. And what is this? What is this office? I know there, I know there, they got killer pieces that have played together, uh, for years now, but it will be a, it will be a big change. It will worry me a little bit. Yeah. Ben Johnson is my favorite coordinator. If I, if I were, you know, if I were hiring a head coach for my team, he was the one that I would want because he has Jared Goff. He's not, he's not playing with a Joe Burrow or a, uh, you know, Patrick Mahomes and you

just keep recycling. Goff was traded away to the lions. So they would eat his contract and then he would be a bridge quarterback until they found their real quarterback. And then their success turned that upside down. I don't want to take anything away from Goff. Who's played excellent ball, but it's, it's been a both situation. I don't think Goff single-handedly elevated Ben Johnson to become a star name as a coordinator. I think they both worked really well together. So when he leaves next year, it will be, uh, it'll, it'll be a big wild card to see how they progress. And this is a player, like I said, because he's so pocket passer, this is the best, you

know, year of his career. Um, I, I think he had one year kind of like this with the Rams in a yesteryear, but he threw 37 touchdowns and played pretty perfect ball. And he was okay for fantasy. He was good for fantasy, but he wasn't great. This wasn't a player that you were super excited about. So I'm not sure how in I will be on golf next year. The, uh, I believe Mike uttered something about bridge quarterbacks. So let's get to number eight, Sam Darnold, 14 inconsistency in the first half, nine in the second half ends at number 10 inconsistency.

So a little less consistent ranking wise than his fantasy finish only 6% great games. So if you caught lightning in a bottle in week two or 14, uh, congrats. I mean, a lot of good games. Yeah. 44% good. 25% bust, but, uh, it wasn't the upper echelon performer was the point. Like he didn't have a lot of those week winning performances, which is a lot of which is fine. I mean, he still had a, uh, an amazing year for what we were expecting out of Sam Darnold. We talked about him a lot at the top, so we don't have to linger very long, but, uh, 33

passing touchdowns. So that was a career high. He was like a relevant fantasy streamer, which was cool. He looked good this season. Um, the truth about Darnold is that he can play when he's got great weapons and a good coach. Uh, he is also shakeable, shakeable. He is shakeable. Shakeable. Yeah. I mean, he, he was, you know, this is the player who sadly famously said, he's seeing ghosts. He admitted that, you know, and when he was jet and the last believe anyone would ever wear a microphone ever after that month. Like he was mic'd up and this thing goes out and gets leaked.

We all think we would be so smart and we would be the worst. Oh, we would be the, we had microphones on. I wouldn't even play the football game. I'd just be, you wouldn't be allowed. You'd be banned. Yeah. That's what I'm saying of like, I seeing that happen to him. Like you're never putting a mic on me. Mahomes comes in at number nine consistency. First half consistency. 24 second half. Okay. Eight. Neither of those are remotely close to drafting him in the third round as the quarterback three with all the hopes that he could come back and perform 13% great games, 25% good.

Those numbers added up are not 50%, not even close 38% bust games. So by my math, that is an equal number, right? That is 38% bust 38% greater good. Yeah. That's tough, man. It wasn't a fun ride with Patrick Mahomes this season. If you drafted him, you probably didn't make the playoffs because while he was okay down the stretch, like the second half of the season, he was at a couple of games. He got it together. I don't know if that was Xavier worthy kind of coming into his own. He started having more big games, more touchdowns down the stretch.

Maybe that was very, very helpful. You know, got Pacheco back for the running game. The defense got a little bit worse down the stretch. All those things come together. But the truth of Patrick Mahomes this year is that if you drafted him, you did not make the playoffs because you had Patrick Mahomes and you had to play him for at least five, six, seven weeks. And he just dotted every single time. His first good game came in week nine. That is, your season's over by then. And it's really hard when you spend a third round pick on the best quarterback in the NFL