Fantasy football players foolishly put their trust in the wrong quarterback every season. It’s not a make-or-break position, but having a quality signal-caller who regularly puts up fantasy points is a crucial component of a winning team.
We’re helping bettors avoid those pitfalls by highlighting the three most overrated fantasy quarterbacks.
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Forget what you think you know about Dak Prescott. He is not a quality fantasy quarterback. The Dallas Cowboys pivot is being drafted as a top ten QB, with an ADP of 83, but his stats reveal a much more concerning portrait.
Prescott gets too much credit for the Cowboys’ top-ten offense. Mike McCarthy runs the ball more than most teams, calling rushing plays 47.3% of the time. Granted, the team parted ways with Ezekiel Elliott this past offseason, presumably leading to more passing plays; however, that plays more into Prescott’s weaknesses than his strengths.
The Mississippi State product struggled in high-volume contests. Last year, in games where he threw 30 or more passes, Prescott averaged just 6.9 passing yards per attempt with a sub-optimal 18-13 touchdown to interception ratio. Not including when he left early in Week 1, Prescott’s yard per attempt improved to 9.4, with a 5-1 touchdown to interception, when he threw fewer than 30 passes. Moreover, when asked to throw more, his completion percentage drops from 85.7% to 64.3%.
Is Prescott an effective game-managing NFL quarterback? Yes. Is he a top-producing fantasy player? No. Getting rid of Zeke and asking more from Prescott was the worst thing the Cowboys could have done.
Healthy offensive line or not, Justin Fields continues to struggle to make NFL-caliber plays.
Among quarterbacks with at least 200 pass attempts last year, Fields finished 32nd out of 34, with a 60.4% completion percentage. Sadly, that brought his career average up to 59.7%, which is downright awful. Fields has nearly as many interceptions as touchdowns in his career, getting picked off 21 times while finding paydirt on 24 occasions. A lot has been made of the Chicago Bears‘ offseason moves, but landing DJ Moore is inconsequential if Fields can’t get him the ball.
Fields’ saving grace is his rushing ability, but he will be hard-pressed to duplicate the 7.1 yards per carry he had last year now that NFL teams have the full book on Fields. Regression is looming, and that erodes Fields’ fantasy appeal.
Justin Herbert has a much more appealing ceiling and is being drafted just a few spots (40) ahead of Fields (46). Otherwise, fantasy players would be better off drafting unknown commodity Anthony Richardson rather than selecting Fields and expecting him to deliver.
This isn’t a shot at Joe Burrow. The young gunslinger remains one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Still, it would be unwise to trust Burrow to bring you to fantasy glory.
Heading into this season, Burrow’s health remains a big question mark. The LSU alum is questionable for Week 1, but missing all of training camp and not getting any preseason snaps may impact his rhythm early. Working up to game speed is a more significant deficit the longer he remains out.
As it stands, Burrow is being drafted as a QB5 in the middle of Round 3. Arguably, his ceiling is higher than that, but fantasy punters are making a big gamble in hoping that Burrow is ready to go against the Cleveland Browns.
Worse, the Cincinnati Bengals have to run a gauntlet of top defenses early in the season. After the Browns, Cinci has to get past the Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Rams, forcing Burrow to adapt quickly, which could lead to more mistakes.
The Bengals have taken a cautious approach with Joe Burrow. That negatively impacts his fantasy ceiling heading into the 2023 campaign.
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