Quarterback was quite a weird position this year in fantasy football. Three of the top five signal callers in fantasy football points per game came out of nowhere. Carson Wentz was a sleeper in some circles, but nobody saw Deshaun Watson (who started the year behind Tom Savage) and Alex Smith (who spent his career throwing short of the sticks) coming. Looking ahead to 2018, there are plenty of fantasy football quarterback options available to you towards the later rounds. It’s an exceedingly difficult exercise to get the list down to the top ten. After the first five or six, you could throw players in any order and I’d believe you. For example, Carson Wentz doesn’t make the top-ten list because right now he could potentially miss twelve months from his injury (most of the season). This will undoubtedly change as he and Deshaun Watson make their way back from injuries. Without further ado, Aaron Rodgers and nine other guys.
- Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers
Rodgers was cruising before his collarbone did a Thanksgiving turkey wishbone maneuver, throwing ten TDs and just one pick in the three games before going down. He returned to throw three picks, but much like Rodgers’ message in 2014, fantasy football owners shouldn’t overthink it and R E L A X with Rodgers on their 2018 rosters. - Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks
2017’s top fantasy football quarterback goes tumbling to unimaginable lows, all the way down to #2. The Seahawks will undoubtedly get a competent running back and they are unlikely to give Jimmy Graham the money he wants. That’ll mean fewer touchdowns for Wilson, but his rushing gives him an equivalent fantasy football floor of an additional 1,300 passing yards. This all assumes the Seahawks improve on literally five traffic cones on the offensive line. - Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers
The Panthers said screw it and let Cam run. He ran for 695 yards going into week seventeen, which was more than guys like Derrick Henry, Ameer Abdullah and Joe Mixon. The Panthers most certainly will add to their anemic receiving corps in the off-season, and Cam will finish top-five without his best weapon for most of the year (Greg Olsen). The Panthers going YOLO with Cam will be the best thing to happen to him for fantasy football. - Tom Brady, New England Patriots
Team #GradualRegression is finally getting their day in the sun with Brady. In weeks thirteen through sixteen, he had just four touchdowns to five interceptions and didn’t top 300 yards passing once. The man will be 41 years old when the 2018 season opens up, and will likely tumble down this list because he’s older than dirt. If only the Patriots had a promising backup… - Deshaun Watson, Houston Texans
This is a hedge. Deshaun Watson kicked the door down and lit the fantasy world on fire before he was ushered away in secret during a practice. He’ll be on the mend from ACL reconstruction surgery, but recent reports are that he will be ready for off-season activities. Watson is also most likely to bust out of the top ten. - Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers
Hopefully, he leaves this list entirely as he rides off into the sunset. Roethlisberger had to deal with a receiving corps embroiled in controversy and without a stable weapon outside of Antonio Brown. Still, he ended up with just one single-digit game this season. He ended the season on fire, throwing for sixteen touchdowns and four interceptions in his last six games, totaling over 300 yards three times in that span. Don’t forget one of those games was for five hundred six passing yards. Five Hundred Six Passing Yards. His retirement plans are well documented, but it’s hard to trust a guy who tries to retire due to injury every week. - Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints
Brees is playing some of the best QB of his career, but he shows the split between real football and fantasy football. The Saints offense is a well-oiled behemoth, but Brees is just QB10 in fantasy points per game. The dual wrecking balls of Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram have stolen all the touchdowns via the run. There will be some regression in that department, so additional touchdowns for Brees make him well inside the top-ten. - Kirk Cousins, ???
Where in the world will Kirk Cousins end up? He wanted to make Washington pay out the nose, but they went with team Baby Hands instead and traded for Alex Smith. Where does he end up? Blake Bortles seems to be making his way back to Jacksonville next season, and Eli Manning will never die. Arizona, maybe? Buffalo? Cleveland? Who the heck knows? - Philip Rivers, L.A. Chargers
Rivers has just too many weapons and too much talent to not end up inside the top-ten. As it stands, he’s half a fantasy point per game out of the #8 slot. With a full season of Hunter Henry, Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Tyrell Williams, Melvin Gordon, Travis Benjamin with a potentially bolstered offensive line… look out AFC West. - Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys
It was the best of Daks, it was the worst of Daks, it was a season of wisdom, it was a season of foolishness, it was the season of belief, it was the season of incredulity, it was… holy mother of god the first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities is a run-on mess. Anyway, Dak had two different years: one with Zeke, one without Zeke. With Elliott, Dak flew close to the sun, averaging 23.63 fantasy points per game. Without him, he stunk up the joint with just 15.47 fantasy points per game. This is acknowledging Prescott’s highs and lows this year.
On the cusp: Matthew Stafford, Handsome Jimmy GQ GOATroppolo, Matt Ryan, Alex Smith
