Fantasy Football Today - 2026 QB Tiers REVEALED! Rankings, Projections & Draft Strategy (07/13 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

We start with our overall QB tier thoughts (0:00), then hit the latest news and notes (16:20), including the potential impact of spicing up NFL overtime (18:40). After that, we dive into our Tier 1 quarterbacks (21:48) before breaking down Tier 2 and Tier 3 (23:00), including why Heath has Jayden Daniels in his Tier 2 and why that has people surprised. We discuss Jalen Hurts' outlook and whether Justin Herbert can become an elite fantasy option in Mike McDaniel's offense (31:20), why Brock Purdy and Jared Goff are two of the best values at quarterback (44:28), and the concerns surrounding Caleb Williams and how he stacks up to Jaxson Dart (50:20). We finish with Heath's favorite high-end QB2 options (56:31), the impact of Kyler Murray's move to the Vikings (1:00:00), Baker Mayfield expectations for 2026 (1:02:10), and a look back at Cam Ward's disastrous rookie season (1:05:00).Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcastsWatch FFT on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

This is fantasy football today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this? It's a no idea. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races and he stays on his feet. It's just going to go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.

Welcome to Monday's show. It is July 13th and it is Tears Week. Yes. Quarterback, running back, wide receiver and tight end tears. And then hopefully a mailbag for you. on Friday. Adam Azzer, Jamie Isberg and Heath Cummings. We've all been kind of away for a little while. I want to thank Dave for doing a great job on the Thursday podcast, a live mock draft. That was great stuff. Heath, welcome back. Hey, it's great to be here. I was a little disappointed because

I thought when you said it was tears a week, Jamie and I were just going to take turns trying to make you cry. But, no, tears are very, very important. Well, how about we all try to make Dan cry on Friday. By the way, so sometime between now and the end of the month is Dave's 50th birthday. Everybody just from now until the end of the month, start wishing Dave a happy birthday on Twitter X, whatever. Just send him happy birthday. He won't make it to 50 if you do that. He's going to just keep sending every day. He's going to be so bad. Don't do that. Anyway, Dave and Heath and Jamie have have their... It might help you get in the leftover leagues. So do it.

You're just evil, man. The Happy Birthday Day League. Okay. So anyway, we'll go through the tiers. We have a few news items for you. And let's talk generally about tears. Heath, why should we use tears? What can fantasy managers get out of this?

Fantasy managers. We need Dan on to get after you for mispronouncing that. No, I think a lot of times when we rank players, the difference between two and six may not be very big. And then the difference between six and seven is enormous. And so tiers help you to see what players within the rankings are kind of grouped together. And then the best way you can use them is look at the players that you have in the same tier, see what their ADP is. We're going to talk about that a lot when we get to my tier three quarterbacks, because there's a wide range in terms of

where these guys are being drafted. And so you can find somebody with a similar floor, similar upside, similar projection, but three rounds later, that's how you win fantasy leagues. Jamie, do you prefer tiers to rankings? I don't know if I have a preference.

I mean, it's obviously somewhat of the same thing. You know, I think he said it appropriately, defined it appropriately. It's, you know, I'm never going to be like,

oh, if I didn't get a player in that tier, I'm screwed, or I can't still find, you know, a player that I like in the next tier that is close. So, like, when he said the difference between, you know, six and seven, for example, or seven and eight, you know, in your rankings could definitely be a tier drop-off, but clearly they're close enough where you should still feel comfortable drafting that player. So if I'm really looking at, like, a draft metric, it wouldn't be tiers or rankings. It would probably be ADP.

Okay. Speaking specifically, by the way, comment from the chat here from Wisco Disco, just sent Dave a happy birthday on Twitter. How quickly do I get blocked? Do you think he's going to know if he starts getting spam with happy birthdays like every day between now? Of course. He's going to figure it out immediately. Do you think it'll actually go back and watch to see if I said it or one of us said it?

Or like he'll have to. He'll know who it was, Jamie. He'll know. Does Josh Allen belong in his own tier, Heath? Yep. Jamie? Yeah. Why?

I think his track record, his still ability to perform at a high level, and then also factoring in when he's going to get drafted, where he's going to get drafted, I think is pretty clear he's the number one quarterback. So consistent. I would love to see just stats from weeks one through 17 because the last two years he's been, you know, one play in week 18, kind of dragged us per game down a little bit. But it's six years in a row of him being one of the best quarterbacks in fantasy. It's incredible. You know, if you just go to like his game log and just go like

Weeks 1 through 17 and take out Week 18, you could, I believe it's called Azersadding. No, so I can do that, obviously. I don't need any help to do that. But I think he's been no worse than third in points per game for six straight seasons if you remove Week 18, just Weeks 1 through 17. I would love to know if any quarterback has ever done that before. And maybe AI can help me with that. But I feel like it might be the best six game, six seasons. if for no other reason he's been healthy, hasn't missed a game. So I have him second per game

through week 17 last year. I don't think there's any chance you could guess who was number one. The year before, we try to guess at him. Who's number one? It was QB1 through week 17 last year. Wasn't Stafford?

No. He was third the year before through week 17. Yeah. He's definitely been, well, I think he's been top three every year. But yeah, let me know. But I think there's a chance that Josh Allen has had the most consistent six-year stretch in fantasy history.

It's just to throw it out there. It's possible. I don't know. All right. Which tier represents the beginning of the backup quarterbacks in fantasy? Four. Tier four for Heath is Shuck, Stafford, Bo Nix, Jordan Love, and Patrick Mahomes. There's a great options, but not top 12 quarterbacks.

Tier 4 for Jamie would be a little, I think for Jamie, Tier 5 or 6, yeah, because Tier 4 for Jamie is Lawrence, Dart, and Caleb. So Jamie's got more tiers than Heath. Tier 6 for you, that's Malik Willis, Tyler, Shuck, Baker, Mayfield, Jordan, Love. Yep, I would be fine starting anybody in Tier 5 still.

Tier 5 for Jamie. Is Stafford, Purdy, Mahomes? That's similar to Tier 4 for Heath, although not Purdy. Purdy's in 2. Also, you just said the name of the guy that I'm going to be hired. on that I actually have in tier three, but Brock Purdy.

He was number one? He was QB1 through week seven. He only played eight games, but he was QB one through week 17. Oh, wow. All right. The rest of tier, what was it, five for Jamie? Was Stafford, Purdy, Mahomes, Kyler Murray, Bow next, Jared Gough.

He'd be fine with... Oh, Johnny, you can't out me like that. Come on. Oh, yeah, Johnny. Jamie, don't worry about it. It's pretty transparent. Right. Which tier do you draft from the most? Three.

For me, it would be tier four. All right, tier three for Heath. Sorry, tier three, excuse. Tier three for both of you. For Heath, that's Purdy, golf, dart, Lawrence, Herbert, Caleb Williams. And for Jamie, that's Jaden Daniels, Jalen Hertz, Herbert, and Prescott. So that, to me, says, Jamie, you go earlier on quarterback than Heath. No, it's where I typically look for the three quarterbacks that I probably draft the most of this year will be Herbert, Prescott, and Trevor Lawrence.

Herbert Prescott, Lawrence. Okay. And Heath, yeah, I guess kind of similarly, do you find yourself drafting a particular quarterback or quarterbacks? I just wrote my, and it'll be published to the site today, but I just wrote my Sleepers article. And at current ADP, I just don't think I'll take. quarterback in the first nine rounds because Brock Purdy's in round 11 and Jared Goff's in round 12 and they're both tier three quarterbacks for me that pretty much always finish in the top 10. Do you feel that way in four point per passing touchdown leagues because we center most of our content on six point? In four point I'll probably draft Jalen Hertz because he is the other the guy from and again he's in tier two for me. My tears. It's going to be weird talking about my tears versus Jamie's because I think I've got more players in tier two. But Hertz a lot of times fall.

to round eight. And his value relative to the other quarterbacks goes up in four point for past touchdown leagues. And so Hertz would be the guy I would draft more often in that format. I think we're going to be big Purdy fans on this show. In the last three seasons, I won't go through four point for six point because it's been pretty similar. But he's been per game, sixth, 11th, and fourth.

And I think about that with Caleb Williams, who right now is QB6 in ADP, going 72nd overall. Caleb Williams is QB6. Brock Purdy on Fantasy Pros is QB 11, going 98th overall. Brock Purdy has finished as a top six quarterback per game in two of the last three seasons. And he's going, what did I say Caleb was going? Caleb is, I know it's QB6, but he's 72nd. Brock Purdy's 98th.

So you can wait two rounds and get a guy who's already performed like we're hoping Caleb Williams is before. I'm not saying I like Purdy better than Caleb, but you see what I'm getting at there. And then is there a tier that you usually avoid in drafts? One? One and two? Yeah. I get it with avoiding Josh Allen, but I don't want to necessarily avoid.

And I love Josh Allen, but we just, you know, he's just going to go too high for us. Don't think I want to avoid tier two. Like tier two for Heath is Lamar, Drake May, Jaden Daniels, Burrow, Hertz, Prescott. For Jamie, it's just Jackson, May, and Burrow. with Daniels Hurts, Prescott, and Herbert in Tier 3. But I don't want to miss out on, I mean, I guess I could say it's easier to make that,

to say that with Heath's tier because it is basically tiers two and three for Jamie is just Tier 2 for Heath. But man, like, those guys could be, some of those guys could approach 28 to 30 points per game, Jamie. So I don't want to, I don't think we have that in Purdy and golf, et cetera. I don't want to just miss out. I don't think you should be, like, out of your way, avoiding them unless they're just being drafted way too soon.

Like, you know, you're going to get to that round three through five range where I think most of these guys will hopefully go, you know, Josh Allen starting that and then these guys coming off the board and round, they're coming off the board in rounds four and five, maybe the end around three for Lamar Jackson. But I, it's always going to be the same thing that we'll say, you know, and I think probably to a man. It's just if you don't like the players that are on the board at running back wide receiver tight end, it's easy to pivot to the quarterback because like you said, you're not.

set. There's 25 plus point potential for these guys in these tiers. And yes, Jared Goff could do that. Brock Purdy could do that. The guys that were hoping take that step forward, Caleb Williams, Jackson, Dart, you know, Trevor Lawrence on a consistent basis, you know, those guys can clearly do that. We've seen them do that at times. But it's a matter of, you know, does the upside of an Ameca, Abuka, a Quintan Judkins, you know, whatever player that we're expecting to be, you know, or burden the next breakout guys versus those quarterbacks and then hopefully pivoting to, let's say, a Christian Watson later or a basal tootin later. You know, you get the point, you know, somebody later and still getting those quarterbacks. Like, it's always when the quarterback is drafted and you're like, oh, I wish I would have waited. At least that's my, that was my feeling if I take a quarterback early.

And then when I take a step back and I look at the broad picture of how I draft them, like, you know, having that guy is a pretty good. It makes you feel a little bit better because just know you're getting those guaranteed eight points. Okay. And you could, this is where tiers come in handy.

If you, if you make your own tier of, let's say, guys who could just be elite win you your league. And you think it's Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, Drake May,

Jaden Daniels, Joe Burrow. Anyone else that you throw in there? I don't know why you wouldn't put Jalen Hertz in there. Fair enough. Jalen Hertz. I mean,

Dax's been, had a couple of seasons where he looked like he might be a top two QB. Yeah. I mean, I kind of feel like he's a 24 to 5 fantasy point per game ceiling, which is awesome. And honestly, he can easily hit it. But fine.

Did you say Daniels? I did, yeah. Okay, yeah. But if we're talking about guys who can get to 28, whoever it is, maybe there's four guys, maybe there's six guys, you just take the guy who goes last. That's how you play the tears game. All right. So more on those guys in a little bit. FFT Dynasty Heath, give me a promo.

We have three shows this week. We'll have a regular Tuesday show, a regular Friday show, and I believe we will have a Wednesday afternoon show as well. Tune in on Tuesday morning, I'll tell you for sure. We're going to talk about some of the training camp guys and the guys that are going to see their value change before anybody plays real football games. And then I think we also need to probably do a couple of mock drafts,

just get those refreshed for where the current, value is in terms of FFT listeners. And Beyond the Box Score, also one that you want to check out. It has its own YouTube channel. Search for Beyond the Box Score. I'll be on today. I'll be on today also. Yeah, different times.

Yeah. Well, the thing is we can't, like we don't do three-hour shows. So it takes three of us to put together one Jacob Gibbs and Dan Schneier episode. Yeah, I might only be on for like a half hour. I'm talking about. I told them to. Yeah, I'm talking about Trey McBride. they flowers. Oh, nice. Okay. I love that. I mean, this is really cool, right? So it's,

it might just be a half hour on Trey McBride and it might just be a half hour on Zay Flowers. And I'm sure that we'll talk about other players within those episodes, but deep dives for the diehard fan. I think I just came up with the slogan for Beyond the Box Score. I also want to promote that Dan and I went to the FSGA conference, which for us was the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association conference. But Dan probably wishes he had been at the Florida State Golf Association conference, because that's all he does is golf. In fact, he almost made me drive by myself

instead of picking him up halfway because he wanted to golf on Friday. Anyway, we both... Wait, wait, wait, wait. You guys had a plan for you to pick him up and he decided to go golfing before him? No, one hour before I was about to leave. He called me and said,

yeah, I got to do something on Friday. I might just make more sense for me to take my own car. Can you drive by yourself? and he kept kind of not wanting to admit it. I was like, Dan, just say golf. I know you want to go golf, right? It's like, okay, it's golf, it's golf. But we ended up sticking to the plan.

Anyway, that was before the week even started. We each, he did that. We each have what we're calling a list of grievances. We're going to have an airing of grievances on our upcoming mailbag to talk about the horrible things that both of us did. for the two days of FSGA. So it should be fun. It'll be a festive episode, hopefully, on Friday.

We'll take a break and come back with some news and notes. John Breach of CBSports.com has two ways to spice up NFL overtime, and we'll talk more about the quarterback tiers. We'll be right back. Also, Dan and I played tennis on Friday. Who won? Who do you think? Dan.

You would have led with it if you want. What's going on with my phone? Will you be quiet? Dan won six four. Ooh. How's the injury? I'm okay. You know, it's the day after.

It's usually rough. But Dan didn't play well. So you would have won the second set because we know Dan's stamina is lacking. Listen, just wait until you hear his excuse. Just wait. It's like unbelievable. All right.

Daniel Jones is medically cleared to do everything according to the athletic. So he'll be full go going into camp. I just drafted him in the Scott Fishbowl, as a Super Flex League as my third quarterback. If you like Daniel Jones, you might be alone this year. Not a lot of people seem very high on Daniel Jones, although this kind of report could change that.

But right now he's quarterback 25 in average draft position. Stay on the Colts, they want to reduce Jonathan Taylor's workload. I think if you were going to make a list of running backs most likely to lead the NFL and carries, would he be first or second? Top three. Yeah, he'd be up there, but they want to take some work away. What did you say? first.

First, yeah. They want to take some work with just, just, you know, keep them fresh. No big deal. Travis Hunter. It's always interesting

to hear that, and then we get to games and we never see it. Exactly. Who does the handcuff in your mind? It's one of the training camp battles. Yeah. Okay.

Travis Hunter will be full go for training camp. I think you just said, Giddens there, Jamie? Yes. Yeah, I guess if we had to pick one, but we'll see. And Stefan Diggs, Sessie is the best

wide receiver two in the NFL. and I'm very curious to see where he will end up. That's true. That's true. John Breach wrote a fun article. How many number two receivers would you take ahead of them right now? To Higgins? The way he was talking was like there's only seven or eight wide receiver ones.

And I think he meant like after the elite guys, he's the best. Devante Adams. Yeah, Higgins, Pickens, Adams. Darnel Mooney. Darnel Mooney for sure. I think at this point, this will get me crushed probably, but I think at this point I'd probably take Jordan out of it. I think it's fair.

I don't think that's getting crushed. We all think Addison's a pretty good player. I think Diggs might still be a good player, though. Yeah, he's got a point. He could be a very good wide receiver too. I mean, listen, if you're the dolphins, you certainly should be on the phone. See, there's a potential fit.

I think if you're the Raiders, make some sense for him to go there. Maybe the Chiefs. I think it is probably, like, it's good to hear him call himself a wide receiver too. Yes. Like, you kind of might have some concern signing Stefan Diggs that he thinks he deserves 10 targets a game.

Yes, agreed. All right, so a fun article real quick. John Breach has two ways to spice up NFL overtime, inspired by the World Cup, which, truth be told, I don't really care much anymore now that the USA is out. But this has been an incredible World Cup. Almost every game is super exciting. It's been great. Top of their games in the world still, are? Yeah, it's really cool.

It's really cool. So his two ways to spice up NFL overtime is basically borrow the college rule. The option number one is to do a two-point conversion shootout at the end of overtime. They don't have an overtime in, they don't have a 10-minute overtime in college football. But they do eventually, in their third overtime,

they go to the two-point conversion shootout. So that's option one. Heath does not like it, I can see. It's gross. I don't love it. The second one is a really cool idea. I'm just going to read what John said. If two NFL teams are still tied,

the initial 10-minute overtime period, then everything would come down to the field goal gamble. That's right. I knew it had to do with kickers. Yeah, of course. I knew it had to do with kickers. For those of you that don't know, John's dad was a legendary kicker for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Yeah, this is pretty funny in that regard. A kicker would get to decide it. Let's break down how this would work. If a game is still tied after the initial 10-minute overtime period, there would be another coin toss. The team that wins the toss gets to choose the distance for a field goal attempt. The team that loses the coin toss would then decide whether to attempt the kick or have the other team attempt it. So he gave the example of Packers Cowboys, which played the only tie in the NFL this year.

The Packers win the coin toss. They choose a 61-yard field goal. The Cowboys then say, well, we got Brandon Aubrey. We're going to kick it. If Aubrey makes it, the Cowboys win. if Aubrey misses it, the Packers win. I just imagine Breachy like getting so excited thinking about this kicker scenario. I think this is a great.

First of all, he's not saying do away with overtime. He's saying no more ties. This is all we do if there's a tie. I don't agree with the chat here. The chat does not like it. This is a cool tiebreaker. No. I love it.

I'm with the chat. Why? It's, by the way, the worst rule. potential change in the history of sports ever, this NBA free throw thing? Oh, you know what? I went to an NBA G-League game and I had no idea what was going on.

I couldn't figure out the free throw rule. I was like they only take that. They do that in high school summer league already. I like it. I like it. I don't realize. I'm kind of a purist when it comes to basketball. I get it.

You're trying to make the games, like it's just dead time and you're trying to take away that dead time. Yeah, if you get a two-shot foul or a three-shot foul, you get one shot. If you make it, you get all of the potential points. If you miss it, you get none. I think now that the Celtics have Mitchell Robinson, I probably like it. It's more likely that he makes one free throw than two.

It's completely unlikely he makes two. But I think the last two minutes, it's regular free throws. All right, cute quarterback tiers. Let's talk about Tier 1, Josh Allen, for both Jamie and Heath. It's a one-person tier. Don't have to say much here except do you think the addition, how about this, hypothetically, if they had not traded for DJ Moore,

would you still have Josh Allen in his own tier, Jamie? Yes. Heath? I think I probably would, yeah. I'm a little skeptical that DJ Moore is going to make a huge difference. So, yeah, I think I probably still would. Am I crazy for saying this? Josh Allen does not have the most.

upside at the position. I think Lamar does. Okay. Yeah, sir. Me too. All right, let's go to Tier 2 then. Let's bring it. Tier 2 for Jamie.

I think maybe, is it best to look at tiers two and three for Jamie and just compare to Tier 2 for Heath because for Jamie, Tier 2 is Jackson, May, and Burrow. And Tier 3 is Daniels, Hertz, Herbert, Prescott. Whereas for Heath, tier two is Jackson, May, Daniels, Burrow, Hertz, Prescott.

So it's only missing Herbert. In other words, unless I'm wrong here, if you combine tiers two and three for Jamie, it's the same as Tier 2 for Heath, except it includes Justin Herbert, right? Yep. All right. So Jamie, is there any reason why you decided to separate Jackson, May, and Burrow from Daniels, Hertz, Herbert, and Prescott? I think those three on a little bit of a different level. Obviously, Lamar, as we just alluded to, most upside probably of anybody at the position,

has shown you what he's capable of when he's healthy, and hopefully that's the case this year. And maybe the new offense under Declan Doyle allows him to be even better. So a lot to love about Lamar. Drake May, I think, gets better with the addition of AJ Brown. It was pretty special last year. And Joe Burrow, when he's been healthy, has been, you know, amazing. Jane Daniels, you can make a case. Obviously, for me at least, I would separate Daniels from Hertz and Prescott.

So Daniels was the one I probably struggled with the most, but he's at the top of the next year. And I, for the most part, early on, leaned on my projections for putting together the tiers. And I have these six quarterbacks, is it six, right? Yeah, all basically within one point per game in my projections. I kind of would view this tier as they might be, well, really, I would say they might be QB2. The truth is, we've seen several, like usually there's one. one guy that sneaks up and is just a little bit better than Josh Allen. We're just much more confident that Josh Allen's going to be top three than any of these guys. Yeah, I think, all right,

so Jackson, May and Burrow, Tier 2 for James. Yeah, good, good. Like, I think May, and May is kind of the hybrid of the group. Like Jackson, Daniels, and Hertz could all have enormous rushing production and still good passing numbers. And I think Burrow and Dan, could throw for 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns. And May kind of combines, he's probably not going to rush for quite as much as the three I mentioned in terms of fantasy points, and he's probably not going to throw for quite as much as Burrow and Hurt and Prescott,

but he's good enough in both. Right. Well said. And Daniels, you know, I like this stat for Jaden Daniels because he only played four games with 100% of the snaps. And in those four games, games, it looked a lot like his 20-24 season, except just didn't have any rushing touchdowns. But

his season was so wonky, knee and hamstring injuries earlier in the season, elbow injury later in the season, so few times that he actually start and finish. But he did that, I think, I don't know if it was weeks one through four, but it was his first four games. And I think, like, the perception

on Jaden Daniels is kind of weird, and Ricky in the chat was really upset that we have Jaden Daniels ahead of Caleb Williams. I do at least. I'm not sure. I have him in a different tier. Jamie may have them in the same tier next. But I think from what we've seen so far, I feel more confident in Jaden Daniels as a rusher than Caleb Williams, and I feel more confident in Jaden Daniels as a passer than Caleb Williams. Well, it's not even close as a rusher. Right. As a passer, that's interesting. I think I trust, I think I expect Caleb to take the next step in a lot of

got a lot of fantasy players in general do. But there's no reason to expect that Jaden Daniels wouldn't be better, is there? Yes, there is. His best and maybe only legitimate weapon is 30 years old now. Okay, so it's weapons. But not like passing ability. I mean, if he were playing on the Chicago Bears this year, you know. He might be QB1.

Yeah, right. Is that, that's kind of how I'm seeing it. That's how I approach it. Jamie, your thoughts on Jaden Daniels? And I'm sorry, let me just say again, first four games when he played 100% of the snaps. He was, Jaden Daniels, like, as bad as last year was, he was actually the top seven quarterback per game. And again, that was only four games, but it was with zero, I think zero rushing touchdowns in those four games.

So, anywho, yeah, no rushing touchdowns. But your thoughts on Daniels? I think Jaden Daniels' best weapon is himself, you know, so that's the biggest reason. You know, so what he'll do with his legs, he can easily rush for a thousand yards. he was close as a rookie. So does he have the weapons that Caleb Williams has? Clearly not. But I think the interesting part of Jane Daniels will be if they sign Stefan Diggs,

if they sign somebody else, do they get another receiver of significance and how high does he then go? I don't think Heath will have him much higher, but maybe he does move him up a spot. For me, it'll probably just put him in this tier. I wouldn't take him ahead of Jackson, Mayor Burrow, but it would definitely bump up. his round value. So I think Jay and Daniels can still get better, but at this point,

I just think you know what you're getting. You're getting a very good running quarterback who could throw it as well as anybody. And if he had better weapons, like he said, it might be talking about QB1 or QB2. Combining what we've talked about already today, man, wouldn't that be the perfect spot for Stefan Diggs? Yep. I think that's where he wants to go. I mean, he went to school at Maryland. I think he's training there. So it just makes a lot of sense, especially after the brand and Iyuk fiasco, if that was something they were considering, like, digs may have his off-field issues and, you know, still maybe having to, you know, go through something. But as a player, as we talked about, you know, for what he accomplished last year, coming off an ACL tear, learning a new offense, learning new quarterback.

Like he really, I think, showed he can still be an asset to a team. And for our purposes can potentially be a number three fantasy receiver if things go right. I don't think Joe Burrow requires much discussion. We pretty much know who he is, although injuries have really held him back in his career. but I always do this every year. I look at the games where Burrow, Chase, and Higgins are all healthy, playing, you know, more than 50% of the snaps are close to normal snapshot as possible. And there's been five years and you look at these sample sizes and I'm going to tell

you how many points per game Joe Burrough has averaged when Higgins, when he, Higgins and Chase are all healthy. So from 2021 on, 23.3 points per game. game in six point, which is good, not great. 29.1, which is amazing. He was terrible in 2023. They all were bad. 28.2 in 2024, which would have made him QB2 per game, and 25.7 last year, which also

would have made him QB2 per game. So in three of the last five seasons, Joe Burrow has been good enough to be number one or number two per game in six point, and anywhere from two to four per game in four. four point for passing touchdown leagues when they've all been healthy. Can we get a number of games that has happened each year? So it was 14 games, nine games, seven games, 12 games, and five games. So like, and that's kind of the thing is I think, like, we've, the chat has mostly been saying, like, Jaden Daniels' health is the concern.

He can't stay healthy. He can't. I don't hear that about Joe Burrow very often. You're right. And certainly it happens. You don't hear that often, really? I think the Russian quarterbacks give people more anxiety, right? Like, we expect them to get hurt.

Not just general public. I mean, you know, I don't know at what point that it became like, oh, it's so, it's so concerning, you know, maybe it was RG3, you know, after the rookie season he had and everybody was, you know, petrified afterwards. But, I mean, look, you have to have some concern about it. but you can't, you can't have a realistic injury conversation and not have Doeboro in there. It's just not fair. Sure.

Agreed. All right. So how about Jalen Hertz, Stack Prescott, and Justin Herbert with Hertz and Prescott in this tier two or three group for both Jamie and Heath and Herbert in there just for Jamie? So what's the, what's the upside for those guys, Jamie, Herbert, Prescott, and Hertz? I mean, Hertz track record is clearly tried and true. It's just a matter of, you know, to what level you're going to get Jalen Hertz and losing AJ Brown doesn't help. But I think the group that he has with him, at least from a depth standpoint, has the chance to be solid. You know, so there are questions, you have to have questions about his receiving court because we've never seen Devonte Smith in this role.

Dallas Goddard has been solid, but he has a tough time staying healthy. McCoy Lemon is a first round rookie, but he's already dealing with an injury, Marquis Brown, Dante Wix. you can go on and on just about, you know, the pros and cons of these guys. But again, Jalen Hertz, if he's going to run, then you're going to get the tush push. You're going to get the rushing touchdowns. You're going to get, you know, probably 500 plus yards. And so that keeps him in the conversation to be a top five fantasy quarterback, which is why Keith has him where he does.

And, you know, for just a little bit of a lesser extent, so do I. Obviously, the one that I think needs to probably have the, you know, you need to be sold on is Justin Herbert. Right. If you're not paying attention to what. what's gone on this offseason. And that's the addition of Mike McDaniel. And then you look at what he did last year,

where he ran the ball to a level that we haven't seen from over 400 yards rushing. When he had his tackles healthy or when he had his tackle healthy because he didn't have Rishon Slater for the entire season and only had Joe Alt for six games. But in the first four games, it looked like first and second year Justin Herbert. And so for me, if anybody hasn't been paying attention, obviously I'm all in on the chargers this year. I think Justin Herbert has a chance to get back to that 25 plus point threshold.

If I said that correctly, you know, with the tackles healthy and almost entirely rebuilt interior of his line. But really, it's like we saw Mike McDaniel get a passing yards leading season from Tuatunga Viloa. And that's now going from, I don't want to be disrespectful to it, but that's like going from like, like, you still have your Volvo? I never had a Volvo. Volkswagen, what you have? I had a Volkswagen, now I have a Honda CRV.

Okay, so like that level of car to like, you know, a much nicer version of it. You know, like Justin Herbert's just a huge upgrade. Yeah, we're definitely stepping into the BMW here. Right. Yeah. We think, yeah. I didn't say, like, I didn't say, like, I didn't say, like, what's the car that looks really, really awesome?

Like an alien bug thing, the Tesla? That weird, like, tank. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I think the thing with Herbert is, you've seen him be an elite fantasy quarterback. And then it just was broken for a variety of reasons. play, offensive issues, offensive coaching, all those things for a three, four year period. And we've seen flashes of it again. And now the hope would be, at least for me, is the coach could be great.

He's been one of the most creative play callers in the league since taking over the offense head coaching spot. And now he's in with the charges all these weapons. And hopefully everybody around him stays healthy. It's a huge question, Mark. But I'm hoping that's going to be the case. My biggest question, I think, with Herbert is what is the past volume in Los Angeles? Like, his best season, he threw the wall 672 times, had 5,000 yards passing 38 touchdowns.

The last two seasons, it's been 504 attempts and 512 attempts. it's really, really hard to be a difference maker at quarterback. Now, if you rush for 500 yards, that helps. Maybe he does that. He almost did that last year. Maybe he does that again. Right? I don't know where you guys would put Herbert.

Because it is a bit of a mystery with McDaniel. Maybe he wants to throw the ball more now that he's got Herbert. I've got him 15th in past attempts. But I don't really have a strong lean. That's why he's kind of in the middle of the pack for me. Yeah. I think the rushing guards, I mean, you mentioned what he did last year, Jamie, but I don't think we can bank on that. No, no.

You know, so maybe 300 rushing yards. I think he's certainly capable of that. You know, 17.5, 18, he's been around 17 to 18 rushing yards per game most years. Last year, Herbert was 31 rushing yards per game. So that'll probably come down. What's the difference between him and Dak Prescott? For me, it's the ability to just take a step forward where I think Prescott is just going to kind of stay in the same level where he's been, which has been fantastic.

You know, so I could see Herbert north of 25 points. I think you said it earlier. Like 23, 24 points to me is Dak Prescott. So I guess I probably have to answer since I have them in different years. I, for me, like Jamie mentioned, the great McDaniel season with Tua and maybe multiple seasons, but he had Tyreek and Waddle. And I am, like, DAC has C.D. Lamb and George Pickens compared to, to Ladd McConkey, who were hopeful breaks out and Quentin Johnston.

It's a pretty big difference in pass catching weapons for me. And I have a lot more projected passes for deck than I do for Herbert. So that's, I think, where I'm going to guess probably Dave and I align on this a little bit more, is that I think that Cowboys defense takes a significant step forward. Yeah, but to the Chargers level, the Chargers could have one of the best. No, no, no, no, but there's a difference there. I think the, if it goes as I hope and Harbaugh just says, that's yours, Mike.

Go do what you want and doesn't rain in Mike McDaniel. Like we could see a lot of just fantastic things coming out of the charge. Not that the Cowboys aren't going to be great, but I think there's a chance that it's like one of the best offenses of football.

I think the Cowboys, you know, under Dan Quinn, they did have some good defenses, some really good defenses. And I believe they still through the ball. I meant to come, I meant to do that research and know it for sure. but I don't think they've never really been like, no, I wouldn't say they've never been run heavy,

but I think they've still had good pass volume, even with good defenses. And then also I looked at six teams last year that made pretty big jumps defensively. It went up at least 10 spots from 2024 to 2025 and points per game allowed. And then like Carolina threw a lot less, but San Francisco had a higher pass rate.

The Jaguars had a lower pass rate, but a new coach. Same with the Patriots. The Browns went from first, to seventh in pass rate. The Falcons had a slight increase in pass rate. So overall, it wasn't exactly conclusive. Looking at the six teams that had the biggest improvement defensively from 2024 to

2025 and what it meant for their pass rate. You know, I couldn't, especially because two of them had a new coach, you know, and you expected Mike Brable to be more run heavy. I don't know if you expected that from Leon Cohen. Okay. We've got to take a break. So that is the first three tiers, basically, for Jamie, the first two. tiers for Heath. We'll get into the Brock Purdy's, Jackson Darts, Trevor Lawrence's,

Caleb Williams of the world when we come back on fantasy football today. All right, on to tier four. And if Caleb Williams is going to be, you know, in this tier for Jamie, he's in tier three, kind of the end of tier three for Heath, he's just, no one has in our site as a top six quarterback, just to say that. But he's obviously very exciting. Jamie has Trevor Lawrence, Jackson, Dardt, and Caleb Williams in tier four. And again, this is kind of like tier three. Maybe you just go back real quick if you wouldn't mind a tier three for Heath. Because for Jamie, it's Lawrence, Dart, and Caleb in tier four.

But tier three has all three of those guys for Heath plus... As well as Purdy and golf. Yeah, Purdy and golf and Herbert. So look, whether it's tier three, whether it's tier four, we're, you know, in the back part of the top 12 and the beginning of, you know, the outside... I wouldn't call them backup. They may not be 12th, but, you know, they're starting quarterbacks.

They're just not in the first two tiers. So Purdy, Gough, Dart, Lawrence, Caleb Williams. Am I forgetting anyone? Herbert for Heath, but not for Jamie. Yeah, I think Jamie, we'd be perfectly fine with these guys as our quarterbacks. What are our expectations for the Purdy, Gough, Dardt, Lawrence, Caleb? I mean, in the case of Purdy and golf, you have the track record of what they've done and hopefully we'll continue to do.

So I just don't see the same upside. And that's probably not fair for Purdy because as he alluded to through Week 17 from a points per game standpoint, he was great, but he obviously didn't play very many games in the first 11. For golf, it's just kind of, can he ever exceed that 21, 22 point threshold?

For me, why I have Lawrence, Dart, and Williams ahead of them, and I go back and forth between Dart and Williams. So, you know, that's kind of a tough one just based on how much the Giants can potentially run the ball. So I think once we get an official, on Malik Neighbors. I'll probably move Williams ahead of Dart. But in the case of these other guys, you're hoping that they take the step forward. And if they do take the step forward, and we saw flashes of it, obviously Dart did everything that he accomplished last year without Malik Neighbors.

The neighbors got hurt in week four. That was Dart's first start. What Dart did as a rusher, hopefully will continue. And then the additions that they made in the passing game, you know, from a free agency rookie, you know, and even just, you know, just taking a step forward in year two would be the hope. I think in the case of Caleb Williams

and Trevor Lawrence, like, you know, the coaching changes were so important for them and hopefully will continue to be important for them. Now, Caleb, you know, can he break through that threshold that's never happened before of being the first 4,000-yard passer?

I mean, he really did it last year, but he didn't. But can he be that first four-four-year? thousand-yard passer in Chicago history, you know, and how far can he get to, you know, on top of that. For Lawrence is, you know, I'm sure this will be Heath's, you know, point on him is that he's just never done it consistently over the course of a season. And so does what, did what we saw, did what we see last year, does he have the potential to do that again? And that's what I'm counting on. I think Liam Cohen's offense has just been fantastic for the last two quarterbacks

that have been in it, Baker Mayfield in 2024, Trevor Lawrence in 2025. and you talk about weapons for some of these guys and nitpicking it. Jackson will may not have like a true number one, but they have potentially four number twos. And it's pretty exciting to see what Lawrence did last year. And hopefully we get a better Brian Thomas and, you know, a continuation of Parker Washington and the, you know, parts that they put Travis Hunter in, you know, parts of the game that they put Travis Hunter in

and Jacoby Myers, like it could be really fun. So that's kind of why I think, you're inclined to wait on quarterback, it's so, it's such a deep position with so much upside and so many different ways you can go. Like, you're starting to see for Heath, you know, as we get into it a little bit more, like, here's where the number one quarterback is from a year ago. And the NFL MVP and Matthew Stafford, who some people just don't think you're going to do it again, which is why he's not ranked higher. You have Mahomes, if he's healthy, we know what he's capable of and showed it last year, you know, when he was running. Again, I don't think that'll be the case,

but, you know, it can just go on and on. So if we look at, tier three. I mean, I know we're on tier four for Jamie, but it's really mostly tier three for Heath. And I go by these players one by one. And you tell me, should we do upside here? Or, you know, how likely you are to draft them maybe?

Yeah. Draftometer. How likely you are to draft them, Brock Purdy, zero to ten? Eight. Likely to draft. Six. Jared Gough. Nine.

Four? Heath, why so much higher on golf? Well, and I don't know. Maybe Fantasy Pro's ADP is different, but right now in CBS ADP, Jared Gough is 144th in ADP. So he's at the 12-13 turn. So I could draft him as my QB2. If I drafted an upside QB1.

Much different on Fantasy Pros. But I think quarterbacks in general are going earlier. So, but what are Purdy compared to golf on Fantasy Pros? It's pretty close. Purdy is QB12, I think I said, and golf is QB15. They're about eight picks apart. Yeah, I don't think that's going to, like, how high is golf on Fantasy Pro's? QB 15, 107th overall.

Purdy's actually QB 11, 98th overall. So I think there's got to be some super flex factored in there because there's not one QB leagues where the 15th QB is being drafted in round nine very often. Yeah. Typically, I guess. I think they separate theirs, though, fantasy pros. So do we, by the way. What I would say is if golf is 15th on fantasy pros, he's 16th on CBS,

so he is a backup quarterback. Well, yes. But we agree there are more than 12 guys who are worth starting. Whether you could settle for Azure. I mean, it's pretty cool. The QB 15 is Jared Gough. I don't know about it in a four point per passing touchdown league, although yards count.

And I think that would be his word. finish since he got to Detroit. He made it since his first year in Detroit. Let's see. Last four seasons per game. Yeah, you're absolutely right. 13th, 12th, 8th, and 9th in, that's, well, that's counting up. That's from 22 to 2025.

So last two years, golf's been eighth and ninth per game. That's six point. In four point per passing touchdown leagues, golf has been 14th, 14th, seventh, and 11th per game. And I don't know. I'm not, I'm just not really sure I'm going to draft that guy. if the best he's done is QB7 or 8 in the last four years Well, what if you draft him as QB 16?

Then yeah, but... So, I don't know why we would... Like, you don't have to draft him earlier than that. I think if you... If you know you're going to be, and you have enough depth on your roster, if you know you're going to be in on the potential injury guys, Jane Daniels, Joe Burrow,

those type of quarterbacks, or the unproven guys of Dart or Caleb or you want to throw Trevor Lawrence or whatever. Like this is the perfect marriage is Jared Goff and one of those guys. Now if you really want to wait and say, okay, I really believe in Kyler Murray this year, a Murray golf pairing late or a Shuck Pairing, you know, Shuck-Goff pairing, you know, those type of things or a Purdy golf pair. You know, just looking at Pretty wasn't healthy last year either.

You know, so there's lots of different ways to go. Like Jared Goff is the perfect guy to say, I'm going to know what I have. And it's funny you say if you're getting QB7, you don't want that. Right. Well, I didn't say that. I know what you meant, but if you know what you're getting with Jared Goff, which is at worst, let's say a QB 12 or 13 finish,

like that'll win you some weeks, though, if the rest of your roster is doing what's supposed to. I'm a huge fan of Jared Goff. Is Matthew Stafford not a better version of Jared Goff? Because twice in the last five years, Matthew Stafford has been out of this world good, and Goff hasn't reached those heights. Stafford's also been worse.

So he's more volatile, but does he not have more upside than Jared Gough? I think so. Heath? I mean, it's hard to say he doesn't after what happened last year. I just don't really believe anything that I just don't really believe that he can do what he did last year again. So I guess you'd have to say he has a higher upside and he is also much more likely to be dropped. Because he was on the waiver wire in leagues for two of the past four years, probably sometime last year. I dropped him.

Yep. He averaged 26 points per game last year. He averaged 24 points per game in 2021. And let me just see what golf has, if golf has ever reached 24 points per game, I'd be surprised. His high, his highest with Detroit is 22.9, 23.1 with the Rams back in 2018.

So that's a little bit of a comparison of the upsides maybe of Stafford versus. But I think golf is like, even Jaden Daniels, we talked about him and his injury concerns. Like he is the perfect guy to pair with those guys. Golf, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think if we're talking about as a backup, it's awesome.

Not sure I'd want him as my starter. Well, I don't know. I shouldn't say that. He's not for me. If he's your starter, then you have five running backs and five wide receivers that you took in the first 11 rounds. Yeah. He's really good. we did a draft on Thursday last week, 10-team half-PPR draft.

And for anybody that saw the story, so I drafted for Dave just using Dave's rankings and completely whiffed on tight end just because whenever it came up, he didn't have a tight end in his rankings at high and, you know, ended up with, I think, Dahln Kincaid and Chig O'Confo were his tight ends. It's the same thing with quarterback. Like if you just continue to stockpile talent, like he just said, You're just drafting great running backs, great receivers, just can't pass on those type of players. You get to that spot and it's like, oh, I'm stuck with Jared Gough.

And then I think if you take golf, then you take another high upside guy. So then that's where guys like for me, Kyler and Tyler Shuck come into play, Bo Nix, who's another guy that's getting a little, you know, somewhat disrespected by all of us because he's been a top 10 quarterback each of those first two seasons and still has the potential with, hey, you've got another receiver who should make you better, but we're going to rank you lower than you finish the last. two years. Like that's what we do. It's wild. And he's actually, Bo Nix is right one pick behind Jared Golf on Fantasy Pros, QB 16. I just got a, he's been top 10 or 12 each of the last two years. Yeah. Bo Nix. It's not always the prettiest. He was actually 13th per game last year. Sorry,

but, but really it does seem like people were pretty down on him. And he got, right, like you said, he got Waddle. Just got a text message, by the way, from Dave Richard. He said, today isn't my birthday. So he's taking it out on me, apparently. You should just say, I know. That's what I said. What do you mean? All right.

What a weird thing to say. So Jackson Dart, because anything, well, I think we need to talk about Caleb Williams, why you guys are a little, I guess, lower on Caleb than the fantasy industry. It's two things for me, and it may change. but as of right now he is the least accurate passer that we might draft in fantasy football he is kind of what people think

Jaylen Hertz is as a passer and stylistically I think he plays football the exact opposite way that his coach would like to okay Jamie I just think it's a great position you know like again

the one that I struggle with is Dart and Caleb just because we're hoping at this point because I think that's the only thing you can do is you're hoping that Malik neighbors not going to be on the Pup list for the first five or six weeks this season. And you don't have that because if he has that, and even if it's not the best version of Malik neighbors,

it's still better than what he had last year. So you give him neighbors, you give him Darnal Muni, give him Isaiah likely. You know, you give him, you know, hopefully the ability to run, which I think is the biggest part of this because, you know, he got hurt last year, or multiple times last year. But if he does that, like, that's a different gear than Caleb Williams has, at least his fantasy quarterback.

So I love Caleb Williams. I don't know if anybody can watch him and say, that's not fun to watch, that's not fun to root for. And now maybe we see, I don't know if you get necessarily better as a group by losing DJ more, but you get more Luther Burton. You get hopefully a full year of Colston Lovellum

because they didn't really have that animal until the end of the season going into the playoffs. And he didn't have Romo Doomsday at that time. So if everybody's healthy, like, it could be great and we could be completely wrong and the ADP can be exactly right, that he is a toxic quarterback. But I just don't want to overvaluate. you Caleb Williams. The same thing with Jackson Dartley. Both those guys to me can be

amazing and you could also see a little bit of a step back just based on how things may or may not change. And the bears, you know, look, we'll see if their run game continues to be as impressive. If not, then I think more is on Caleb, which I think will help. And in the case of the offensive line, too, like, you know, there's a little bit of a change going on there, which I hope will still be as productive for the Bears. Man, Caleb versus Dart is such an easy call for me. It's just so clearly Caleb Williams. Dart has one advantage over him, and potentially it's rushing totals and rushing touchdown.

Oh, I thought it was throwing the ball where he wants to. I understand that criticism of Caleb. Like, it's obviously there's no arguing against it. He completed less than 60% of his passes. It's a joke. But he also makes some plays that are so unbelievable that just from a fantasy point's perspective, it makes up for it, right?

He's got least chunk plays. But he's just such a better player than Jackson Dart, I think, at this point. And it's really Ben Johnson and all those weapons versus Matt Nagy and the lack of weapons. But Dart was better as a starter than Caleb last year, right? Probably. It's hard to say, you know, believe it or not, Jackson Dart only had one top five finish in 12 starts in six point per passing touchdown leagues. In four point per passing touchdown leagues, he had like four or something, which I think in four point he was definitely better than Caleb in six point.

Caleb was 10th per game. Dard had that game with zero points against the Vikings. So I don't know. I think it was a little closer than we might think. Is it that easy for you if Malik is healthy? Yes. Ricky in the chat says this guy is obsessed with completion percentage. I'm not sure if he was talking about you or me,

but I just wanted to say that when I was talking about accuracy, I was not necessarily talking about completion percentage so much as all of the advanced metrics that we have that measure on target throws and bad throws. Yes, Jamie. Thank you, Heath. I think he's probably referring to you, but the completion percentage is so bad for Caleb Williams that you just can't ignore it.

But I think I've just been on Twitter and there are a lot of really smart people in the industry. And just one of the things I keep seeing is how good Ben Johnson offenses are, how smart he is and what he does differently. And it's just like, Jamie, you're in on the Chargers because of McDaniel. Just in this particular comparison,

Bears versus Johnson, I mean, it's such a no-brainer for me to favor the guy on the bears. I mean, look, everything logically says Caleb Williams should be better because he is the prospect. He is the better, he has the better weapons. He has the better coach. And, you know, again, depending on what sample sizes you want to use, when everybody was healthy for the bears, he was better than what Jackson Dart was.

But Jackson Dart didn't have his best weapon and got better weapons. If you give him neighbors, again, whatever version of it, it's still to me better than what he had last year. No disrespect to Wondell Robinson. Isaiah likely is a huge upgrade. Darnal Mooney, I think, is a big addition. And so, yes, Matt and Aggie may not be great. But I think Jackson Darts' rushing ability from a fantasy perspective,

you've got to give that a big boost for him over Caleb Williams. Dave is, so why are strangers wishing me a happy 50? That's strange. Why am I dealing with this? How would I know? Dave. This is not fair. I said,

they like you? Question mark. All right, listen, I've done a pretty bad job here of navigating this show. So we have a lot of quarterbacks remaining to talk about here. So let's just talk about the next group. And for Heath, it's Tyler Shuck and Matthew Stafford, Bo Nix, Jordan Love, and Patrick Mahomes. Tyler Shuck, Matthew Stafford, Bo Nix, and Patrick Mahomes. Jordan Love and Patrick Mahomes

and we're 17 quarterbacks deep for Heath at this point. A similar tier for Jamie would be Stafford, Purdy Mahomes, Kyler, Knicks, and Gough. It's actually fairly different there, but that's tier five for Jamie versus tier four for Heath. But good quarterbacks, Heath, you want to take us through your tier four,

Shuck, Stafford, Knicks, Love, Mahomes. Yeah, I think these. are the high end QB-2s that nobody will be surprised if half of them finish as like QB 10 through 12. I do think there's some touchdown regression coming for Matthew Stafford. I'm a little concerned. I kind of feel even more so about the way about Bo Nicks that I do, Caleb Williams, like he just hasn't played quarterback as well as his fantasy production suggests.

Mahomes sticks out like a sore thumb here. And if he's 100% to start camp, I'll probably move him up a little bit. But I'm a little worried that the addition of Kenneth Walker means they throw less. And Mahomes coming off of an injury means he runs less. And that's a pretty bad combination for fantasy football purposes. I actually think there's, I mean, you could argue that I think there's three guys in this tier that could be awesome. I'm not going to say top whatever, but Stafford, Knicks, and Mahomes. I mean, love has been awesome in terms of efficiency.

He just had, like, if Green Bay just decides to throw the ball a normal amount, he could be awesome. Oh, I was just about to say that. Yeah. He's played great. You're absolutely right. That's why I'm a little surprised you have Shuck in here. Shuck was really good last year for a rookie, not just for a rookie, but I'm a little surprised you have him with Stafford, Knicks, Love, and Mahomes.

The way, like, we've given all the, uh, the shine to Mike McDaniel and Ben Johnson and they're awesome. And for fantasy football purposes, so is Kellen Moore, especially for passing games. Kellan Moore's very awesome. And if Chris Olavé and Jordan Tyson are both healthy, Tyler Shuck might have one of the best wide receiver duos in the NFL. All right. How about we take a look at Jamie's Tier 5 because it's similar?

So just for Shuck, he averaged, I think it was around, I don't remember exactly what it was, his 20 points got a tiny second. But Kellyn Moore, as a play caller, from a points per game perspective, his quarterback's, the worst year he's gotten, was a 21 point per game season. Wow.

Now, granted, that's, Dak Prescott, Jalen Hertz, and Justin Herbert. So is Tyler Shuck on that level? We'll find out. Is he, I don't think he was the coordinator for Hertz best season. Dan and I had a fight about that,

but he was the coordinator for Herbert's best season. He was the, no, he wasn't the coordinator for Herbert's best season. Herbert's best season was his first two years. He only had Herbert for one year. He was Hertz coordinator for the Super Bowl year, so obviously from a team standpoint. And then he had some pretty great seasons with that. I love it.

Tyler Shuck scored 19.1 or more fantasy points in six straight games to end the season. And he only had seven touchdown passes in those six games, but he was very good down the stretch. Three of his last five games, he was over 33 yards rushing. So if he can do that a little bit more, that's going to make him pretty special too. And that was a pretty big surprise to me.

anyway, but it was a big part of his game. Chuck was on pace in his nine starts. He was on pace for 329 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns. And I don't know how to look at that because I think that surprised me. Like I said, I didn't think he had that in him. If he's really that kind of a rusher, then, wow, that's a huge deal. But if he's not that kind of a rusher, then maybe that's where we see regression. Jamie's Tier 5 is Stafford, Purdy, Mahomes, Kyler, Bo Nix, and Jared Gough.

So having Kyler in this mix, whereas Heath has Kyler in a tier with Malik Willis and Baker Mayfield. So I guess, Jamie, I'd say you're showing a little more confidence in Kyler Murray, grouping him with Stafford, Purdy, Mahomes, Knicks, and Gough. As opposed to Jamie grouping Kyler with Malik Willis and Baker Mayfield. As opposed to Heath doing that, sorry. Yeah, I go back to Kevin O'Connell and the weapons that Kyler Murray now has. This is the best group he's ever played with, you know, in terms of complete talent, you know. So, I mean, on paper, you know, having young Trey McBride with an old D'Andre Hopkins or, you know, young Marvin Harrison and unproven Michael Wilson with Trey McBride. Like, you know, you could sort of look at it a billion different ways.

But I think Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Joanne Jennings, and T.J. Hawkinson in this offense should hopefully allow Kyler Murray to, you know, play at a very high level. And if he's healthy and hopefully motivated to get another big deal, because he's. down to his you know, this is, I don't know if his last shot, but this is certainly his last, you know, maybe big opportunity to, you know, be a surefire starter in this league. So I'm just banking on the upside here.

So, you know, if you're talking about floor, Bowenegs, Derek Gough, certainly have much safer floors. Sealing, though, I think Kyler Murray can get to that 22, 23, 24 point per game range. Yeah, I had Kyler, Malik, and Mayfield in the same tier because I think they might all three be awesome and they might all three be terrible. Murray Willis and Mayfield.

Yes, they could be awesome. They could be just absolutely terrible. I love that. I love that. Mayfield was off to a really good start last year. Then he had some injuries and Abuka got injured and Mike Evans got injured and this and that. But it's not just last year for Mayfield. He has just an insanely wide range of outcomes throughout his career.

All right, let's get to the next tiers then. Tier six for Heath is Tua, Stroud, Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, and Cam Ward. Tier six for Jamie is kind of like Tier 5-ish for Heath. Malik Willis, Tyler Shuck, Baker Mayfield, and Jordan Love. So I'm just going to ask a quick Baker-Mayfield question here. Would you guys be comfortable if he was your starting quarterback? No. Not right now, no.

But maybe. You don't have to do it. But, you know, if you were in like a 14-team league, I don't think it's the worst thing. I think throw Daniel Jones in that equation too, right? It's not that hard to see him being awesome again. He was awesome last year in the same offense, right? Do you feel that way or no? That's different offense, though.

I'd feel more that way if he had done it for longer. Different offense because it doesn't have Pittman. Oh, I'm sorry. He said Daniel Jones. I thought you meant to make me. No, no. All right. So Malik Willis, Tyler Shuck, Baker, Mayfield, Jordan, Love.

That's a tier for Jamie. We get to the kind of deeper guys. Heath's tier six is Tua, Stroud, Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, and Cam Ward. There's also guys like Jacoby Preset. We could talk about Bryce Young, Aaron Rogers, but for Heath it's Tua Stroud, Daniel Jones, Sam Donald, and Cam Ward. It had to be something about these five quarterbacks that made them stand out from the Bryce Youngs and Gino Smiths and Aaron Rogers of the world.

Straude, Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, Cam Ward. Yeah, I think, and two is probably the one that stands out the way I'm going to classify this, but I'm pretty optimistic about him in Stefanski's system with the weapons that he has. I think he can do the thing that Stafansky wants quarterbacks to do, which is take three steps back and deliver it to somebody who's open, and he has guys who will be open. So I would say these five quarterbacks, I think, they're definitely QB2s. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm too low on one or two of them. But mostly it's just, I think these five guys are going to start all year,

and they don't make me want to throw up in my mouth, and everybody below them does. Okay. Jamie, your thoughts on this last group, Tua, Stroud, Daniel Jones, Darnold, and Cam Ward? I think, you know, these are super flex options. These are, you know, this is, I don't really see, like, oh, these are the type of quarterbacks I want to pair with somebody else because I think there's upset.

I think maybe Cam Ward has that. I'm so annoyed with C.J. Stroud's career arc at this point. It's just very frustrating to see what he did as a rookie. And then it was completely falling off every year, almost every year afterwards. And they continue to give him weapons. And hopefully maybe Tankdale being back if he's healthy

and Jaden Higgins is taking a step forward to help Nico Collins makes the best CJ Stroud that we have. But it just feels like I don't know if it's the system or just whatever it is, it's just not working for him. But, look, Daniel Jones was great last year when healthy. And, you know, you read the report that he's all systems go. So that can certainly be the case. Sam Donald really has one weapon at this point that you feel comfortable with.

Cam Ward is really the one that kind of stands out here. If he can take a leap because of Cardinal Tate and Wondell Robinson and Brian Dable's offense, like he did look really good by comparison to the start of the season in the last four games. And I hope that guy shows up again. Well, we have on the screen here is Cam Ward's ranking among seven. 70 rookie quarterbacks since 2000. 70 guys who were passer rating qualified and where Cam Word ranked. 55th in EPA per expected points added per dropback.

52nd in success rate. 59th in yards per attempt. 50th in touchdown rate. Not bad in completion rate 31st. Very good. Seventh and interception rate. Although I watched tape of him against the Saints. And he threw almost through four interceptions in the fourth quarter, I believe.

I like the way Thomas put it in the U. colors there in the in the in the in the bottom really it was nice but what i would point out about his EPA per drop back his success rate and his yards per attempt they were all 50 second or worse out of 70 rookies since 2000 is that for most of it there's only one quarterback that ranked below him as a rookie that ended up being any good Josh Allen Josh Allen and so now we have the Brian dable thing as dable's you know Titans coordinator now and that's the guy that helps Josh allen get his career going. But most of the guys who had a worse rookie season than Cam Ward, I mean, almost like

Bryce Young is the best case scenario. So it's a little alarming. I think drops were a big part of it. The offense should be a lot better. But just pointing out he had a really bad rookie year. I would think that, like, also, there were a few stats that Caleb Williams was probably in the neighborhood with him on this as a rookie. Oh, yes, completion rate.

but not the, okay, I'll tell you, I'll go right now, Cam Ward. So in EPA, no good quarterback was worse than him. In success rate, it's not just worse. Like if you're in the neighborhood. Yeah, I don't know that anyone was really in the neighborhood either. Success rate, only Josh Allen was worse in terms of being good. Yards per attempt, Derek Carr was worse.

Touchdown rate, Carson Wentz, Nick Foles, and Trevor Lawrence were worse. Big play rate, many quarterback. That's not even an important staff. Many good quarterbacks for bat, a big play rate as rookies. Caleb, I'm not quite sure. Caleb, off-target rate. I didn't have that on here because it's a relatively new stat. Not every quarterback since 2000 even has a recorded off-target rate.

But Caleb Williams was worse. Josh Allen was worse. Cam Ward had a bad rookie year. He's got a hell of an arm, though. He can make some phenomenal plays. He was the number one pick. Don't give up on him. He could be a guy that bucks the trend.

All right, that's it. today's show. Thank you so much for watching and listening. We will talk to you next time. Tomorrow, it's running back tears. And Dan Schneier is already stirring things up in the chat, making fun of me for not loving what Dan called the greatest cheese steak in the world. That is literally what he said. And I think the Greek restaurant down the street for me makes a better cheese steak than what I have. Here we go. We'll talk to you tomorrow on fantasy football today. Now streaming, only on Paramount Plus.

Chicago, it's my home. The acclaimed series, The Shai, reaches its final chapter. This The Shai, anything's possible. The Shai, the final season, now streaming, only on Paramount Plus.