Top 16 Fantasy QBs | 'NFL Fantasy Live'

Greetings, human beings and some of you pretending. This is Patrick Claybon here on NFL Fantasy Live, along with Marcas Grant and Michael Florio here to get you set for the 2024 fantasy season. It is draft week. Sign up today at NFL.com. Slash fantasy. A message for those with the number one overall pic. Stop using the entire clock. What do we do to these people Marcus. I mean I think we should force them to take a kicker in the second round. Probably the best way to go about it. I was going to say they should have to do a lap around the block, and if they're not back by the time their next pick comes, they don't pick again until they get back. It makes sense, of course, facilitate the draft however you want. It's your league. Set it up again. NFL.com slash fantasy. Use whatever settings you like and what your friends find is the most enjoyable. Of course, quarterbacks a big part of fantasy. They score most of the points. We're all they're all we talk about in real football. So let's discuss the top 16 quarterbacks in fantasy. We're going to give them each a minute apiece. And we'll start Mike with the quarterback. One who happens to play for your number one team. Yeah people are going to say I'm a homer or whatever here. But like Josh Allen has been the best fantasy football quarterback for years now. You know like last year was the QB1. Three of the last four seasons he has finished as the QB1. And the one year he didn't, he played a game less than every other quarterback. So I think you just he's safe. He's secure. You know what you're getting out of Josh Allen. He can run. He can pass. He could do all of that. I don't see any reason to. Not the only reason I wouldn't take Josh Allen is because I could wait and get a quarterback later. But if I'm taking one first it's Josh Allen. Yeah. I mean, I think the thing is, are you willing to sort of spend up and pay the draft price to get a Josh Allen? But in terms of what he brings to the table, there's no argument right there. We want quarterbacks with that rushing upside. He has that in abundance. We want guys who can throw the football effectively. We know that he can do that as well. Now if there's one small bit of concern, it is that he's sort of breaking in almost a completely brand new wide receiver group. No more Stefon Diggs, no more Gabe Davis. But I think in terms of what he does athletically, there's no argument for me. Yeah. Continued success and excellence for Josh Allen, especially in fantasy football terms. It was not a successful finish for the guy that Mike has as the quarterback two and that's Jalen Hurts Marcus, do you feel good with hurts at number two here. Yeah I do because I think he sort of brings you a little bit of what Josh Allen does right. He's going to run with the football. He's going to throw the ball certainly effectively. And we know that he has plenty of weapons between AJ Brown Devonta Smith. They add Saquon Barkley now as another weapon in the backfield who can catch the football. You know who knows how much we see the tush push this year. If it is still a major part of the Eagles offensive Arsenal. But either way there's so much to like about Jalen Hurts. It's hard to go away from him at number two. Yeah. And even if we see les Tush push I mean ten rushing touchdowns in three straight years I think he's a lock for at least eight. And then you talk about the new offensive coordinator there Kellen Moore. Like more downfield passes more explosive passes, which I think is the reason I'm so excited. On AJ Brown and Devonta Smith. Like either one or both. Could have a career year. And if those guys are going off, Jalen Hurts is going to be going off as well. And then we've also seen Saquon Barkley help running quarterbacks because defenders now have to be like, do I want to on the option. Do I want to tackle Saquon or do I go after the quarterback. So maybe we get even more rushing yards too? Yeah so many years. Saquon was the lone option. It's not the same in Philadelphia. The Eagles came up short to this quarterback. Who's the quarterback three. Who had his worst season ever last year. He was the quarterback eight. That was a bad season for Patrick Mahomes. But you feel good about him at three. Mike yeah I think we're going to get the deep ball back in Kansas City. They made it a clear emphasis of them this offseason. They got Marquise Brown in there. They drafted the fastest wide receiver in combine history and Xavier Worthy. And that was the thing. The last two years without Tyreek Hill the Chiefs have kind of been having a dink and dunk. And Mahomes set two years ago set the record for short yardage touchdown passes. Last year. He had the most dropped yards in the NFL with these speedsters back we're going to get the long ball back. I think there's a clear path for Mahomes to potentially finish as the QB1. Yeah no, I mean, I'm with you. So far I've been in lockstep with the top three guys. You have. I've got Mahomes at number three as well because we talk about, you know, we want quarterbacks who have that rushing upside. If they don't run a ton, we want somebody who can be incredibly efficient throwing the football. And nobody does that better than Patrick Mahomes. I mean, you're looking at a guy who, you know, seems like almost a lock. It feels like for 5000 passing yards is going to get you, you know, in the neighborhood of 30 to 35 touchdowns for sure. So no problems at all with Mahomes. Again it's just more about whether or not you want to spend to get him on your roster. We'll continue this trend of good fantasy quarterbacks who happen to be very good, real life quarterbacks. The two time MVP now is Lamar Jackson. He's Mike's quarterback for yep he's my quarterback for as well. Although he's quarterback four in my rankings. He's quarterback number one. In my heart though. He's the guy. He is the guy that I've been targeting in a lot of drafts because we know he can run with the football. Florio talked about what Saquon Barkley potentially means for some of those option plays there for the Eagles. Well think the same thing with Derrick Henry. Now there in Baltimore. Look I'm not sure how much we're going to see them throw the ball. We've never seen an enormous passing season from Lamar. But he'll get you you know 36 3800 yards which really is good enough. Yeah I love Lamar. Nothing has changed in Baltimore from last season. And he got better and better in the new offensive system last year. The reason I have him for and not higher is because the first two guys get the rushing touchdowns and that Lamar does not get, and that adds a lot of fantasy value. And then I just expect Mahomes to kind of get back to that special. Mahomes with these receivers there. But if you want to push Lamar three two, even one eye, you're not going to get an argument on that. Well, and all of these top guys, we've got super Bowls, we've got MVP's championship games in both conferences. And now for our next guy, number five Mike. We got a second year guy. We haven't even seen him play five games. Yeah. No I know to some this might seem like a hot take, but I'm an upside drafter, especially when you get out of the first couple of rounds and no quarterback brings more upside than Anthony Richardson. I said only the top two guys can give you those rushing touchdowns. Well, Richardson just like Hurts and Allen could give you double digit touchdowns. But just like Lamar could potentially run for 1000 yards I trust his coach. I like the playmakers around him. And in the two full games he played last year, he averaged 25 fantasy points per game. I know there might be some rough games passing wise, but once he starts running, you want him in fantasy and that's the thing. We want that rushing upside. That's why we loved him last year. That's why we love him this year. I've got him right around QB six, so I'm not really far off from where Florio has him at this point. But you know, like we've seen the excitement building over him. Want to see how he sort of develops as a passer. That was the one big question mark with him coming into the NFL. Obviously because of the shoulder injury, we didn't get to see a lot of it last year, so hopefully he's able to stay healthy over the course of the season. But I think the ceiling potential is very high. Yeah, and we just want to see him on the field. We were glad to get Mike's quarterback six back on the field. And even then when Kyler Murray comes back he still has a solid quarterback performance. How do you view him coming into this year? I do like Kyler, and I love the fact that everybody has jumped on board the Kyler bandwagon, especially the last couple of weeks. I think what happened, the reason we saw him so much lower at the start of fantasy draft season, is that I think we just kind of forgot, right? It's been a while. It feels like since we've seen a full season's worth of Kyler Murray, but when he's been healthy, he's been a lock as a top ten quarterback. He I think is going to be that again. Now, maybe he's not going to run the way he did earlier in his career, but he can still get you 4 to 500 rushing yards. And Mike the addition of Marvin Harrison Jr I know has everybody super excited. Yeah I'm excited about him I'm excited about Trey McBride. But to your point about the running he is now a full year removed from that ACL injury. So we usually see an uptick in running numbers the second year after that injury. Plus this guy's already been top nine in fantasy points per game every year since his rookie season, including last year where remember down the stretch most of his pass catchers starting pass catchers were hurt. So it's a huge upgrade. I'm very bullish on Kyler and this Cardinals offense as a whole. Yeah good to see Kyler back. We get another chance to see a guy who lit it up as a rookie. We've been wondering what Texan do we want. Maybe we want the quarterback who's going to give it to all the Texans. Yeah, it's going to be frustrating. I think. Week two is this a CJ a Nico Collins game. Is it a tank game. Is it a Steph Diggs game. Well every week is a CJ Stroud game because all of their production gets baked into his. And last year C.J. Stroud. We know how good he was. He was off the charts. He's arguably already the best deep ball passer in the NFL. He's got one of the best receiving cores, like we said. And last year he scored the fourth most fantasy points ever. As a rookie, we usually see the biggest jump in their careers come from year one to year two. So that's a scary thought for C.J. Stroud. It really is. And you look go you go back and look at the Texans offense. Their passing play percentage, like the percentage of time they threw the ball, wasn't as high as you would think it was, but they were slinging that thing. I mean, you talk about air yards. C.J. Stroud was one of the top quarterbacks when it came to air yards per attempt. So they were taking shots downfield. And you talk about the wide receivers. He was already very good with Nico Collins and Tank Dell. Stefon Diggs might not be the player he was a handful of years ago, but he's still talented. You add that to the offense. The quarterback can only get better from there. All right. The last one we'll do in this group of the top 16 quarterbacks, maybe a little surprised to see rain Dakota Prescott at number eight. We know his head coach doesn't want to run the ball a whole lot. How do you view Dak a little bit surprised to see Dak here. Because there's a guy in Cincinnati that I thought would sneak into the top eight a little bit. But I think you look at Dak and you look at this offense. You know we were we were joking before the show Patrick that Mike McCarthy might call five running plays all season long all year. Look they got CeeDee lamb back in the fold after his holdout. We know that Dak and KD have a really good thing going. And this is a Cowboys team that I think is going to have to score a lot of points consistently to win football games, so I do think there's a volume there. I just would like to wait on him maybe a little bit if I could. Yeah. The reason I have Dak ahead of Joe is not only do I think he'll run a little bit more, but Joe Burrow is coming off of an injury that really no quarterback has ever had to come back from. So if I'm paying up for a quarterback, I like to mitigate risk a little bit. And to both of your guys, points, nothing has changed in Dallas except for the running back room. Got worse. So that could mean even more passing volume for Dak Prescott. And maybe even they encourage him to scramble on his own a little bit more like hey, if our running backs can't get the yardage, but you can go do it. We'll see how that impacts Dak here in 2024. Where is Joe Burrow? Is Joe Burrow in Mike's top 16. Find out because we got quarterbacks eight. Excuse me nine through 16. Coming up later on here on NFL Fantasy Live. But before we get to that let's get to some news That's tonight, 7:00 eastern on greatness. Today Greatness. You know what time it is Joe Mixon Joe, for getting it done. Yeah. Let's go baby let's go. It's up to us. Throws it into the back left corner of the end zone. Yeah yeah great throw baby to the ten. The five toward the pylon. Yeah that's what I'm talking about. Yeah we got it baby. Oh you got to love it. Take a knee. Just keep the football. You don't want to keep it. All right. Back here on NFL Fantasy Live. Continuing our countdown of Michael Florio's rankings of the top 16 fantasy quarterbacks. We just saw him. Is he featured in your list Mike. Yeah, he's next up. He's he's number nine here. And look I love Joe Burrow the human I love watching him play football. The issue is out of all of these top nine quarterbacks he comes with the most injury risk. The hand tt he's dealing with. Remember in the last year he had the calf. He's mistimed prior to that as well. But the upside is there. He's got great receivers. We know how talented he is. The other thing though for fantasy is he does not run. So while he's got top ten upside his it's more capped around QB five. His best finish of all time is QB four. So that's probably his ceiling. So now I've got burrow right around QB seven. So again, I'm not far off from where you are, just a little bit higher on him. And thanks to Patrick here I have taken the phrase if he can stay healthy out of my lexicon because it applies to every single player. I like what this offense is. We saw when the calf injury stopped bothering him, how much more effective he is. He's got Jamaar chase. He still has T Higgins I think Jermaine Burton can really be a nice option for him. Even Mike I know Mike Gesicki is a guy we sort of like, you know, use as a punch line at tight end, but he's still going to be a productive player. There's a lot of weapons there in Cincinnati, so we took a brief break from quarterbacks who can run with Joe Burrow. Mike gets right back into it with his number ten quarterback. That's Washington Commanders now starter Jayden Daniels yeah Jayden Daniels I'm a little bit lower on him but not much. Again I have him at like QB 12. So again I'm not really far off from where Florio is. We love him because of the rushing upside right? We've talked about it with Anthony Richardson. It was in the past while we were starting Justin Fields. We're still not sure about Justin Fields as an actual NFL quarterback, but we know we love him in fantasy. The upside for me with Daniels is that I think he is a more polished passer than either Richardson or Fields were coming into their NFL careers. I don't know about the weapons beyond Terry McLaurin, but Daniels himself can make it happen with his legs and that's the whole thing. Over 2000 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns his last two seasons in college. His OC is the same guy who made Kyler Murray a QB one as a rookie. But there's a lot of safe floor quarterbacks. We're about to talk about a whole bunch of them. So when if I'm drafting a quarterback in this range, I'm targeting upside because I can then pair one of those safe floor quarterbacks with Daniels and get the best of both worlds. Jayden Daniels, OC now was helping call plays for Caleb Williams college team. The numbers did go down. There were some other changes there as well, but Caleb Williams your next quarterback. Next is Jordan Love. Yeah Caleb is right after him. But I know some people might be like Jordan love is not a top ten quarterback. There's 11 guys that I wish I could make. Top ten quarterbacks. The reason I put love on the outside is because of all of the pocket passers. Dak Burrow, those guys. He is the least proven. But and he doesn't run a ton like a Jayden Daniels. Might like a Anthony Richardson will. So that's why I have him where I do. But I'm very excited for Jordan Love. We know that he's got one of the best receiving rooms in the league, or at least one that brings a ton of upside. There's nothing that he's done in the preseason or the end of last season. He was the qb2 in the second half of the season. Last year he was you know, it's funny though, because like the first part of the season, he started with 320 point games. They weren't really pretty to watch. I mean, the they were they were, you know the efficiency wasn't great. But he had a lot of touchdown upside. I think that's sort of what helps him. I've got him just inside my top ten at about number nine. But I'm also you know he's the guy in the top ten that I'm probably the most shaky on at this point. I do love the fact, though, that last year when the Packers got near the goal line, more often than not they were throwing the football. That helps with Love's touchdown upside. Not as shaky as me counting to the number 12, which I think I have safely done now. Fight on Marcas Caleb Williams yeah Caleb Williams fight on. Yeah the numbers went down last year. But I think that's some of the situation. He had a poor defense. He was forced to play hero ball. But we saw his playmaking ability on display in the preseason. It does look like he's got a nice rapport with Rome Odunze he's got a deep wide receiver room. I think he runs just enough. I actually have him just ahead of Jayden Daniels. I got Daniels at 12. I've got Williams at 11. I think he finally breaks that 4000 yard ceiling for a bears quarterback. Ranked covers his eyes again. Exactly the earmuffs Adam rank but I do I'm all in with Caleb Williams as a QB1. This year I love it. Upside that's what I care about in this range of the draft. And he brings it. Like Marcus said, great improviser, elite wide receiver, arguably the best wide receiver room in the NFL. Plus, I think he's a better runner than he gets credit for, especially near the goal line. And we saw that in the preseason. I think five, maybe even a couple more rushing touchdowns are in play and rushing touchdowns really elevate both your floor and your ceiling as a fantasy quarterback. So I'm fine with it. The next four quarterbacks are all safe floors. Pair one of them with Williams. All right let's get let's get the next safe floor right after Caleb Williams. You have Brock Purdy Mike I know QB six last year seven points per game. People are gonna be like 13 is low again. It's just because of my preference of how I like to draft. If I'm going sooner than this, I want upside and I do think even some of the pocket passers like Joe Burrow, Dak Prescott bring more upside than Brock, but he has such a safe floor. My only concern and Marcus can speak about this probably as a 40 Niner fan. More than I can. But Trent Williams and Brandon Aiyuk situation right now is very scary for Brock Purdy. He also had by far the highest rate of end zone passes turned to touchdowns last year. So if we see some regression there, that will probably lead to him being more of a low end QB one. Yeah, I mean, it feels like sometimes Kyle Shanahan's out there trying to win Brock Purdy the Heisman Trophy. The way they use him and throw the football a little bit. But I'm with you. The Trent Williams situation is a concern. I was trying to make a case last year when Williams went down and the Niners lost three games in a row without him, that maybe Trent Williams should have been the MVP. But I do think there's some consistency there. So he's another guy that yeah, I'm not using him as my every week starter, but he's a nice option to have to play the matchups with as the season goes along. Yeah the 40 Niners go up and down the field. You get a lot of points if they get a lot of points. Brock Purdy is going to be a big part of that. You can say the same for the Detroit Lions. Mike has Jared Goff right after Brock. He does. And as Adam Rank has famously told us Jared Goff is an indoor cat. I believe the stat I saw is that they play one outdoor game before week 16. Like that's it. So he gets to lounge on the indoors all the time. I mean this is a high powered, high scoring offense. We know the weapons he has around him with Amon-ra, Saint Brown, Sam Laporta, Jahmyr Gibbs, David Montgomery catching the ball out of the backfield. We think this is the year, Florio that Jamison Williams can sort of ascend and be another option in that passing game and the draft price is very nice. QB 14 you're not spending up to get him. No. And that's exactly why like he's predictable. We know when to use him. And like Marcus said, indoor over 20 fantasy points per game. The last two seasons in indoor games. And I keep saying it, pair upside with a safe quarterback to cover your bases. My most drafted quarterback duo this year is Jayden Daniels and Jared Goff, because Daniels gives me that rushing upside. But if he doesn't hit, I have a safe starter that for the first 16 games of the year, I know is going to be playing indoors. I could start every week in Jared Goff. We'll go from Jared Goff to the guy who led the NFL in passing yards last year. Tua Tagovailoa all the way down here at quarterback 15. Mike the thing is he led the league in yards. Like you said the touchdown so many rushing touchdowns for Miami. If some of those convert to passing touchdowns this year we could be talking about Tua being a potentially like top seven top five quarterback. If everything was to break right, his way. I just love the upside here. But again safe floor is what he brings. We know he's going to be you get a share of that Dolphins offense. You get some like Tyreek Hill exposure there. You get Waddle exposure there. It's just a good qb2 to pair with one of those young upside guys I think it is. And I've got I've got Tua right about the same spot at QB 15 I think the frustration is there are highs and lows with Tua. We have seen the big games right where he goes for a ton of yards and a number of touchdowns. We've seen some other games where it's not quite as special as you would like it to be, and so I think that's what gets for him, has him just outside my top 12. But again, if you're pairing him up with somebody else, I feel perfectly good having Tua Tagovailoa on my roster. All right. The last quarterback of our top 16 quarterbacks per Michael Florio. Go to NFL.com. Florio to look at the list is the quarterback who just produces receiving record seasons Matthew Stafford down here at quarterback 16. Yes Matthew Stafford for years has been the patron saint of the church of wait on a quarterback. And nothing has really changed with that. This year. I mean, it's a narrowly funneled passing game. We know it's pretty much going to be Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua and yeah, Matthew Stafford maybe not putting up the same kind of numbers we saw during his heyday with the Detroit Lions or even when he first got to Los Angeles. But he's that guy that you can count on in the right matchup will go out. He will put up some decent numbers for you. You like what that that Sean McVay offense has to offer. And yeah Florio he's maybe not the guy he used to be. But he's still a pretty good option. Yeah. And down the stretch last year he was one of the best fantasy quarterbacks. I mean he went into Baltimore and had the best game that any quarterback had against the Ravens in the rain. And these are all in a big tier. These quarterbacks the last four to me are almost interchangeable. The only reason I have Stafford last of the four is because as a tiebreaker, I use the age and the injury concerns because he has missed some games. The last couple of years. But if you like him more than Tua or Goff or Purdy, take him and just keep I'm going to keep saying it. Pair him with one of these young upside quarterbacks. It is a great strategy and a great duo to have. Whenever he gets the ball in his hands, it's always a must in fact, Sean McVay maybe Matthew Stafford could return to play. Get him more get him some more touches. It's going to work out again NFL.com slash foil to see all of Mike's work. But speaking of quarterbacks you guys know who knows a little bit about playing the quarterback position. That's team USA flag