Before looking ahead to the 2024 season, it's important to take a moment on focus on the fantasy football lessons learned in the 2023 campaign. Let's look at quarterbacks.
The Big Three fantasy football quarterbacks ended up being a Big 2.
Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, and Patrick Mahomes II were head and shoulders above the pack of quarterbacks in 2022, and they even were going in the third round (sometimes higher) in 2023 drafts full of fantasy players who usually take the tank to "E" when waiting to draft a quarterback. Patrick Mahomes II spent much of the season in a fantasy slump. Hurts and Allen, while still finishing as the top two, were down 2-3 points per game in a typical scoring system. Despite that, Hurts and Allen were still excellent third-round picks who provided much more valuable advantages than their RB/WR/TE ADP peers.
What We'll Do in 2024: Be open to taking Hurts and Allen at ADP even though they will be the top two fantasy football quarterbacks off the board.
The mid-round options only got partial credit as answers to "Who should I draft at quarterback?"
It's not that there wasn't quality production from mid-round quarterbacks drafted between QB8-15 in 2023. Dak Prescott was elite in the second half of the season, and Kirk Cousins had a strong first half of the season before he got hurt. Jared Goff was a solid option as long as you only played him when he was indoors. Tua Tagovailoa had some good games but was only a matchup play. Deshaun Watson produced better than his level of play but only played in six games.
What We'll Do in 2024: Prescott, Kyler Murray, Jordan Love, Justin Fields, Brock Purdy, and Trevor Lawrence are all in the QB8-15 range in early drafts and worth considering, but you might want to take a backup with upside, or at least preemptively address your backup fantasy football quarterback early in the season with a hot waiver wire name.
The waiver-wire quarterbacks will help us, but they won't singlehandedly save us.
The quarterback waiver wire gave us a couple of headline fantasy stories in 2023. Joshua Dobbs starting Week 1 for Arizona despite not knowing the names of some of his teammates predictably produced a Week 1 flop, but he was good from Weeks 2-4 and amazingly elite in his first three weeks in Minnesota after a midseason trade before flaming out and getting replaced by Nick Mullens. Joe Flacco went from the street to being the No. 2 fantasy football quarterback from Weeks 13-17. Another waiver wire wonder, Jake Browning, was QB4 in Weeks 13-17. Sam Howell was actually QB9 through Week 13 with only two duds. Baker Mayfield had two stretches of three or more consecutive 20+ point games, including Weeks 14-17. Derek Carr, Matthew Stafford, and Desmond Ridder also had stretches of 20+ point games that lasted at least three weeks. While these tales are heartwarming, the reality is that relying on the waiver wire at quarterback requires some luck and flexibility even in the best-case scenario, and the strategy has more potential to sink your team than passing on the RB/WR/TE available in the same range of your draft as the elite fantasy quarterbacks.
What We'll Do in 2024: Draft a fantasy football quarterback in the Top 15 at the latest, but consider adding strong waiver performers even if you feel you're set at the position. Because things change quickly, and you also want to deny teams that waited on quarterback easy answers from the wire, even if they are temporary.
The Ravens offense didn't change that much under Todd Monken, but that's okay.
A new hire at offensive coordinator who souped up Georgia's pass offense combined with offseason moves to bolster the wide receiver group raised hopes that Lamar Jackson would add more passing to already elite running stats and flirt with the No. 1 fantasy quarterback ranking. The Ravens remained a run-heavy team for the most part, and Zay Flowers and Odell Beckham were not as impactful as expected, but Jackson was still more efficient and productive as a passer, and his attempts did go up significantly. Jackson also had 11 passing scores from Weeks 14-17, as the passing game clicked more down the stretch.
What We'll Do In 2024: If Allen/Hurts go earlier than ADP, or we like someone at another position more than them, we'll try to get Jackson at ADP in the next round. The arrow is pointing up.
Are Mike McCarthy and Brian Schottenheimer mid-season adjustment geniuses?
Before his bye, Dak Prescott wasn't even in the Top 20 at quarterback. Only Josh Allen outproduced Prescott after the bye, and Prescott's points per game from Weeks 8-17 was higher than Hurts/Allen's average points over the course of the season. The Cowboys' offensive braintrust unleashed Prescott and CeeDee Lamb after the bye following an offseason where they jettisoned Kellen Moore supposedly because he called too many passes.
What We'll Do in 2024: Prescott isn't going in the Top 5-6 at quarterback in early drafts, so we won't blame you if your plan is to just wait and take him multiple rounds after Hurts/Allen/Jackson.
Brock Purdy wasn't a fluke in 2022, but Daniel Jones probably was.
Purdy showed he could be a consistent high-floor quarterback in 2022 as a rookie. We wondered if the league would figure him out in 2023, but instead, he took a big enough step forward that he was in the MVP discussion well into December. His fantasy numbers rose in concert with his profile with the addition of ceiling games that put his production in the elite Allen/Hurts tier from Weeks 8 to 15. Daniel Jones performed well without the luxury of established targets in 2022, so the addition of Darren Waller and a second year in Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka's offense created enough promise to push Jones into the top 15 at quarterback. Jones didn't live up to expectations and might not even be the team's quarterback of the future once we see how the draft shakes out.
What We'll Do in 2024: Purdy, like Prescott, is available in drafts later than a player who was an elite fantasy QB1 for about half of the season should be. As usual, there are a lot of possible right answers at quarterback. If you don't get one in your draft, Jones will be 2024 waiver wire fodder, but we should be open to a season more like 2022 than 2023.
Jordan Love is actually good.
There were enough doubts about Jordan Love that he was falling to the very end and even out of fantasy drafts. Love started strong and finished strong, instilling a lot of confidence in his future with a very young group of wide receivers and tight ends that should only get better.
What We'll Do in 2024: Love isn't going that much later than Prescott and Purdy, which makes him less attractive than them as draft targets, but he could be the best fantasy football quarterback of the bunch.
Rookie quarterbacks can create instant fantasy impact.
After three quarterbacks went in the top four of the draft and all three were named opening day starters, we were set up for a big rookie ripple in the fantasy quarterback waters, and we got it… at least at times. No. 1 pick Bryce Young was a bust - even Zach Wilson outscored him on a points-per-game basis. No. 2 pick C.J. Stroud was hurt during the fantasy playoffs but was the No. 1 scoring fantasy quarterback from Weeks 9-12, helping a lot of teams get to the postseason. No. 4 overall pick Anthony Richardson got hurt in three of his first four games, the last a season-ending shoulder injury, but also ran for four scores in less than three games of playing time.
What We'll Do in 2024: Stroud is going well above Prescott/Purdy, so he's not an attractive pick at ADP in early drafts, but Richardson is going after Stroud, and if he can stay healthy, he could crash the top 3 and be one of the most valuable picks in fantasy drafts.
Speaking of rookie quarterbacks, check out our latest episode of The Audible, where we discuss incoming rookie quarterback Drake Maye and how he may fall in the 2024 NFL Draft.
D.J. Moore helped Justin Fields, but not enough to justify his aspirational ADP.
How much of Fields' fantasy inconsistency was because of his shortcomings, and how much was because of his bottom-tier wide receiver group? The acquisition of DJ Moore set up a perfect scenario to test this question. Fantasy players were optimistic enough to make Fields a pick in the QB5-7 range. Fields finished very close to Stroud, Love, and Purdy on a points-per-game basis but missed four games. He did also put up top-five games in weeks 16 and 17. Overall, it's clear that Moore raised the fantasy ceiling on Fields' passing game. But he was still inconsistent in the box score, and most of the players around him in season rankings were cheaper in drafts.
What We'll Do in 2024: We don't know whether Fields will be a Bear, compete with the No. 1 overall pick, or start for another team in 2024. For now, he's going around the same range as Love and Purdy, who have much less uncertainty in their profiles.
Getting production from quarterbacks who miss camp/preseason with injuries requires patience.
Joe Burrow's calf injury made him unusable for four weeks. Then, he was very useful for four of the next five weeks until he suffered an unrelated season-ending wrist injury. Kyler Murray didn't play until Week 10 and didn't play particularly well for most of the second half of the season. But he still produced low QB1 numbers. Burrow's ADP dropped from QB5 after he got hurt, but had he stayed healthy and kept producing at his Week 5-10 clip, he would have been a good pick at ADP. Murray was cheap in drafts and even available on the waiver wire. Holding him through the first two months of the season did come with a waiver-wire opportunity cost, and he produced about the same as waiver-wire quarterbacks Jake Browning and Baker Mayfield in the second half of the season. So, whether he was worth drafting and holding depends on your league and roster size.
What We'll Do in 2024: Kirk Cousins, Aaron Rodgers, Deshaun Watson, and Daniel Jones are all going as low QB2s in early drafts. If they are still that cheap come August, they will have some appeal as late picks. As long as injured quarterbacks are available at a deep discount, we should consider them.
Coordinators weren't the problem for Russell Wilson, Mac Jones… and Justin Herbert.
Lamar Jackson wasn't the only quarterback buoyed by optimism because of a coordinator change in the offseason. Russell Wilson's flicker of production in late 2022 after Nathaniel Hackett was fired had a chance to grow into a flame with Sean Payton at the helm. Mac Jones had an equally ridiculous coordinator situation in 2022 and was expected to benefit from a return to sanity in the form of Bill O'Brien. Justin Herbert went from the notorious Joe Lombardi to a rising star in Kellen Moore. The big reveal showed us that Payton didn't trust Wilson, Jones isn't better than Bailey Zappe, and Herbert faded after losing Mike Williams to a Week 3 torn ACL and then missed the last four weeks with a broken finger.
What We'll Do in 2024: Wilson is a draft afterthought and should be, but he could have some waiver wire appeal in the right situation. Jones will be a backup somewhere, maybe not New England, and Herbert will be playing under new offensive coordinator Greg Roman. He's coming with a discount that is putting him around QB10-12 in early drafts, but a run-heavy approach for the Chargers means that might be too optimistic. Pittsburgh (Arthur Smith), Atlanta (Zac Robinson), and Chicago (Shane Waldron) have new offensive coordinators who could upgrade their team's passing games, but we don't know who the quarterbacks will be for those teams yet.
Deshaun Watson isn't going to be the same quarterback he was in Houston.
Watson was going well below the top-five fantasy profile he had in Houston but well above the worthless fantasy profile he had late in 2022 in his debut in Cleveland. He ended up only finishing five games in 2023 because of various injuries and was actually a decent fantasy quarterback in those games, but the dynamic dual-threat we saw with the Texans isn't walking through that door. In fact, Joe Flacco brought the passing game to life as a street free agent, further exposing Watson's deficiencies in the 2.0 chapter of his career.
What We'll Do in 2024: Watson is cheap in early drafts - around QB20 - but is only appealing at that discounted price in best-ball leagues.
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