The Top 10: Week 7

Featuring fantasy-oriented insights rooted in film-driven football analysis to help GMs manage their fantasy squads.

Matt Waldman's The Top 10: Week 7 Matt Waldman Published 10/14/2025

© Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images fantasy

MISSION

The mission of this column—and a lot of my work—is to bridge the gap between the fantasy and reality of football analysis.

The goal of this feature is to provide you with actionable recommendations that will help you get results. The fundamental mission is to get the process right.

While it's a rush to see the box score or highlights and claim you made the right calls, doing so without a sustainable process makes success ephemeral.

The Top 10 will cover topics that attempt to get the process right (reality) while understanding that fantasy owners may not have time to wait for the necessary data to determine the best course of action (fantasy).

My specialty is film analysis. I've been scouting the techniques, concepts, and physical skills of offensive skill talent as my business for nearly 20 years.

The Top 10 will give you fantasy-oriented insights rooted in football analysis that have made the Rookie Scouting Portfolio one of the two most purchased independent draft guides among NFL scouts. This is what Atlanta Falcons Area Scout and former SEC recruiter Alex Brown has told me over the past 8-10 years.

Sigmund Bloom's Waiver Wire piece, available every Monday night during the season, is a viable source of information to kick-start your week as a fantasy GM. 

The theme this week...Details aren't nitpicking, but the difference between the players considered the best in the world. 

STRAIGHT, NO CHASER: WEEK 5'S CLIFF'S NOTES

  1. Baker Mayfield has become an excellent NFL quarterback. The difference from Cleveland? The pocket.
  2. Jaxson Dart looks good to the water cooler set. The pocket and vertical passing are the next steps.
  3. Drake Maye is taking the next step as a passer, and game management is a pivotal part of it.
  4. Welcome back, Kayshon Boutte. Let's ask Maye to let you stay awhile. 
  5. Spencer Rattler is playing better than expected, and he's oh-so-close to being more than what he is.
  6. Rico Dowdle is a good argument for allowing RBs to get into a rhythm.
  7. Kimani Vidal is Exhibit B of the Dowdle argument, but let's be real about the Miami Dolphins defense.
  8. What did I tell you about Quinshon Judkins? He's an RB1 talent in an RB2 offense. 
  9. What did I tell you about Rachaad White? Soured expectations clouded the judgement of the masses.
  10. Odds and Ends: A variety of thoughts -- and clips -- highlightly players and units around the league. 

Let's roll...

1. The Difference with Baker Mayfield Is the Pocket

There's a ton of revisionist history out there with Baker Mayfield. Cleveland fans were split on Mayfield during his tenure, and many of them want the Browns and its community to rue the day that they got rid of him. They relish Mayfield's emergence as an opportunity to spit venom at his critics and the organization. 

This behavior extends to the draft community, which saw Mayfield as a mix of Russell Wilson, Drew Brees, and Brett Favre rolled into one. This is especially true of some in the analytics community who haven't supplemented film study into their work, and it lacks valuable context that they missed with Mayfield early in his career. 

They didn't understand that Accuracy Is A Deceptive Category. Mayfield's issues, outlined in the link I just shared, initially translated to his NFL game. 

So, if I'm correct about Mayfield, what's the difference between his time in Cleveland and Tampa Bay? 

Humility, according to his wife. She says Mayfield spent more time looking inward and thinking about what was within his control. We can't quantify how humility changed his game on the field.

The best shot I'd take to link humility to an improvement on the field is pocket management -- the true on-field difference that has helped Mayfield realize his talents in Tampa after his struggles in Cleveland.

One could argue that it took humility for Mayfield to realize that climbing the pocket instead of rolling or flushing to the edges was an act of recognizing that you can't put yourself before your teammates. The motivation for Mayfield's change doesn't matter to me as much as the change itself. 

When a quarterback in the pocket sees or feels pressure and his first inclination is to flush or roll, he's more likely to extend plays that force receivers to re-route. He's also more likely to ruin his teammates' containment of defenders that was working. 

A flush or roll from the pocket can generate big plays off-structure, but there are several risks.

  • Sacks
  • Turnovers
  • Miscommunication with receivers
  • Receivers not adjusting well off-structure
  • Diminished accuracy -- throwing on the move with less efficiency
  • Moving to one quadrant of the field that cuts off access to the rest

When a quarterback's first inclination is to climb, he keeps plays on track. Re-routing isn't necessary. The quarterback has access to all quadrants of the field. 

The QB also throws from a more stable position that aids accuracy. Receivers are often building on their initial separation because they can continue their break. Decisions are quicker and more reliable. 

Watching Mayfield since he arrived in Tampa Bay, I've noticed that Mayfield is much better than he was at Oklahoma and Cleveland at making the climb his first inclination when pressure arrives. 

Here's a clip of plays from Sunday's game where Mayfield climbs first. Even when he ultimately flushes or rolls away from pressure, his first move was a climb.

Fantasy analysts love mobile quarterbacks because of rushing yardage. The best mobile quarterbacks -- Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson -- know when to climb a pocket. The worst -- Justin Fields and Kyler Murray  -- have excellent weeks but rarely excellent seasons. 

Mayfield's ability to climb the pocket has expanded and optimized his decision-making, and his production has followed. 

2. Jaxson Dart: Next Steps

When filtering production to the past three weeks, Jaxson Dart ranks as QB6, averaging 20.3 fantasy points per game, and has victories over the Chargers and Eagles. He's completing 65.9 percent of his passes, and he has six scores -- two as a runner. 

Can you count on Dart as a QB1 this year? I'd ride for as long as it lasts, but I wouldn't sell the rights to your other brand-name QB this year.

Dart's off to a good start for the rookie, and it has the water-cooler set enthusiastic about his career outlook. Two years ago, Sam Howell, Will Levis, and even Joshua Dobbs generated short-term enthusiasm among their team's fan bases. Remaining composed and rational in the face of early-career starts for quarterbacks is one of the most difficult skills among fans and media. 

I sat in a room filled with people who make a lot of money off football and football analysis, and watched them conclude that Lamar Jackson would never be a good NFL quarterback based on his first playoff game against the Chargers as a rookie. One of them was a two-time million-dollar contest winner. 

When I asked this gentleman why he echoed the room's sentiments, I realized he was analyzing a different game related to football, but not actually football. 

Dart has a chance to become a better quarterback than Howell, Levis, and Dobbs. He has a lot of skills that could help him develop into a top-12 fantasy QB for longer than a stint during his rookie year before opposing defenses begin implementing scouting reports. 

Dart has an excellent play-action game, strong mobility, creativity off-structure, and the ability to stand and deliver under pressure. When throwing to targets less than 25 yards from his release point, he's accurate. 

Let's discuss those next steps that are the difference between Dart being a fun story in October and him becoming a fun story every October. Pinpoint accuracy with passes that cover 25 yards or more from Dart's release point. 

I've been showing clips like this from Dart for weeks now. This isn't new. It's as old as his tenure at Ole Miss. 

Pocket management is another vital area where Dart requires improvement. Like early-career Baker Mayfield, Dart isn't comfortable with climbing the pocket as much as he is escaping it. Dart will "climb" upward, but he's not doing it to throw as much as run. 

Dart abandons a good throwing position to move upward in the pocket. Instead, he's in a position to run. This costs Dart opportunities to spot and act on open targets.

So far, he's had productive decisions to make elsewhere, but they were less efficient. Eventually, those inefficient decisions catch up to quarterbacks. 

When a quarterback is running from spot to spot rather than climbing efficiently, accuracy diminishes. Sure, we see these passers make great throws on the move, but even Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes II, and Lamar Jackson can climb efficiently. 

The Dart miss below is a tough play, but one that efficient climbers make. Even when they have to abandon efficient practices, the fundamentals and body awareness that come with developing good climbing can help them deliver accurate targets off-platform. 

Dart must also tighten up his placement in the short and intermediate game. Some of these lapses are likely due to acclimating to the NFL and his head swimming with a lot of details. Still, this must improve. Ignore the coverage, but note the placement. 

Why should you ignore the coverage? Because placement in these ranges becomes habit and bad habits can lead to bad outcomes when coverage is there. 

Whenever I share quarterback clips on X, folks always want to know what the player's ceiling is and whether I think he'll reach it. They're hopeful and want validation for that hope. 

I'm a believer you need 20-30 games to truly know -- time to see how defenses adjust, and then, how the quarterback adjusts to those adjustments. What I can say is that Dart is playing aggressive and creative football, he knows his offense, and he's making positive plays. 

It's a good start. If he can shore up the issues listed above on tape, he'll become a perennial starter in fantasy leagues with 12-15 teams. This year? Ride his play for bye weeks or matchups with key starters missing at least until teams begin applying their scouting reports for him in mid-November.

3. Drake Maye Is Taking the Next Step

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Tags:
Rico Dowdle Baker Mayfield Spencer Rattler Drake Maye Jaxson Dart Kimani Vidal Kayshon Boutte quinshon judkins Rachaad White Matt Waldman the top 10 Week 7 NFL footballguys
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