Ryan Heath’s QB Rankings
- It’s time for bye weeks! Fantasy managers will be without the services of Derek Carr, Jared Goff, Ryan Tannehill, and Davis Mills this week. That means we’re down two quarterbacks who were routinely cracking the top 15, so I’ll focus entirely on streaming options this week.
- As of Tuesday night, Geno Smith is available in 63% of leagues on Yahoo!. The current overall QB7 in fantasy points per game enters a matchup with a Cardinals defense allowing the 8th-most fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks as only a 2.5-point underdog in a game featuring 51-point over/under (2nd-highest on the week). Smith leads the league in completion percentage, ranks 8th in deep ball attempts, and 5th in deep ball completion percentage. He is probably the best-projected streamer of the entire year so far.
- Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett are very similar plays. Both are slight favorites this week with decent implied totals (25 and 22.75, respectively) against defenses allowing the 12th and 11th-most fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks. Both game environments are likely to be low-scoring (44.5 and 42.5 over/unders, respectively), with all teams involved ranking bottom-8 in pass rate over expected. These environments creating the week’s QB13 and QB14 is a good illustration of how bad the QB position is right now. Seriously, just go get Geno Smith and his ceiling instead.
- Justin Fields and Marcus Mariota are another similar pair. Averaging 7-8 rushing attempts that you can bank on is all they really need to rank as mid-range QB2s this week. The pair has averaged 3.1 and 2.7 OPPO per game based on their rushing – about 3 additional fantasy points you can expect over immobile options like Matt Ryan. Fields is slightly preferred here, as Washington has allowed the 7th-most yards per pass attempt to opposing offenses.
Green=Strong Starter, Yellow=Solid Starter, Red=Look for Better Options
QB Rankings