No matter whether quarterbacks get drafted in Round 1 of your Fantasy draft or later like ours, finding the number one quarterback can be a league-winning moment in your draft. As the chart below shows, over the past six seasons, the number one quarterback in Fantasy has provided an average edge of 5.7 Fantasy points per game over QB6 and 9.4 ppg over QB12. That type of difference is exactly why even industry experts started moving towards drafting quarterbacks earlier in 2023. Unfortunately, as the chart also shows, last year was a down year for QBs, the only year in the past six that a quarterback didn't average even 27 FPPG.
| YEAR | QB1 | QB6 | QB12 |
|---|---|---|---|
2018 | 32.3 | 22.6 | 20.6 |
2019 | 32.5 | 24.2 | 20.5 |
2020 | 30.7 | 28.2 | 26.3 |
2021 | 27.9 | 24.9 | 22.7 |
2022 | 29.4 | 22.0 | 20.3 |
2023 | 26.5 | 23.2 | 20.8 |
AVERAGE | 29.9 | 24.2 | 21.9 |
MEDIAN | 30.1 | 23.7 | 20.7 |
The next question is, what shape has the QB1 season taken? The first thing that stands out is rushing production. Every QB1 in the last six seasons produced at least 272 yards on the ground and five of six topped 350 rushing yards. Second comes combined touchdowns. Every QB1 had at least 42 combined passing and rushing touchdowns. Passing production was more volatile, but five of six QBs threw the ball at least 570 times and threw for at least 4,200 yards.
The best thing about this edge is that it hasn't been that difficult to figure out who will provide it. In these six seasons, there have only been three QB1s: Josh Allen three times, Patrick Mahomes twice, and Lamar Jackson once. Allen has won the battle three of the past four seasons, but Mahomes and Jackson are responsible for the two biggest numbers on the chart above, and the two biggest QB1 edges in the past six seasons. If you're going to go on a quest to find 2024's QB1, these are the three QBs you should start with.
We'll start with Allen because he has dominated this position for the past four seasons and in many places is still QB1 by early ADP. Our rankings will show we are not one of those places. Why? At least partially because we're not sure that Curtis Samuel, Keon Coleman, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling can adequately replace Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis. Also, we are projecting significant regression from Allen's 15 rushing touchdowns last year. That matters because Allen's pass volume dropped nearly 10% when Ken Dorsey took over as offensive coordinator last season. Allen's pace after Dorsey took over was only for 556 pass attempts, and 4,143 yards, both shy of the above requirements. Still, Allen has finished first or second in FPPG four straight seasons and scored two more points per game than any other full-time QB in 2023. You can't disregard him. In fact, Allen is the one guy you don't have to get creative to say why he'll be QB1. He just has to keep doing what he's been doing despite the moving pieces around him.
Mahomes is not just our consensus QB1, he is our unanimous QB1 in the rankings. That's something considering 10 QBs posted a better average last year. We're blaming that on Skyy Moore, Kadarius Toney, MVS, and the fact that it took Rashee Rice half a season to get comfortable in Andy Reid's offense. The QB enters 2024 with arguably his deepest set of weapons ever, thanks to the arrival of Marquise Brown and 1st round pick Xavier Worthy. Their speed signifies a return to the deep ball for Mahomes, whose intended air yards per attempt fell to a career-low 6.5 last year. If defenses go to shell coverage regularly, Rice and Travis Kelce will have their way over the middle and there's nothing defenses can do about it. While Mahomes doesn't have the rushing upside that Allen, Jackson, or Jalen Hurts have, he has rushed for at least 300 yards in four straight seasons and averaged a career-high 24.3 yards per game on the ground last year. That's also another area where he'll regress in 2024, as Mahomes had at least two rushing touchdowns every year from 2018-2022 and failed to get into the end zone as a rusher last year. As you'll see in our Bold Predictions, I don't just think Mahomes is going to be better than the QBs this year, in some ways he may be better than all the QBs ever.
Jackson's biggest hurdle to repeating his 2019 QB1 season has been health. Last year's 16 starts were a career-high and he finished tied with Jalen Hurts for QB3 at 23.7 FPPG. In the prior three years he either missed too many games, left too many early, or both. There are three keys to him being even better in 2024, the health of Mark Andrews, the development of Zay Flowers, and some good fortune in the touchdown department, specifically rushing touchdowns. Jackson had seven of them in 2019 and 2020, but just 10 in his last three years combined. Derrick Henry will likely hog the short-area touchdowns, but the threat of Henry could open up some long scores. While Jackson probably won't hit the 4,200-yard threshold through the air we mentioned, he's also the only QB1 from the last six years who didn't need to. Also, Jackson threw for a career-high 3,678 in 16 games last year, so 4,000 isn't out of the question. Don't sleep on the possibility that Jackson grows as a passer in his second season with Todd Monken. That should terrify the league because Jackson posted a career-best 8.0 yards per attempt last year and his 102.7 passer rating was the second-best of his career.
The Top Contenders
Beyond Allen, Mahomes, and Jackson, there are two guys whose recent production puts them into consideration, Jalen Hurts and Dak Prescott.
Hurts may be the most obvious of the two because he has finished top two each of the past two seasons. Aided by the tush push, he's rushed for 38 touchdowns over the past three seasons and it's fair to wonder if we've seen his best as a passer yet. This year could be that year, with Kellen Moore taking over as offensive coordinator. Hurts already had one of the best WR duos in the league in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith and he'll hope that he has Dallas Goedert for a full season this year. He also added a pass-catching running back in Saquon Barkley this offseason. The biggest hurdle for Hurts to reach the required marks to be QB1 is the passing stats, he's never reached 4,000 yards as a passer. If Hurts can get back to 2022's pass efficiency, when he averaged 8.0 yards per attempt, and post his first season over a 5.0% pass TD rate, he will be right in the conversation for QB1 overall.
Prescott might seem less obvious, but it's not just because he lit the world on fire at to end of 2023. But we should at least talk about how good he was. Prescott led all QBs at 27.2 FPPG over the final nine weeks of last season, averaging 278 passing yards per game and throwing 23 touchdowns with just four interceptions. This wasn't the first partial season of QB1 play we've seen from him. He ranked as QB1 in 2020 FPPG, but he only played 4.5 games. Prescott doesn't have the same juice he used to as a rusher and hasn't topped 300 yards on the ground since 2018. But if Prescott and Lamb keep up what they did in the second half of 2023, he'll be in the QB1 conversation, and he's much cheaper on Draft Day than any of the quarterbacks we've discussed so far.
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The Next Generation
It's funny to talk about the next generation of potential QB1s when most of the guys we've talked about above are still in their 20s. But both Mahomes and Jackson burst onto the scene in their first full seasons as starters, so it wouldn't be unprecedented for a young guy to unseat them. There are three first or second-year starters I could see jolting the Fantasy Football world with that type of breakout in 2024, we'll talk about them in order of likelihood.
Early on last year, Anthony Richardson looked ready to crash this party and with a full offseason to prepare for the NFL, he should be even more ready in 2024. Richardson only played two full games as a rookie, scoring 22.9 Fantasy points in his debut against Jacksonville and 33.6 in Week 4 against the Rams. He also scored 17.4 points on 18 offensive snaps against the Texans in Week 2. He did so in an unsurprising way, with competence as a passer and looking near unstoppable as a red zone rusher. He scored four rushing touchdowns in a little less than three full games in the NFL and could be the biggest threat to Jalen Hurts in that area. I was also very impressed with Richardson's pocket presence. The team added A.D. Mitchell in the draft and Richardson has had another year to digest Shane Steichen's playbook. The upside is off the charts and somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 passing yards, and 1,000 rushing yards, with 20-plus passing touchdowns and double-digit rushing touchdowns. He just has to stay healthy.
As a rule, rookie QB success looks more like what Richardson did last year than it does like what C.J. Stroud did. Said another way, when rookie QBs thrive it's usually because of their legs, which is why I include Jayden Daniels in this section and not Caleb Williams. Daniels draws comparisons to Lamar Jackson, but Jackson never threw for 40 touchdowns in the SEC. Daniels should benefit from a receiving corps that is at least as good as Richardson's led by Terry McLaurin, and his offensive coordinator presided over Kyler Murray's early years, so we wouldn't expect him to be hamstrung as a rusher. Daniels' upside is at least as high as Richardson's, though shaped a bit differently. It's easier to see Daniels have more success as a passer, and perhaps rushing for more yards, but Richardson has the edge in potential rushing touchdowns.
It probably feels strange to have Stroud behind Richardson and Daniels on any list. To be clear, you won't find him behind those guys in my QB rankings. I think it's far more likely that Stroud finishes as a top-six Fantasy QB than Richardson or Daniels. He just had one of the best rookie passing seasons we've seen and then his team added Stefon Diggs. He'll hopefully have Tank Dell for the entire season, and Dell should be even better in year 2. Did I mention he just led the NFL in passing yards per game and interception rate as a rookie? He also averaged just 33 pass attempts and 11 rushing yards per game. We don't expect Stroud to start running more, so he needs to start throwing a lot more to have any chance of reaching a QB1 overall rank. When you look at QBs who finish in the top three they traditionally either rush for more than 300 yards or throw more than 600 passes. Stroud was a long way from both last year. But he was so good, and his weapons are so incredible, that it wouldn't feel right to leave him off the list either.
Honorable Mentions: Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Caleb Williams, Tua Tagoavailoa
