Could Drake Maye and J.J. McCarthy Finish as QB1s? | The Top 32 Quarterbacks For The 2025 Season (Ep. 1572) - FantasyPros - Fantasy Football Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody, Welcome into the Fantasy Pros Football podcast. I'm
Ryan Wormley joined not always, but it's fun when we do.
By Ericson and Debro Fellas. We have not done a
show together. I don't think since August. We were not
on an in season show together. Last year we shook
up the schedule a little bit and then we just
haven't had one where it's the three of us on

(00:21):
an offseason show. I love doing shows with the two
of you. It's been a minute, though, Debro.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I mean, it's not Ericson and I's fault that you
replace us with Fitz and Bodmin. So you know, I
would say I'm sorry about this, but I didn't do
this Worm.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I've done a lot of shows with Fits, a lot
a lot with Jake Seely, who's obviously been doing a
lot of shows with Fantasy Pros this spring, and I've
done some with Ericson, and I maybe have done one
or two with you, Debro. But yeah, you know, you've
been busy with the draft stuff and I've been doing
the Dynasty stuff and baseball. Ericson is just doing all
things at all times, so we haven't. We haven't cross
paths with the three of us, But I'm very excited

(00:57):
for this episode here Erickson.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, no, It's going to be a fun time. And
I think part of the reason was me and Deebro
didn't have a show last year together in seasons, so
I know, worm, we did a bunch of shows together,
but it was the lack of ericson Debro that hopefully
we're going to get fixed this upcoming season. So I mean,
I miss Debro, I missed that that baldiness.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Come on, man, we'll get some Derekson going on in
the twenty twenty five season. We are still a few
months away from the twenty twenty five season. I do
want to remind everybody quickly that all of our twenty
twenty five consensus rankings and tiers can be found at
fantasypros dot com slash rankings. Every week we get a
little bit closer to the twenty twenty five seasons, so
those rankings will get kind of more and more comprehensive

(01:37):
as we get closer. I do want to also let
everybody know that if you want a chance to win
a signed Nicocollins Texans jersey for free, courtesy of our
friends at Christine Auction, dot com. All you have to
do is subscribe to the Fantasy Pros YouTube channel right now,
drop a comment below on any video, and that is it.
We will be announcing a winner right here on the channel,
so make sure to turn those notifications so you can

(01:58):
know when new videos are up. To claim your prize. Guys,
we are talking top thirty two quarterback rankings in this episode.
Before we do that, we have to hit on some
breaking news. It's pretty minor. We're not gonna spend too
much time on this, but my Baltimore Ravens have extended
Derrick Henry. It is the largest extension for any running
back over the age of thirty in NFL history. I

(02:19):
believe it is two years, thirty million, with twenty five
million of that guaranteed. I mean, debro Henry could not
have been a more perfect fit in this offense last year.
We were all over it last summer. I mean I
remember in the early stages of last draft season, like
very early on, you could get Henry in like the
mid to late third round. He did move up ultimately
over the course this summer. You and I thought that

(02:40):
was crazy. From day one. We said, there's no world
where a healthy Derek Henry scores fewer than twelve touchdowns
this season, and that ended up looking low. He was
just a remarkable fit. It didn't look like he was
slowing down, even at the age of thirty. And with
all the volume this guy has handled over the years,
What are your expectations for him this year? I mean,
the discount isn't there anymore now that we've seen it
in Baltimore. He's going as kind of one of those

(03:02):
top five or six running backs in early drafts and
early rankings. Are you still going to be in on
Henry this year?

Speaker 4 (03:07):
Oh dude, I'm in on it. I have learned.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
I'm old enough now to know, and I have learned
that you don't bet against Derrick Henry. It just it
doesn't work out well. It's not good for anybody. I mean,
the King is a king man, He's an outlier. He
will remain an outlier, and he's gonna be an RB
one until he decides to hang up the cleats.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
And oh what a world worm.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Can you remember those days when you could bet the
over on ten and a half rushing touchdowns Derrick Henry
A plus money plus money. It was good time to
be alive.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Baby man man. And that's the thing too, is like,
even let's say there's a world where his efficiency does
take a step back this year, Like I'm not saying
I expect that, but even in a world where like
father time does come, that dude is still scoring double
digit touchdowns in this offense. The Ravens do not want
to run the mar close to the goal line. They're
going to run Derrick Henry there instead of like Justice
Hill or Rashem Ali. Like that guy's scoring twelve more

(03:59):
touchdowns this year if he stays healthy. Eric said, is
this one of those players where you'd rather just be
in on him and also be in on the year
where it falls apart and say, listen, I'll take that
risk and just kind of ride this ship to the
end of the to the end of the world. Or
are you starting to get you know, is another year
older and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
No, I think it's just better to take him off
and drive into the sunset with Derek Henrian because I
think just based on again how effective he was last
year in this offense, how he's built like no other
running back we've really seen in recent memory. The thing
that how I could see him failing is if the
infrastructure in the Ravens offense crumbles, and how does that
happen with injuries? Last year, the Ravens had the healthiest

(04:39):
offense in the NFL, So if they're not as lucky
more injuries on the offensive line, with the markets banged up,
then maybe you see that's the dip. But projecting that
when you're trying to draft these players, no one's going
to be like, well, you were right about Derek Henrick
because you thought that everyone was going to get hurt
and that's why he was a bust. Like that's not
really the case, So I think, yeah, I think it's
just better. He's someone that look, it's freaking tank, so

(05:02):
long length, long Live the King.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
I don't even really think offensive line injuries can slow
him down. We saw him play behind terrible offensive lines
and Tennessee. I think the Lamar injury is the only
thing that prevents Derrek Henry from having a stud season
because then you're limiting the scoring opportunities. And also, like
Lamar makes the offensive line a lot, even a bad
offensive line looks better with Lamar back there. So a
Lamar injury is the one scenario where you start to

(05:25):
feel a little bad about maybe the price you pay
on Henry. Other than that, like, I mean, this is awesome.
It's just we always had last summer. It's just gonna
look really cool to see Lamar and Henry in the
same backfield and guess what it did. So I'm excited
to see a couple more years of that. That was
the big breaking news. Really. Obviously, we are recording this
actually a day before this is getting released, so we
do not have any information on the schedule release yet,

(05:45):
just very quickly before we have in the rest of
the show. Do you guys care about the schedule release?
Is this like a big deal for you, because for
some people it is.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
I think it is fun to kind of sit through
and go through and go win loss, win loss for
your favorite team and like see how many primetime games
you get. I do get the hype that it generated.
I am not here for this, like at the draft,
we're gonna announce that this is coming, and the day
we're releasing the schedule and this like slow drip during
the week of here's one of the primetime games, will
announce on Monday, and here's the Amazon Prime Sleate. We'll

(06:13):
announce on Tuesdays. Just tell me the schedule. I'll have
some fun with it for a day and then I'm
not thinking about it anymore.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
Ti bro.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
I look, I don't want to rain on the fan
base parade here. I know because everybody, you know, especially fans,
are gonna go through all the schedules and again do
all the things that you just outline. Worm, So I'm
gonna be the wet blanket here. I don't care, man like.
This is one of the things where it's like the
NFL just I get like, and I'm fine with a
lot of the different layers of pageantry and the pomp

(06:42):
and like kicking it up to eleven and let's just
make everything so grandiose. But like, this is one of
the things. It's like, dude, come on, I'm like, we've
got big talking heads out there being like per sources,
the Eagles are playing so and so we thought. I
don't care, man like, I just release it. Let us
know the bye week so we can capitalize that or

(07:03):
you know, know the entries we've already burned in best
ball leagues because of bye weeks and past that. I
don't care. Let's just move on, move on.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Eric Son is this something you care about. I mean,
even from the perspective of, like you do a lot
of best ball drafts and kind of planning out what
the playoffs might look like when you start to the
schedule and trying to project ahead, or is it not
really that relevant to you?

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, you guys are both wrong. I think it's a
lot of fun to look at the NFL schedule. So
as someone that again I'm not biased in any way
because I am the one that's writing the article for
the website about the NFL schedule. At least, no, I
don't nobody. I think that there's a lot of cool ways,
and I think that in recent years we've seen a
lot of analysis about the schedule when it comes to
rest advantage, when it comes to teams playing on the

(07:45):
road really early in the season, there are ways where
you can identify where, hey, this team, even again, we
don't necessarily know the opponents and how good defense and
offense will necessarily be. But I mean, if a team
has to play for their first five games on the road, like,
that's not ideal for whatever team that is, and you
can make some strategic decisions based on how this projects,

(08:06):
especially when it comes to you gotta draft DST and
your fantasy draft. The easiest way to draft the number
one is who to play Week one? Who to play
Week two. We were pounding the table last year for
Seattle because they played the Broncos, they played the Patriots
like it was just like a really easy schedule of matchups.
And that was the defense that I drafted in every
single draft, and they were really good to start the
year because we looked at the opening season schedules. So again,

(08:28):
projecting it to the end with like the fantasy playoffs
is obviously much harder because the team's changed so much,
But we do have the full rosters for the most part,
with a couple moves here and there. So I think that, Yeah,
I think that is a lot of fun. And there
are some certain end We're looking for every edge, every
micro ed we can find, and I'm here for it.
So uh, spoken like a.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
Shrewd ericson, I love you.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, I respect people who care about a dude.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
That's that's what gets me. Like, we're just gonna milk this,
yeah morsel, Like that's.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
What it would be if we didn't know the opponents,
this would be like the coolest announcement but we know
the opponents. This is the order and the times are
being played. Like again, the slow drip is what kills me.
You want to you want to say like, hey, we're
anouncing it on Wednesday, Well we'll release on a Wednesday.
I'll have some fun with that Wednesday night. It's as
a social media manager myself, it's a big night for
social media teams for all the franchises. So that's kind

(09:20):
of cool to watch and see, like what the Chargers
do or or the Titans do. The last question on
the schedule, we know the Saints aren't getting any primetime games.
We know the Ravens are probably getting it close to
the max. The Patriots your team, Merricks, and how many
primetime games do you think you're going to get in
Drake May's second season?

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Hmmm, that's interesting. I think that they'll probably they're gonna
get a Thursday night probably against the Jets, which is
always horrible. I don't know Thursdays really it's like fake
prime time. But I think they'll probably get probably probably
two games. I think they probably get one Monday night game,
one Sunday night game, probably a divisional match, maybe against Buffalo.
I know that the Patriots played pretty well last year
in Buffalo, so Drake may kind of you know, oh

(09:56):
he's he the next Josh Allen, et cetera. So I
think that that could be kind of interesting. And I
will say, at least talking about the schedule, one of
the games actually leaked before we came on here was
the Steelers are playing the Jets in week one and
do we know what this again? I don't know this time.
It's going to be Aaron Rodgers playing in that game.
We'll see, But I don't love that for my Justin
Fields shares because you don't any team that note against

(10:18):
the Steelers defense. Dude, it's called no, it's called we
know all. Justin Field's tendency is narrative film too, so
that that is a matchup I do not like for
Fields in week one, but he'll bounce back.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
I know this is like our super long insure before
we get into the media this episode. But like talking
to you guys and think about this stuff. I'm jazzed
up for the season, man, like you get through April.
It's so draft heavy, and I love that it's so
rookie heavy. I love Dynasty. I might even prefer Dynasty
to redraft at this point in my fantasy life. But
I just, man, I'm excited for the season. I want

(10:53):
to talk weekly rankings. I want to do my redraft
like I'm getting jazz talking to you guys. It's still
a few months away. Let's dive into our top thirty
two quarterback rankings here. We're not going to like deep
dive on every player here, of course, but we want
to kind of go through just these are the current
consensus rankings. Again, you can find that fantasypros dot com
slash rankings. I'll just kind of give you guys a
handful of names at a time. It's not necessarily directly

(11:15):
lining up with what the tiers are on the site.
You can check that out if you want to see
how the early rankings have a tier. This is just
kind of groupings in about a half dozen or so
per and I want to see who you guys think
are too high, too low, Guys that maybe belong in
a higher tier or a lower tier. Guys that you are,
you know, thinking might regress this year, might take a
big step forward. Just kind of general thoughts on these

(11:36):
early rankings. We'll start at the very top, of course,
you know, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Jane Daniels are the
top three. They're going to be the top three in
pretty much every draft. I would expect that the top
three and dynasty rankings as well. You know, Alan obviously
has been a top two fantasy quarterback, you know, pretty
much every year since he got good, Lamar ceiling as
high as anybody in terms of fantasy in the sport.

(11:58):
And Jane Daniels coming off just a remarkable rookie season.
Just quickly of those three, Deebro, obviously you've been a
j and Daniels guy. Do you really care what the
order is of those three or is it just those
three and get one and be happy?

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yep, it's I mean, the top of the border right now.
My rankings are pretty much chalk with how ECR is.
I didn't lay it out that way, but that's just
how it folds in man like and yes, like the
top three. If one of them falls for whatever reason,
like around in your draft or a few spots past,
adp grab them. But out of those top three guys,

(12:29):
that's really the only game I'm playing because I'm not
going to be the first guy in the room to
draft quarterbacks. And I mean, in all honesty, I hate
the fact that Jade Daniels is going this high now
because I'm probably not gonna get a ton of exposure
because I usually do wait on guys and a lot
of different drafts unless it's it happens to be like
a smaller league.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
I feel like ericson for me, I'm not going to
be getting a lot of early tight ends this year
because I don't want to do it both an early
tight end and an early quarterback. And I want to
get one of these early quarterbacks. So because I want
to get one of them, I think I'm going to
be shying away from those early tight ends. But the
you know, the trade off for that will be getting
one of these elite quarterbacks. I am tired of years

(13:09):
where I go quarterbacks so deep you can get somebody
late and then I don't have a difference maker. I
want one of these difference makers this year.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
But didn't you draft Jane Daniels with all of us
last year? He was a difference maker as a late
round cord Like I'm.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
Just but.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
That's not gonna happen every year, Like do you think
cam Ward's going to be that this.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Year, No, No, I know what Drake May he's a
late round court. Like, there's so many late round quarterbacks
man Like, it's again like I get that where they're
ranked inside the top three, but I don't draft these
guys like, I just don't like I go with the
value in the late round. I think in a best
ball context is a little bit different because these guys
can offer thirty point weeks that you can't always replace
with late round quarterbacks. So I think that's a different discussion.

(13:49):
But in terms of redraft, man like, I want the
positional players here. I want to load up on top
end wide receivers, and I feel again this year again,
every year is different. But I think as we get
into I think there are a ton of light round quarterbacks.
I mean, Dak Prescott you can get basically for free.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
So it was here's what I would say to that.
I agree with you if you're talking about those guys
versus like some of the next names coming up, Burrow, Mahomes, Mayfield,
like the guys in that like five to eight range. Yes,
at that point, maybe I consider just just waiting because
like Drake Mays, we'll get to him later. I couldn't
be more all in on him at costs right now.

(14:24):
Those top three, though, feel different to me at least,
and they're like, I want that surefire game changer. I'd
rather get that than like a third round running back
like so often those guys are like in the RB
dead zone and like, you know, I just want the weekend,
a week out stud before before we move on worm.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
One of the things you highlighted real quick there that
I think is really paramount and why I think people
have a decision point to make in their drafts. The
part where you brought up not wanting to draft an
early tight end and an early quarterback.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
You're gonna have to.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Pick or choose with that, or you're gonna have to
be okay with sacrificing value and maybe some upside depending
on how your build is with that running back a
wide receiver. Like if you go early for both of
those positions, you gotta probably make a concession somewhere.

Speaker 4 (15:11):
So I agree with that. I thought I thought there
was a really really good point.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Wow, a rare compliment from debro We really I thought
it was sharp dude. The other the other kind of
guys in this top sixth range after those first three,
Jalen Hurts, Joe Burrow, Baker Mayfield obviously somebody who has
really turned his career around from where he was in
terms of fantasy circles just a couple of years ago.
The receiving corps gets even better for him with them
drafting Ubuka in the top twenty year two for McMillan,

(15:37):
Chris Godawin you know, seemingly coming back well from another
brutal injury, and Mike Evans just being a total metronome
who never who never fails to be a model of consistency.
Just any thoughts on on that. Hurtz, Burrow, Mayfield kind
of grouping ericson Mayfield.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
I get why he's ranked here, but I think that
he's probably gonna being overvalued. He's really because Yeah, because
you're just looking at what do we want to do
every year? Is you fade the guy that has the
highest passing touchdown rate because it inevitably regresses the following season.
This happens all the time, especially with guys that are
more focused on getting their points through the air. Yes,
Baker Mayfield did have some decent rushing last year. Fourgner

(16:15):
rushing yards, three rushing touchdowns, but that's not really his
game that that's not necessarily that mean you rely on
every single year always gonna put up a ton of rushing.
It's touchdowns with him, he had the second highest passing
touchdown rate in the NFL last year. That's something that
usually regresses. That is literally what happens every single year.
So I get why he's ranked up here, But there
are other guys. Again, some of that's not even inside

(16:36):
the top twelve. I mean, Rot Purdy can have a
really high touchdown rate too. He's got a lot of
good weapons in San Francisco Fortgnars, and he doesn't cost
nearly as much as Baker Mayfield. So it's not that
I'm hating on the rank but the guy every year
that gets pushed up the rankings because they had a
really high touchdown rate one year, they just usually don't
end up being good draft values the next season because
they're overvalued because the touchdowns are just not sustainable year

(16:58):
over year. So that's one point with and the other
one is with Hertz. Just I think they're going to
band a touch bush And again I haven't really thought
too much about how I will move him in terms
of rankings. I don't think it eliminates him totally, but
I think it's something that when it happens, because I
do expect it to get banned, it's something that Fantasy
managers have to consider that this cheat code play for

(17:20):
him scoring a million rushing touchdowns may not be in
his range of outcomes in twenty twenty five. So those
are only like two guys I wanted to bring up
de Ver.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, you seem to not being in agreement with or
at least he seems surprised by Ericson saying what he
said about Baker.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
I don't disagree with the regression of the passing touchdowns.
What I'll say is where we're kind of ranking Baker though,
kind of bakes like he was QB four in Fantasy
points per game and Mike Evans missing part, missing time,
Chris Godwin missing time. Now they have more depth with
a BUKA and plans in place, and then we saw
Kate Houghton step up. Like I think we're kind of

(17:56):
baking some of that regression in, Maybe not to the
extent that like that you feel Ericson, but I do
think it's baked in some because he even outperformed that
ranking last year. Now again, like if he drops from
forty one passing touchdowns to like in the mid thirties, okay,
it's it's gonna make a difference. I'm still in on
him going at QB six and just to tackle on

(18:19):
some hurts. Analysis here too, it's like, I'm not worried
about the rushing, Like, I don't care if they banned
the toush push. He said fourteen to fifteen rushing touchdowns
over the last two years, the two previous years before
that thirteen and ten rushing touchdowns. Whether they're tush pushing
or they're just gonna use a good old fashioned quarterback
sneak behind a top five offensive line in the NFL,
I don't freaking care.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
He's still gonna score a bunch of rushing touchdowns. It's
not gonna move me off our hurts. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
That is always the funny thing about the tush push
conversation is I'm like, this dude's squat six hundred pounds,
that is going behind the best doing it before. I
think he'll still score on some QB sneaks. It is
officially the best time of year for hoops fans. Playoff drama,
buzzer beaters, all the chaos we live for. And if
you're done just watching and ready to actually win some cash,
you gotta check out Pick six from DraftKings. Nobody's dropping

(19:06):
better payouts than Pick six. Hit six picks and that's
twenty five times your cash, and if you beat your competition,
you could be looking at five hundred times. It's a
bag in your pocket. It's super simple, select your picks,
track your score, and go for those big time prizes.
No gimmicks, just straight up fun. Pick six is live
in most states like Missouri, California, Sexist, Georgia, and plenty more.
So Yeah, don't settle for week payouts. Make your picks

(19:28):
with Pick six and let your basketball brain pay off.
New to DraftKings Pick six New customers, toss in five
dollars on your first entry and you'll get fifty dollars
in bonus picks instantly. The playoffs are on, so why
not take a shot at making a little money while
you're watching. Download the DraftKings Pick six app now and
use code Fantasy pros. That's Code Fantasy pros to pay
five dollars and get fifty dollars in bonus picks, better payouts,

(19:50):
bigger wins only on Pick six from DraftKings. The Crown
is yours.

Speaker 5 (19:54):
Gambling Problem call one eight hundred. Gambler help is available
for problem gambling call eight eight eight seven eight nine
seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot Oregon, Connecticut
must be eighteen and over age and eligibility restrictions vary
by jurisdiction. Pick six not available everywhere, including New York
and Ontario. Void were prohibited one per new customer. Bonus
awarded as non withdrawable Pick six credits that expire in

(20:15):
fourteen days limited time offer. See terms at pick six
dot DraftKings dot com. Slash promos.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Guys, this seven to twelve range is interesting for quarterbacks.
It goes Patrick Mahomes, Bo Nicks, Kyler, Murray, Jared Goff,
Justin Herbert, Justin Field. I feel like a handful of
those guys. I would rather wait and take over somebody
like Mayfield if you're kind of making some of their aggression.
Like bow Knicks ran so well. He's now in year
two Sean Payton offense. I'm really excited about bow Knicks
fantasy this year. I know Mahomes has not been a

(20:42):
fantasy stud for a while at this point, but he's
still Patrick Mahomes and I wouldn't bet against him having
a great passing touchdown type of season, especially like if
Rashe Rice's back healthy year two Resavior worthy, I think
that could be a really interesting person to wait on.
Kyler Murray again another year removed from his injury, maybe
he runs a bit more, we get some of that
cheat code stuff from him. I'm really excited about Justin
Herbert with the addition of Trey Harris, who obviously Dever

(21:05):
really likes, and then Justin Fields if he's guaranteed, I
mean think he is the starting quarterback here, he is
going to run a lot. QB twelve is going to
be too low if he's the starting quarterback all season,
strictly on the basis of the legs. So really, outside
of golf, I think he can make a case for
any of these guys as somebody worth waiting on rather
than taking one of those like Baker Mayfield type guys
who's currently ranked ahead of him. Deebra, what do you
think about the waiting here.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, I'm totally fine with waiting, and I'm in on
a lot of different guys in this tier. I mean
justin Fields is a QB one. As long as we
can assume he starts all the games and stuff like that,
he will be a QB one. So he needs to
be ranked inside of the top twelve. I think Herbert's
the biggest one where it's like, Okay, what do the

(21:46):
Chargers do? I think they passed more than they did
or are than a lot of people do. Considering I
know they added to Marion Hampton and what that backfield
looks like in the rushing rate.

Speaker 4 (21:56):
This is also a team down.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
The back half of last season was top twelve right
over expectation and neutral passing rates. So now with more
weapons there, I think that Herbert could pay off really
nicely this year. The two guys that I really want
to highlight that I am much lower on one Kyler Murray.
I get all the rushing. I understand he's probably gonna
be a top twelve guy if you had Kyler Murray
last year. It's not with that I necessarily disagree that

(22:21):
he should be ranked as a top twelve quarterback. I
have him outside of that because I think other guys
having down years and maybe bounce back seasons, maybe push
Kyler down the board where we saw some guys fail
last year get hurt things like that. Kyler's passing metrics
are just god awful. He's been god awful as a
passer for multiple seasons now, whether depending on however you

(22:41):
want to look at it, and if anybody rostered Kyler
last year, like sure he finishes a top twelve quarterback
on the season long. If you had him as your starter,
the ebbs and flows, the bust weeks were horrible and
you were just like left hold in the bag when
he's like putting up stinker after stinker and you're like, oh,
this is lovely. But the guy I really want to
talk about here is Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
Dude, his name is is.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Really what's buying this ranking for him? He hasn't been
a top eight quarterback and I the last two years.
If you took the name out of it, Erickson's already
heard my spiel. We talked about make or Break players.
It's alive on YouTube right now. But if you took
the name out of the equation, and I told you
there was a quarterback in ECR that was ranked seven
in ECR right now, but last year he ranked amongst

(23:27):
forty qualifying quarterbacks. He was twenty ninth at highly accurate
throw rate. He was thirty sixth and hero throw rate.
He had the fifth lowest deep ball rate. He was
bottom ten in all of the NFL in every deep
ball metric that I care about, And over the last
two years he's been QB ten and QB eleven and
fantasy points per game? Does that sound like a player

(23:48):
that is deserving of QB seven and ECR For me,
it is definitively not and at that price point, just
there's too many other quarterbacks that I want to draft
over Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
He's QBL mr ranks.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Erickson, what do you think about Mahomes Because I don't
know that I would necessarily rank him seventh, but I
do think I might be more interested than de ro
Is just on the potential upside of Like it is
Patrick Mahomes at the end of the day, what do
you think about it?

Speaker 3 (24:14):
I understand like the metrics that Deebro's laying out, but
like it still is Patrick Mahomes. Like with this guy,
we know it can lead the NFL in passing yards.
The Chiefs had the second highest passwa over expectation last year.
Are we worried about this team running the ball four
hundred times between Isaiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
I am not.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
I think that last year Travis Kelsey got old, their
number one receiver got hurt in week three, they had
a rookie that when you look at when things started
to improve for Mahomes week eight on where when they
finally gave Xavier Worthy that Rashie Rice Roll, he averaged
twenty one points per game. So I'm still in on
Patrick Mahomes. I think that he's a value. I'm drafting
him over Baker Mayfield because I think that patri Mahomes

(24:54):
a better quarterback. So that's who I'm gonna go with here.
And I get that the last years haven't worked out
fantasy wise, but eventually, I just think Mahomes is too
good of a real life quarterback where eventually you're going
to see the fantasy production follow suit. So that's kind
of my take there. On me, excuse me on Mahomes
And to the Kylin Murray point, I agree with Debro

(25:14):
where dude, the guy is so frustrating to own and
manage in a managed league. To me, it's almost like
strictly best ball because, like you said, like he's going
to accumulate the points, but you don't want to be
on the ride, like you like, you don't want to
be on the roller coaster that is Kyler Murray and
his fantasy scoring because.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
It's Kyler Murray even tall enough to ride the ride.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
I don't know what I don't want to find out
because he can't see over the counters. Last year, he
basically never strung together consecutive games where he was actually reliable.
So you have one good week and you feel, all right,
I got a start him this week, and then he
would suck and then you'd be like, I gotta bench
this guy, and then you put it back in. So
it was just a emotional nightmare owning Kyler Murray. But
at the end of the day, he does find a

(25:57):
way to score points.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
It's just not fun, guys, Okay, So just just imagine
riding this roller coaster you draft Kyler Murray the start
of the fantasy season.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
Here's his weekly finishes, just just a small snippet.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Imagine this roller coaster. If you got him in Fantasy
QB fifteen QB one whoo QB seventeen, QB twenty five,
QB five whoa QB twenty five?

Speaker 4 (26:19):
Oh, dear lord, like three of those.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Six weeks, Like you're just like, he's not startable, dude.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
If you guys thought it was tough to roster Kyler
Murray in a regular league, I rostered him in a
guillotine league. Oh yeah, an emotion.

Speaker 4 (26:33):
How far did you make it? Worm? Like week two?

Speaker 1 (26:36):
I got to like week thirteen. Actually I lasted a
lot of time. I was really strong an other space.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
You must have been strong everywhere else.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
You must have been. You must have been sweat when
call of duty came out.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Double XP weekends sitting him it was uh, it was
a nightmare. And then he was the reason I lost.
If he cost me in whatever, I think something like
that he dusked me.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
But yeah, dude, like for the first six weeks of
the season, this dude is QB fifteen or worse. So
like the averages and stuff lie when it comes.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
To Kyler Murray, I gotta ask you guys, because we
didn't really I kind of skip past his name quickly.
I am not drafting Jared Goff in this range. I
do not want a quarterback who doesn't run, who has
some history of struggling when he's not with an elite
play caller, and who just lost the greatest things that
slice bread in Ben Johnson. Now, I think he will

(27:31):
still be a totally capable fantasy quarterback, but inside the
top ten, there's no chance I'm taking him where he's
ranked right now. I would much rather not only wait
for like a Herbert or a Fields, but for the
next group of six names that we're about to talk about.
I would much rather wait a couple of rounds to
take them rather than be the guy who says I
believe in Goff even with Ben Johnson gone, Debro, What

(27:52):
do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, I mean I understand, like he's not the guy
in this tier that I'm gonna be drafting. Most of
that's probably gonna be Nicks and Justin Fields and then
Justin Herbert. It's probably number three, So I get it,
Like you're looking at the ceiling, like last year was
probably his ceiling, Like QB seven he threw to Ericson's
point thirty seven touchdowns. Now Sam Laporta not being healthy,

(28:16):
Jamison Williams finally having a breakout, does he elevate this year,
adding Isaac Tesla, what does he do? Like it kind
of comes down to where do you think the touchdowns go?
Is David Montgomery gonna really stay healthy and stuff and
gobble up all the touchdowns? So, like I understand it.
I think he's still gonna be a top twelve quarterback.
But I understand not Like there's no like just allure
to grab Jared Goff in your drafts. And I think

(28:38):
Erickson's points, a lot of them on Baker Mayfield are
pretty apt. You can cross compare to Jared Golf here,
But ericson am I wrong here? Now?

Speaker 3 (28:47):
I think that Jared's probably the easiest guy to just
fade yeah and kind of cross burn you. He's QB eighty,
So what that's the thing because passing touchdown efficiency is
just really hard to replicate, you overyere, So when you're
basically having a quarterback like Goff where that's the only
way he can hurt you and beat you, and you
know he's still not even gonna be top five. Again,
he threw thirty seven touchdowns last year, he still wasn't

(29:08):
in the top five. So that's like you're not missing
out on much. And it's like, I see Jared Goff,
and I'm like, I could just drive c J. Stroud.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
So that's like, that's exactly well, my point is gonna
be let's oop in the next group with six now
Ericson Brock Perty, Caleb Williams, Jordan Love, Dak Prescott, Drake May,
c J. Stroud is and that's QBS thirteen through eighteen.
I could make the case for any of those guys
bumping up ahead of somebody like Jared Goff.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
One hundred percent. This is the tier that I want
to live in if I and I would also include
like I love Justin Field, so I didn't, I didn't
talk about him, but I have him ranked way higher
than content, Like Justin Fields is the guy I'm circling,
and the next guy is is Drake May just another
quarterback that has is a dual threat. He can run,
he can throw. So Drake May, like that's the other

(29:53):
guy I just want. I just still love late run
quarterback and that's why I just can't get on board
with Yes, I think the elite quarterbacks are great. They
scored a ton of Fantasy points, but it's still a
value game for me. Like that's where I'm still trying
to get my edge here playing fantasy football is getting
the best value and taking as many shots on running
back and receiver in the beginning rounds where maybe I
don't get each of the right guys, but I took
enough shots where I ended up getting the guys that

(30:16):
end up being top five scores at their position. That
running back and receiver. Quarterback we know we can replace,
you can five. I mean C. J. Stroud was a
guy that was being drafted in the top seven last
year quarterbacks. Now with QB eighteen. I get the why
he's followen so significantly, but it's a reason why you
have to proceed with caution when it comes to guys
that get the majority of their points with their arm

(30:38):
and passing touchdown, which is what happened with Stroud, and
then what happens. All his receivers got hurt and then
it didn't work out and his offensive line was terrible.
So I don't know, do you want me to wax
more poetic on on Drake may or should we wait?

Speaker 1 (30:49):
No?

Speaker 3 (30:49):
I mean I got numbers. I gotten more out.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
We will get to the numbers because I want to
hear them, because I am as fan says what Yeah,
I just want to, like on this point about the
elite quarterbacks, and I know you kind of seemingly was
leaning more on my end of it in terms of
the guys like Alan, Lamar and Daniels. For me, like
those three, like I said at the beginning, are a
little bit different when you're talking about the guys in
that like five to eleven range. Those are the ones

(31:15):
where I go, why draft somebody here in round six
when I could take a swing at, you know, really
talented receiver or something like that. When in round eight
or nine, I could get a Drake May a Dak
Press like like Caleb Williams, Jordan Love, Drake May CJ. Shroud.
You could tell me any of those guys finishes like
QB six this year, and I can see the path.
I mean, even Dak and Purty I think are really

(31:36):
good values there. And you can loop in Justin Fields,
who's once got ahead of them at QB twelve already.
Any of those guys you could see taking a huge
leap up right.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Oh absolutely, man, And Fields is the one guy we
didn't talk about a ton, But I want to circle
back to real quickly here in that low end QB
one kind of bucket. That's the guy that can burn you,
like out of all of those guys, like we talk
about okay, fine, Jared Golf as a top ten quarterback
this year, woo whoo, Like, he's probably not gonna be
more than QB six QB seven like last year. So

(32:04):
it's not gonna burn you if you don't draft him
at that cost. Just a Fields could run for a
thousand yards turn in a top five quarterback season and
none of us should be surprised because we know the
rushing is there. We've seen it before, like Fields before
last year QB nine, QB five, like, he has a
top five season on his resume, So he's the guy

(32:26):
in that file and that could burn you if you
don't draft. And yes, this is the tier with Rock
Party in company that I want to live in, Like
I want to be drafting a ton of Rock Party.
He's people can say whatever they want to. He's in
a contract year.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Man.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Their defense is still not going to be great. All
of their skill players are coming back, like Brandon Ayu,
what do we get out of him? But we know
like they drafted Jordan Wakins, George Kittle is coming off
is being healthy, see him see probably back and ready
to rock. Rickson and I talked about that, we're in
on him having a bounce back season. So the forty
nine ers with I know the offensive line is rough,

(33:02):
probably a bottom ten unit in the NFL that doesn't
ever stop this offense. And brock Party is a locked in.
When he's healthy and the guys are around him, he's
locked in top twelve quarterback. So I want to be
investing in Brock Purty. I want to be investing in
Dak Prescott with George Pickens. Like was I lower on
Prescott before they added Pickens, Absolutely, But now you look

(33:23):
at the constitution of that offense. You got Pickens, you
got Lamb, you got Jake Ferguson. The part about that
offense too, is their running backs are horrible, like so
if they can't run the ball and establish shit, they're
gonna have to throw the ball. So I'm in on
Dak Prescott like I've got him right now at QB

(33:43):
thirteen because with the addition of another weapon, it's gonna
raise his touchdown ceiling and stuff. And he's been working out,
he's fully healthy, so I could see a bounce back
for him. And yes, Drake may rushing potential CJ. Stroud,
The bounce back is coming.

Speaker 4 (33:58):
Dude.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Can all talk about the offensive line that wasn't an
offensive line when we entered last year that we had
concerns about. So as bad as it was last year,
they made changes on the offensive line, it cannot be
worse than what I think they saw last year. He
has a ton of weapons around him, dude, Like, I
think we see the CJS draft bounce back and it's

(34:22):
gonna be glorious this year. But yes, QB thirteen to
eighteen and a few of these guys a little bit lower,
that's the range I want to be living in this year.
While also mentioning Justin Fields in that conversation, I.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Was gonna say, you could all you could make it
QB twelve, Todeah, QB twelve fields on one end, and
then I like Trevor Lawrence a lot. It's kind of
the next after shot. I think that ranged. Like, if
you tell me that I'm in a super flex draft
and I'm coming away with any three of those names
in that range, I'm happy I don't need one of
the top eleven guy. I mean, it'd be nice to
get him obviously, but I'm comfortable if those three guys
are my three in a super flex like that. I

(34:55):
love this range, and again like we're not gonna deep
dive in all them. You can make a very compelling
case though, for Caleb Williams with all these weapons, and
Ben Johnson, for Jordan Love for CJ. Stroud having a
bounce back and getting back to what he was a
year one. But my guy in this range, and they
really all are two degrees, is Drake May, and I
know Ericson agrees.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yeah, dude, Drake May is the truth. Man, I'm thinking
about like Drake May MVP tickets.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
I'm irresponsible, dude, it will be dangerous and irresponsible the
amount of investment I have in Drake May tickets.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
Dude, if he balls out, who do you think is
going to get the credit? I mean, based on his
offense that he's around, the offensive line is still subpar.
Stefon Diggs.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
He puts up those type of counting stats to like
get in that conversation like even on the fringe of it, Yes,
he's so good.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
We just saw this last year. Voters will ignore the
better season to give a quarterback who hasn't won before
a little more deference.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
So so the numbers that what you do in there,
I did it.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
I didn't. I did an episode like a month or
two ago with Michael Florio on the show, and we
had a lot of needling each other about how I
was like. We were talking about the value like playing
with an MVP quarterback for some receiver, and I was like, yeah,
but what about the value for plague with a first
team All Pro quarterback Lamar Jackson? But no, no, Eric said,

(36:24):
I mean I'm with you, Like the year two, we
forgot this talented Like, I see the path for sure.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah. So starting with the rushing upside, So among the
seven quarterbacks last year that hit thirty plus rushing yards,
so that includes Drake May. He hit that rushing threshold.
So five of those guys finished top six in terms
of scoring quarterbacks on a per dropback basis. So with
the rushing alone, you're already seeing a path where Drake
May can be a top six on a points per
game basis based on how many draftbacks he takes. And

(36:51):
then you look at what he did during his rookie season.
Think about it, Caleb Williams look like, oh, this guy
has this great situation he's going to he has all
these receivers and he struggled. Meanwhile, Drake may also has
a terrible offensive line. No wide receivers gets thrown into
the mix, not even as the starter. And during the offseason,
and I think he played extremely well. He threw at

(37:12):
least one touchdown pass in all ten games that he
played fully as a rookie. So when you look at
those games that he played, eighteen point one Fantasy points
per game, they would ranked QB fifteen on the year.
So when he was playing in full he was QB
fifteen points per game. Last year he's QB seventeen here
in ECR. That was based on everything that was horrible
about this team last year when they had Drowd Mayo

(37:32):
as a head coach. I think Josh McDaniels was still
very underrated as an offensive play caller. I think that
he's still a very good offensive coordinator. He's a terrible
head coach, no doubt about that. Terrible head coach, Josh mctatals,
but he's thrived as an offensive coordinator when he's not
in charge of everything that's to do with the team
and just focused strictly on offense, he made Mac Jones

(37:53):
look good as a rookie year that was Josh McDaniels.
So I think that he can work with a young
quarterback get the most out of Drake May. And although
that the weaponry I still don't think is perfect, it's
still significantly better than it was last season. So for
all those reasons, man, like, this is why again I
want Drake. I'm not getting Justin Fields on my fantash team.

(38:13):
Drake May is the guy that I want. And at
WARM I'm just saying, like, do you want Drake May?
Like you can't take Jay Nails too, Like you gotta
pick one.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
So the thing with Drake May is that a lot
of people are like, oh yeah, you can totally see
the ceiling. I'm talking about the floor this guy when
he was playing. I mean, that's what the rushing does.
It's not just a ceiling razor, it's a floor raiser.
This was his weekly finish, and I know you you
alluded to this, Erickson, but literally just going through every
game his weekly finished in the games outside the ones
where he got hurt ten seven, seventeen, sixteen, thirteen, seventeen, ten, eleven, sixteen,

(38:46):
and then the last week of the season he played
was twenty seven. It was the one time that he finished,
you know, outside of that top seventeen. That is a
very high flour This isn't a guy who's who averaged
as QB fifteen, but because he had some spike leak
in some bad weeks, the floor was there in the
worst situation. Horrific offensive line, rookie quarterback, no pass catchers

(39:10):
that has improved. It is not the best pass catching
group in the league. It is not the best offensive
line in the league. It's not the best play caller
in the league. Every one of those has improved, like
pretty dramatically, just because of how low the starting point was.
Not to mention he's another year older and has more
experience under his belt. I think the ceiling is immense,
and also the floor is ments. If you told me

(39:32):
that I had to pick one guy outside the top
twelve to finish as QB one this year, first of all,
I don't think that's happening. But if you told me
I had to pick one to do it, like may
would be the bet for me. I just think the
floor and ceiling combination is unbelievable, and I don't think
it's getting discussed even enough, even though there is some
hype around him. I do wonder before we move off

(39:54):
of May deebro, where do you think Drake may is
going to be sitting. Let's say, like August twentieth, Gerold
Dake may be ranked in consensus reks. He's gonna move
up between now and by the time we get through
drafts he's is that ADP gonna rise or do you
think he's gonna stay in this range for the most
part because there's so many talented quarterbacks ahead of him.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
I think he's gonna stay in this range if or,
to be honest, guys, I think he's gonna drop some.
And I know that my the casel are laying out
is very very good. I'm gonna poke a few holes
in this. But also while saying I think he's gonna
drop some, because here's the thing, all you need is okay,
Tyreek is not going anywhere. People are gonna probably go

(40:32):
back to Tua just a little bit because the passing
volume and the weapons and things like that. Also, people
could talk themselves into Trevor Lawrence and Travis Hunter and
Liam Cohen, C. J. Stroud is not gonna drop any
if anything, he's gonna go up a little bit. Same
thing where Dak Prescott, maybe he hops Jordan Love and
people are out on him. But I think you're gonna
see May in this kind of like low end QB

(40:55):
two range like anywhere from probably like fourteen to twenty
depending on your draft. So I just don't with the
names above him and the offenses and all that kind
of stuff, I don't think that anybody's going to be
just rushing and running out there to say I'm drafting
Drake May and we're gonna push up his ADP and
he gets steamed for all of those reasons. Now, the

(41:16):
only pushback I think that May will have a very
very good season. The only pushback that I want to
interject here a little bit is with the improvements that
they have on defense. Mike Rabel knowing what he's done
in the past, and how much what type of offense
are we gonna see from New England? Is it going
to be extremely run heavy? Is their defense because it

(41:37):
is massively massively improved. Is their defense going to put
them in more positive game scripts? And does passing volume, passing,
touchdown upside or all these things going to ding him
enough to where he doesn't get into QB one territory
or is the rushing just like that good? That's the
only pushback that I have about May is is the

(42:00):
passing touchdown ceiling and the other factors around him with
both passing volume and the defense, can those hurt him
just enough to where he's not going to be a QB.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
One even if he runs a good bit.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
One other thing I think helps is just Travon Henderson,
like at a an awesome pass protector, like one of
the best pass protector, Yeah, Henderson and dude, and also
as a pass catcher like Drake, May will get cheap
points dropping the ball off to Henderson, Who's going to
break long runs in those situations. So Henderson a lot too.
We got to move on to the next group of six,
and really Trevor Lawrence, who's kind of at the top

(42:33):
of this next group, I think could have been looped
into those other guys I'm really excited about, you know,
Liam Collen obviously adding Travis Hunter year two from Brian
Thomas junior. Like I don't know how many years left
I have of giving Trevor Lawrence another chance to be amazing,
But I will try again this. I will go down
with that shit this year. This He is like the
quarterback version of Kyle Pitts, where like you cannot convince

(42:53):
me that there's not the talent in there to take
a step forward into lead territory. I probably am done
with with Kyle Fitz, but I'm not done yet with
Trevor Lawrence. So he is easily my favorite guy in
this grouping. We know, Debra, savor guy is going to
be all right on the names in this second, I'm
curious he kind of stands out here for Ericson, But
the names are Trevor Lawrence to a tongue of I love,
Matthew Stafford, JJ McCarthy, Bryce, and Michael Pennick Jr. Let's

(43:16):
just even before we get to Ericson on this section, Devra,
we'll clear the floor for you for McCarthy.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
JJ's gonna be a QB one this year. He's gonna
be a top twelve quarterback in Fantasy. Dude, for everybody
that saw Sammy Darnold, yes that's Sam Darnald, go out
and put up a QB nine in Fantasy points per
game season. You don't think J McCarthy can do it, dude.

(43:43):
He's a better quarterback than Sam Darnold. I will fight
everybody tooth and nail in this. He is going to
coffin nail all of the bad takes. When he came
out as a prospect, everybody saw him lighted up in
the preseason. That was just gonna be the precipice of
what was gonna be in an awesome season. We're gonna
see it this year, surrounded by TJ Hockinson fully healthy
walking into the season. They still have Jalen Naylor, they

(44:05):
added Tye Felton. We'll see if Jordan Addison gets suspended
what happens with that. But we know Justin Jefferson is
that dude. And they added offensive line help. Like this
offensive line is short up, it is solid in front
of JJ. He's a top twelve quarterback, man like. And
I have him ranked as a top twelve quarterback in
my rankings right now. JJ McCarthy QB ten in my rankings. Yeah,

(44:28):
I'm here for it. I'm gonna be drafting him everywhere.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
What round are you going to be taking him? To
make sure because you don't have to take him as
a top ten quarterback, but just to ensure you get
your guy he is.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
I want to say, in this last mock that we
did earlier this week, I took him in round nine.
I could be wrong with that, but I'm looking to
see where he's at in the overall JJ McCarthy, Where
are you at?

Speaker 4 (44:52):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (44:52):
See, he's in the one forties in ECR right now.
I will I mean, dude, once we get like the
into the double digits, it's it's all free game, man.
Like I mean, I think you can start making the
case and I'll probably draft JJ McCarthy in like the
ninth tenth round.

Speaker 4 (45:09):
That that's where I'm at.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
Er, I don't think you're gonna I don't think you're
gonna have to wait or I don't think you have
to reach.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
No, you won't.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
You won't because like you, I mean you can because
you're going to anyway. Oh yeah, well, I mean yeah,
because because you already got Arjie Harvey in round two.
So you got you got it, you know, I see.
But totally with you guys. So so you want my
opinion on McCarthy. Where was that? Where you're going? I

(45:37):
don't mean to.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah, no, no, I we know how debro Feult anybody
who's ever watched him talk about JJ McCarthy. So I
am curious as we sit here, like obviously you had
thoughts on him going into last year, and then of
course the injuries. So as you see you're entering your
two seeing what Sam Darnold just did, Like Debro was
talking about, how are you ranking McCarthy right now?

Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yeah, so I'm more in line with where consensus is,
so I have more of a ground did take with
JJ McCarthy. I'm just trying to acknowledge the fact that
he's coming off of a major injury and he missed
his entire rookie season, so that matters to me. How
much do they put on his plate right away? You know,
this wasn't a high volume passer at the college level,
very highly efficient, right, Debrosa not a high volume passer,

(46:22):
So to me, it seems a bit of a stretch
to assume. Oh yeah, again, the Vikings office has been
traditionally very pass heavy, like very past heavy under their
coaching staff. But to me, the offseason moves they've made
this year with a young quarterback suggest I think they
want to play a little bit more bullyball again. They
bolster the interior offensive line. They have two running backs

(46:43):
that you can feel confident running the football with with
Aaron Jordens, with Jordan Mason, two guys that can run
between the tackles Aaron Jones out of the backfield. So
I think that maybe it takes a little bit more
time for JJ McCarthy to get fully unlocked as Okay,
we're now ready to dial up because he just missed
so much time, So I just don't want to put
so much pressure on him. And week one, Hey, you
need to be the guy drop back forty times a

(47:03):
game and rip it all the receivers. So that's where
I'm a little bit more hesitant. I do see the
path where, again, can you be better than Sam Darnold?
Most likely if he's fully healthy and ready to go. Yeah,
I think by the end of the season we're going
to see him firing in all cylinders. But maybe it
takes a little bit longer. And for those reasons, I
think Drake May is gonna out score J. J. McCarthy.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
So, oh, we got a bet there, I know, So
I'm I'm here for that bet that that's a really
good bed And I.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
Actually I think I would raise Dorothy between where deebro
and Rickson have him. I am more excited I think
than Ericson obviously a little less exciting than deeb Row.
But but I would have to take may on this side.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
Well, I mean, how much do you expect Jamharthy to run?
Like that's the other thing. He's coming off a major injury, Like,
do you think he's gonna wrong if he's fully healthy?

Speaker 4 (47:52):
Dude?

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Yeah, yeah, I think he's young enough. They're not going
to be like, oh, we can't risk running him anymore.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
But they're gonna be call him design like they're gonna
do design runs with Drake may Are the think your
design runs with j McCarthy.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
I don't think they're gonna have a ton of design runs,
but he's going to have some rushing I think like
three too, like two fifty three hundred yards.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Yeah, it's not moving the ne for me, not for rushing.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
You guys talked about Patrick Mahomes like having the rushing
and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
I'm literally just recited.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Did you talk about Mahomes as rushing. I did not
mention anything about Mahomes rushing. We're talking about Baker Mayfield.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
Will excuse me, Baker but Baker will come up with
a bet.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
I'm also fading Baker Mayfield will come up with a bet.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
I want people to put it in the comments if
they have ideas of what Dee Broy and Ericson Ken
bet on Drake May versus JJ McCarthy, because I do
think that's a good one. That's a bet, and I
will be I want to get in on the bet
and take the May side. We'll have the commenters come
up with with some use the world.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
I'm here for it.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
I do want to ask you, though, Ericson, so if
it's not McCarthy, who's the guy in this range that
you're interested in? Any answer could be nobody, But is
it Bryce Young seeing what he did in the second
half last year? I mean again, I do kind of
think the more it's maybe stands apart, so you can
talk about him if you want, but maybe excluding him,
if he's the obvious guy for you, maybe you don't
see it that way. I mean Matthew Stafford having two
elite receivers again, Michael Pennix junior, there's a lot of

(49:11):
talent in that receiving room, and now you know he
gets kind of his second year who stands out to
you in this group.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
To be honest, I don't really like this tier at all.
Like I want to have my quarterback kind of wrapped up.
So I don't mean to rain on the parade here
from this tier, but I really don't like and Trevor Lawrence.
To me, it just seems like a lot of hope
with him. It's like, Oh, it's finally gonna all come together.
But I still can't get out of my mind that
Brian Thomas Junior broke out last year with Mac Jones
as his quarterback. I know we're all seeing like anyone

(49:36):
to me like oh, he's got a better quarterback, Trevor LaRence.
But it's like, like, how long are we going to
continue to wait for Trevor Wartz to continue to cycle
through offensive coordinators and head coaches and eventually he's not
at fault. It's never his fault. It's like, okay, well, eventually,
like he has to wear some of the blame and again,
not an elite rusher by any means like okay, as
a passer never really hits. I don't know what, like
what's his ceiling? Is he gonna can be a tough

(49:57):
five guy? Like, I don't really think so. So it's
for me, it's like I'll just take like the steady
Matthew Stafford with DeVante and Poka Nakoun and this guy
could throw forty touchdowns like that. I guess that's that's
it for me. Like I'm not trying to overthink it
with oh what if Tua stays healthy? Like Bryce Bryce
Young I think is kind of fun in this area
because we saw him at the end of last year,
like have very good fantasy point numbers. I like tech

(50:19):
robocmill on a lot, so Bryce, So maybe the other
guy that's fun. But I want to have my quarterback
situation way before I get to this tier. And if anything,
from a super flex standpoint, it would probably be Stafford
because I feel this guy has a forty touchdown ceiling.
I'm not worried about he's gonna get benched, He's gonna suck,
He's gonna play all the games, Like I have the
most confidence in him playing all the games versus J. J.

(50:41):
McCarthy coming off injury. Michael Pennix has a long injury
track record. I get Stafford's on the older side of things,
but the Rams offensive line holds up. I mean, he's
gonna be flirting with a lot of passing touchdowns. So
even though he doesn't anything as a rusher, I think
I'm willing to take some security and safety with Stafford.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
By the way, I was just playing up Trevor Lawrence
because I want to look at his game log. I
didn't realize that we have this on our player pages
on Fantasy Pros. There's a little link you can just
click like Trevor Lawrence Fantasy team names. So I think
we have this probably on a lot of the main players.
You can go see that that. I didn't realize that
was just right there other player cards. I knew we
had that tool, but that's pretty cool. If anybody's looking
for some creative new names.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
You couldn't find any fun stats about Trevor Warrance.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
No, no, I was.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
I thought you were going to drop like are like,
you're wrong.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
What I was going to say is that top five maybe.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
No.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
I do think the ceiling could be like a back
end top ten quarterback, and I am willing to give
more leeway to the situation he's been in. The Jags
were a dumpster fire when he got there. I mean,
obviously I'm.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
That much better this year. I mean, yeah, they're better.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
But what I was gonna say is is that's what
he stepped into and then he had Urban Meyer as
his coach in year one. Like, I don't think Doug
Peterson has done anything since the Eagles Super Bowl run.
Like I'm willing to give leeway to the situation he's been.
I don't think the talent is just gone. And it's
not like this guy is in his early thirties and
we've been waiting for a decade for this to happen.

(52:07):
He's twenty five years old, he's in year well, he
was rating twenty one, So ye'ar five that he's going into.
I realize that oftentimes it happens sooner for the elite quarterbacks.
And I'm not saying he's an elite quarterback, but this
is going to be the best pass catching duo he's
had by a mile. Assuming they're telling the truth about
Travis Hunter playing a lot on offense, this is like

(52:30):
an awesome duo that they're about to have. He's theoretically healthy.
He had three rushing touchdowns in his last two full
games of last season before getting hurt. I mean that's
who knows how sustainable that is, but there's some degree
of interest in running there like I think he is.
But clearly set aside Debro's love for McCarthy because that's

(52:52):
its own conversation. I think he clearly has the highest
ceiling of anybody in this year.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Why I do want to interject just one thing with
Lawrence and trying to not get caught in a potential
trap with so like getting Travis Hunter, right, like great upgrade,
but let's talk like look at that guy quarterbacks in
these tiers Stafford two great receivers to two great receivers,
McCarthy two great receivers and a tight end bright Song. Okay,
ted Ron mcgillan, probably he has the worst receiving core,

(53:17):
but Michael Pennix two great receivers, Drake London, Kyle Pitts,
Darneld Mooney. So yes, I get that you should be
excited because he got Travis Hunter, but up and down
the list, like everyone technically has, you try to improve
their receiver room this year. So that's where I'm just
trying to stay level headed with Trevor Lawrence and be like, Okay,
he still at the end of the day, like what
have you actually done at the NFL level as in

(53:39):
terms of fantasy, But it's.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Less It's less about me thinking that due is going
to elevate him and more just about the fact that
now his pass gets your room isn't going to drag
him down in the way it could have in some
of these previous years for him.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
I mean, I mean, he's health is also basically for him.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
But not not at this level. Health has been an issue,
a big issue for him too. If you're looking at
this tier, McCarthy misses the full season his first year,
tua's health, injuries, it's like Matthew Stafford is very old.
You know, Pennix has a long history of injury stuff
in college. So I mean again, I'm not saying you
should draft him over like Justin Herbert or somebody who's
way ahead of him. But I think in this tier,

(54:14):
if you're looking for upside again, unless you really love
McCarthy the way Deebro does, I think Lawrence's upside is.
I mean, he's been better than Bryce Young obviously, evenough
Bryson had a very good second half last year. You know,
Pennix hasn't really done anything. Stafford is old and doesn't run,
and that worries me. Tua at every hit could be
his last, as sad as it is, and the McCarthy
we haven't seen play at the NFL level yet, so

(54:35):
like to me, it's not saying that Trevor Lawrence is
definitely gonna be a league winner, But if I'm waiting
this long at quarterback for probably a QB two at
this point, I'm more interested in that upside than I
am in the floor of a guy like Stafford, and
I do like Stafford.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
This year, I was gonna say, I want to push
back a little bit, like I think if it's not
JJ McCarthy is the highest ceiling in this tier, I
think it's Matthew Stafford, dude, Like.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Nice I I with the weapons can't get there with
the lack of running, dude.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
But here's the thing. When he was healthy last year,
with Puka Nakua back on the field, so weeks eight
through fourteen, before he tailed off at the very tail
end of it, he was a top twelve quarterback. He
was QB eleven and Fantasy points per game. He was
top twelve in every single metric we care about. And
now you're telling me, okay, Tyler Higbee fully healthy, they
add Terrence Ferguson to also do that passing attack, and

(55:25):
Devonte freaking Adams dode, we get a full season of
Puka and Adams with Stafford, with this offensive line, with
this team, dude, like, and to Erickson's point, you want
to talk about regression for a player that, like, Okay,
first year in Los Angeles six point eight passing touchdown percentage,

(55:45):
the three years after that three point three, four point six,
three point nine. Those passing touchdowns numbers are going up
this year, man, Like, I'm not telling you that he
throws for forty one like he did in twenty twenty one,
but I think we east he could be living in
a world where Matthew Stafford throws for thirty five passing touchdowns?

Speaker 4 (56:04):
Can he not?

Speaker 1 (56:07):
I like Stafford this year. To be clear, I'll put
it like this. I think I think if you tell
me both of them hit their absolute apex ceiling this
season strictly and talking about fantasy value, then I think
Lawrence is higher. But I think Stafford has a better
chance of hitting his ceiling this year than Lawrence does.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Yeah, my problem is just having enough weapons around Lawrence
to where he can access that many passing touchdowns like
Travis Hunter and Brian Thomas Junior are freaking awesome. But
even if both of those dudes catch like ten to
twelve touchdowns, like you're still talking about.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
The rest of us Parker Washington.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
It's funny too because also they may be putting. Trevor
Lawrence is one of his best receivers. He's playing defense
half the time.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
It's a fair point there. There are reasons he is
ranked down here for sure.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Yeah, because he's not produced. Like to be frank like,
he hasn't Again, I get I get there. He hasn't
been in the best situations, but ultimately he hasn't also
shown the ability to overcome bat I mean remember c J.
Stroud last year as a rookie. Again, throw him to
the wolves and he bawled out, Like Trevor Lawrence hasn't

(57:13):
done that.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
So I just don't think development's linear. He's only twenty five.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
We like this, then you must love the next guy
in our next year. Then about development and linear progression
and young quarterbacks.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Well, a few guys in this next group just to
kind of round up the we don't need to go
deep on these because We've gone pretty long, but just
the final group inside the top thirty two, Gino Smith,
Anthony Richardson, Sam Darnold, cam Woarred Russell Wilson, Jackson Dart,
schaduor Sanders, Aaron Rodgers. Especially those first four names talk
about nonlinear development. We don't need to go deep on

(57:44):
all these guys. Obviously, Debro, we know your love for
Jackson Dart, given we heard from you throughout the draft season.
We know kind of everybody's feelings on Shude, Sanders, falling,
Aaron Rodgers. I think we're assuming we'll be the Steelers
quarterback who the heck knows those early games and those
who cares, Yeah I don't care. Yeah, that's a much
better way to put it. The interesting names here for

(58:07):
me are really those those recu Gino Smith in a
new place, Anthony Richardson. We I mean, this dude's being
drafted as like a top six quarterback a year ago,
given the upside. Sam Darnold, who just was this awesome
quarterback but is now in a new situation that I
you know, is obviously a downgrade. And the cam Ward
is the numb rode overall pick who's going to be
started right off the bat in Tennessee. So like kind
of of those four names, in ignoring the other four,

(58:29):
who stands out to you Ericson.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
I mean it's Anthony Richardson. I think it's pretty obvious
because you talked about where he was being drafted last year,
how high he was being ranked, because a lot of
this ranking is not about his ability as a fantasy score,
it's about, well, how many games is he going to play?
Because the minute that we get news that okay, well
he's going to start Week one, then he's not. Is
he going to be QB twenty six in your week
one rankings debro? If he's the starter for week one? No,

(58:53):
he twenty sex, No, he'll be exactly top twelve to
fifteen exactly. So I think in a redraft format, Anthony
Richardson is a no brainer taken with your last pick game. Well,
we'll know more information as we get closer to the
actual season, but I mean, again the upside case and
now there's no risk involved because he's free, and I
still think that he's a great best ball target because yeah, okay,

(59:13):
maybe Daniel Jones is the starter. He hasn't been the
most healthy quarterback he runs around sometimes. He also is
the most consistent quarterback either, so they could go to
Daniel Jones and then go back to Richardson. But when
Richardson plays similar to like a Kyler Murray, like when
he decides to run, he scores Fantasy points. So for me,
I think that Richardson again, I would take Richardson over
some of the guys in the tier above us, like

(59:34):
I would take Richardson like I don't think Michael Pennox
is going to move the needle for me. I don't
think Gino Smith's going to move the needle for me
in Fantasy again, aside from a super flex, where in
super Flex, I don't like Richardson as much. And that
may sound counterintuitive because I just talked about the upside,
But with my second quarterback, I just want like starts.
I want to log a guy can trust every single

(59:54):
week to plug and play. So like Gino Smith stands
out to me as like or even like a cam
Ward where I know they're gonna start all the game
and if they put up okay production, like that's fine.
But as long as I have a stable producer in
my QB two slot, I feel good about that. But
in a one quarterback league, I'll take the boomer bus Richardson.
If he doesn't work out, he gets benched, I just
caught him and move on.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Dero, Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree about anything Ericson
laid out about Anthony Richardson. The two guys in this
tier that stand out to me are Gino Smith and
Jackson Dart Would Gino, I honestly think we're underrating how
good the Raiders offense could be. Man Like Jacoby Meyers,
Brock Powers is a really really good start. Jack Betch
is gonna be starting three wide immediately, and he's he

(01:00:34):
tore up the entire NFL draft process. I think he
is also gonna be a great value for fantasy and redraft.
And Deontay Thornton like they have a legit field stretcher,
like dude is just an athletic marvel. Like if you
were to compare the Raiders in Seattle Seahawks offensive line,
it's not crazy to say the Raiders are a better

(01:00:54):
offensive line. This is gonna be a better offense that
Gino is stepping into. So Gino Smith, I'm gonna be
drafted on a lot of Super Flex league as my
QB two for the certainty that I know he's going
to have the job all year. He has shown the
ability to put up spike weeks. He has played better
than I think people realize. Just that offensive line just
crushed everything they tried to do in Seattle over the

(01:01:16):
last few years. And with Jackson Dart, I don't think
we see Russell Wilson start for a long time this year.
I just think he's cooked. Like at this point, we
know what we're getting out of Russell Wilson, and that's
not a lot man. It's check down, checkdown, checkdown. Moon
Ball can't run anymore. Okay, he does Russell Wilson type things.
Brian dave Ball is going to lose his damn mind,

(01:01:38):
and Jackson Dart is going to be starting. If not,
I think there's also a case Jackson Dart maybe wins
the job out of camp. I don't think it's like
the most likely of outcomes, but I do think he
is going to make starts this season, and whether we
want to talk about the weapons around him, we want
to talk about Daniel Jones, what he did in that offense,
and Jackson Dart being a better quarterback than Daniel Jones

(01:01:59):
and the rushing upside for Jackson Dart again, another player
where it's like, I'm not drafting him as my QB two,
but in super flex formats, I'm going to be drafting
Jackson Dart as my QB three and so many different
places because we could be flip over the cards and
it's week five and Jackson Dart is my QB two
every single week in my lineups.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Okay, bro, who do you think starts more games this year?
Jackson Dart or Tyler Shuck?

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
Tyler shuck?

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Yeah, Tyler shit shot.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
By the way, it was QB thirty three, and he said,
don't do that to me.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Guy's got to move him up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
I got him thirty No, can't force me, can't make me.

Speaker 4 (01:02:41):
Not gonna do it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
We'll raff of there on Divro's Misery. Be sure to
check out. We're gonna do kind of the same thing
for the tight End. That'll be a much shorter episode.
We're just gonna kind of go through a little quicker
on those.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
Spoil it for him, don't spoil it for I'm just telling.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Him that, you know, don't you don't have to commit
one an hour conversation. I think the views say that
they don't, but we'll give them. We'll give them a fun,
shorter tight end conversation. And if you have more tight
end questions or more quarterback questions from this episode, you
can hit us up on discord and social media and

(01:03:13):
other places to get more discussion there Before Erickson and Debro,
I'm Ryan warmly thanks for tuning in. Be sure to
stick around for the tight End episode later this week.

Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
Draft track Man, you had to sneak in, Tyer Shock.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football podcast.
If you love the show, the best freeway to support
us is by leaving a positive review on Apple podcasts
at Fantasypros dot com, slash review, or on Spotify. Follow
us on x, Instagram and TikTok at Fantasy Pros, and
subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
Fantasy Pros

All Episodes

Could Drake Maye and J.J. McCarthy Finish as QB1s? | The Top 32 Quarterbacks For The 2025 Season (Ep. 1572)

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Andrew Erickson

Joe Pisapia

Derek Brown

Thor Nystrom

Ryan Wormeli

Pat Fitzmaurice

Matthew Freedman

Popular Podcasts

Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Could Drake Maye and J.J. McCarthy Finish as QB1s? | The Top 32 Quarterbacks For The 2025 Season (Ep. 1572)