Way Too Early 2019 Fantasy Football QB Busts
The Super Bowl is over, and Tom Brady won his sixth ring in nine tries. God is dead, and the 2018 NFL season is officially over. With that in mind, we turn our attention to 2019, starting with Way Too Early editions of sleepers and busts at each position. We start the busts with the most important position on the field with QB busts. These three guys are going inside the top-ten in fantasy football drafts, and passing on them could be the key to your draft… in six months. May this article be the light that guides your way through the long, dark offseason. “ECR” listed below is the “expert consensus ranking” from FantasyPros.com.
Cam Newton, Carolina (ECR: QB6)
This is a cheap out on this busts piece. It appears as though one of two things will happen to Cam Newton this offseason from the shoulder injury that cost him the last two games of the 2018 season. The first option is that Cam Newton gets offseason shoulder surgery (or rehabs all offseason). This puts him behind the eight ball headed into the 2019 season and prevents him from performing until mid-season. The second option is the Andrew Luck 2017 route, which is apparently on the table. Personally, I don’t think that the Panthers are going to go that route unless exceptionally necessary. Cam’s appropriate draft price throws a 1 in front of that 6, and even then, that’s his appropriate round, not his QB rank (sixteenth round, if you lost track). His QB6 rank is going to fall all kinds of apart as the off-season progresses, but nobody in their right mind should be putting him there even right now.
Drew Brees, New Orleans (ECR: QB7)
It’s strange that Drew Brees makes his way to my bust list after I spent all last offseason banging the table for him. Through his first eleven games, I looked like a total genius. He had At least three touchdown passes in seven of those games, and multiple TDs in nine of them. He averaged 285 yards a contest, with just two picks in those eleven games, and he was just buzzing along. Then, he did what 39-year-olds do when they play a game with 23 and 24-year-olds: Drew Brees hit a wall. In his last five games of the season, he had four interceptions and had multiple touchdown passes just once. He also topped 203 passing yards two times in his last five games. He let his owners down, myself among them. He makes the QB busts list because it appears as though this granular detail is not being taken into account when he’s being ranked, at least so far. Ending the season just shy of 4,000 yards with 32 touchdowns and five picks is a great season-end total, but he ended up with just five touchdowns and four picks in his last five games. That’s an uninspiring way to end the year, and does not bode well for his 2019 season.
Matt Ryan, Atlanta (ECR: QB8)
This is a soft bust for Matt Ryan, more of a “don’t expect much more upside than this, and be open to the possibility of a significant downside.” Matt Ryan has a weird pattern of doing poorly in his first year with an offense and then doing great in his second year. Dirk Koetter returned to Atlanta this season, so Matt Ryan is either back in the first season, or in his fourth season, depending on how you chop it up. Ryan had two decent seasons with Koetter, finishing as QB7 in both 2012 and 2014, but in 2013, he ended up finishing as QB14. Why is he getting a soft nod on the QB busts article? Well, taking him at QB8 is not the greatest idea. You’re pretty much getting him at his top-25% value, and ignoring him ending up QB10 or worse. You could cobble together that performance off the waiver wire, at a much cheaper price. Ryan is perfectly dependable and is the platonic ideal of QB8. What I’m saying is don’t pay for QB8 at the draft. If he falls to the twelfth round, go hog wild, but don’t pay the going freight on Matt Ryan. It’s not a great call.
