Each fantasy football season the landscape of the skill positions change. One year offers more depth, while another turns into a studs and duds feel with the available player pool. Dissecting key drop off points in a position's average draft position (ADP) is critical to maximizing draft day value. Here are the key pivot points for 2019 at quarterback:
The Mahomes tier
Regression or historical outlier is the bounced around question regarding Patrick Mahomes II this offseason as the clear QB1 off fantasy draft boards for 2019. The Chiefs were a juggernaut offense last season and Mahomes was the uber-talented trigger man. Tyreek Hill avoided suspension and Kansas City added Carlos Hyde, Darwin Thompson, and Mecole Hardman of note to their arsenal of weapons.
Drafting the QB1 allows for minimal margin for error, especially in a year where quarterback is as deep as any in recent memory (more in the next section or two). While Mahomes' mid-August ADP (Average Draft Position) is the mid-Round 2 zone, there will be plenty of home/casual leagues were he is gone in Round 1 and the expert variety where he lasts until Round 3-4. With plenty of cornerstone running backs and wide receivers in Round 2 (plus possibly Travis Kelce depending on draft position), the opportunity cost for Mahomes is rich unless he is the unquestioned QB1 producer in 2019.
Shoot for the moon
The Norman Vincent Peale complete quote is “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” The next tier of quarterbacks encompasses up to 10 rounds of ADP beyond Patrick Mahomes II (his own tier).
The flexible part of this massive tier is all of them have relatively simple stories and a path to top-5 positional production. Jumping in for the early section of the tier is a leap of faith and truly having 'your guy' targeted in a draft as the price is a handful of rounds of draft capital or more.
Deshaun Watson, Aaron Rodgers, Baker Mayfield, and Matt Ryan are the QB2-5 options by ADP and the only players before Round 7 of ADP. Ryan was the QB2 in common formats last season, Watson is widely viewed as having QB1 upside, Rodgers is, well, Rodgers, and Mayfield is one of the hot fantasy names for a huge breakout (as is the entire Cleveland offense). Yet this quartet is going 2-4 rounds after Mahomes.
The Rodney Dangerfield tier
Plenty of quarterbacks beyond the top-5 have a 'what about me?' argument. This speaks to the undeniable depth at the position. QB6-19 in ADP is this tier, spanning to the Round 12 zone. This is 19 quarterbacks deep where half the teams would already have their backup option and a patient drafter would still have one of these options, at a minimum, available.
- Russell Wilson (Top-5 finishes in 2014, 2015, 2017, QB11 lowest career finish)
- Carson Wentz (Historic pace in 2017 before injury, still finished QB8 with 13 games)
- Cam Newton (Top-3 finishes in 2015 and 2017, 4+ rushing touchdowns every year)
- Jameis Winston (Tampa Bay committee was QB2 last season)
- Drew Brees (14 straight top-10 finishes)
- Dak Prescott (three straight top-12 seasons, six rushing touchdowns each year)
- Ben Roethlisberger (Loses Antonio Brown, but QB3 last season)
- Jared Goff (Optimized with Sean McVay, lauded weapons, QB6 last season)
- Tom Brady (Fell to QB12 last season after top-10 in 11-of-14 previous years)
- Kyler Murray (Wildcard rushing upside, surrounded by weapons)
- Lamar Jackson (Historically rare rushing potential)
- Kirk Cousins (four straight top-10 finishes)
- Philip Rivers (QB13 finish in 2018 was lowest since 2012)
take your shot
If somehow a drafter misses on all of the above options, there are still decent upside shots outside the Big 19 and post-Round 12 of ADP.
Jimmy Garoppolo and Mitch Trubisky head up this ADP group. Garoppolo has been marred by injury since arriving in San Francisco but Kyle Shanahan's system and a weapons upgrade this offseason (Tevin Coleman and Deebo Samuel among them) plus his own health point to top-10 upside. Despite still developing as a passer and playing 14 games in 2018, Trubisky finished as QB15 and gets a fully healthy Allen Robinson, (hopefully) Adam Shaheen back from injury, and David Montgomery the notable drafted weapon added Chicago's offense.
Josh Allen offers the rushing upside, Sam Darnold enters Year 2 with LeVeon Bell added and Quincy Enunwa returns from injury, Derek Carr (hopefully) benefits from the addition of Antonio Brown with Tyrell Williams added as a WR2 upgrade over 2018 and Joshua Jacobs drafted in Round 1, and finally Matthew Stafford was running on fumes with healthy weapons to close 2018 with Kerryon Johnson and Marvin Jones hurt, no tight end presence, and Golden Tate traded to the Giants. Stafford gets Johnson back healthy, T.J. Hockenson and Jesse James added to the tight end depth chart, and Danny Amendola and Marvin Jones to the wide receiver corps. Stafford had three straight top-10 finishes before his QB20 ranking last season.