Fantasy Football
This is the fourth year of looking back on my fantasy football projections for the biggest hits and misses. It’s always been more than that though. I look to improve my process, and hopefully, you become a better fantasy football manager as well. I’m starting with a 2024 quarterback recap, but first, a reminder…
NOTE: Missed projections won’t come into play for injuries to the player (ex: Dak Prescott missing half the season).
The passing projections were slightly over, the rushing slightly under, and the points nearly perfect. But, as the point here is takeaways, I’m not bragging, Murray being “spot on” was about understanding who he and the Cardinals offense are. Murray surprised me a bit with the rushing — he registered his highest YPC of his career (7.3, and previous high, 6.2). And if not for some insane non-touchdown numbers for Trey McBride, Murray might have hit those 24 touchdowns. This is who Murray is. You’re not going to see 4,500 passing yards or 35 passing touchdowns from Murray, and that’s okay, but you need to remember that means he’ll remain volatile — he’s a DeVonta Smith of quarterbacks rollercoaster.
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If not for Murray, Herbert would have been the closest “nailed it” quarterback. Herbert’s situation is relatively simple but worth remembering, nevertheless. A new coaching staff with a more run-focused approach with wide receiver weapons consisting of a rookie, a young inconsistent talent, and an oft-injured No. 3 option all pointed to a more muted passing attack. Skills or not, Herbert — and others in similar offenses — have to produce within those restraints, and Herbert honestly did a great job at getting the most out of limited possibilities.
Seattle OC Ryan Grubb was a one-and-done failure, though I wouldn’t put 100% of the blame on him. Even so, Smith’s numbers weren’t too far off from his projections, mainly because of what the projections — and hopefully, you — saw. The Seahawks were already one of the pass-happiest teams in the league, so as I discussed in the preseason, there wasn’t much more room for improvement. Smith did pass more, but the touchdowns fell. Going back to Grubb, you can fault him more than Smith for that touchdown rate decrease, as the Seahawks offense was often too one-dimensional, and yes, partly due to recurring Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet injuries.
I thought I might be overly aggressive on Daniels, but like Lamar Jackson before (2019 — the projections spit him out as the No. 2 quarterback, and I adjusted for risk), the projections were better before “reining them in” a bit. I don’t think there is much of a takeaway here — you’ll see with another quarterback below, we do have to factor in a bit of risk with rookies. Nevertheless, the fact remains quarterbacks with significant rushing upside — even rookies — deserve your attention. Remember this if Jalen Milroe has a starting job next year. Yes, it could be quite ugly as a passer, but we’ve seen Anthony Richardson be Top 10 in FPPG despite miserable passing.
C.J. Stroud, HOU
Is there much more to say than Stroud is a perfect example of how things can go horribly wrong? Stroud rarely had a healthy wideout corps, the offensive line was abysmal, and the Texans’ offense fell apart. The main takeaway is when you have a quarterback of Stroud’s style (mainly a pocket passer), the lows can be as severe as the highs, and Dak Prescott is a good previous example. We’ve seen Top 5 finishes overall and in FPPG from Prescott, we’ve seen fringe QB1 seasons, and we’ve seen a few mid-low QB2 outputs. My advice here is patience is not needed. I’ll give more time to quarterbacks with Top 10 rushing upside but, when several signs are staring us in the face, pocket passers get the quick yank in search of waiver options.
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Unlike Daniels, Williams didn’t land in the best coaching situation. Yes, he arguably had one of the best receiver trios for any rookie quarterback, but while Kliff Kingsbury helped Daniels’ development, the Bears hindered Williams’. That’s not to say Williams doesn’t deserve blame, he certainly does. But the lesson here is not all rookie environments are created equal. Shocker, I know. But OC Shane Waldron had mixed success before the Bears while Kingsbury arguably had only concerns about his head coaching ability… not his offensive coordinator chops. Remember that when teams draft Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders this year.
If you saw this coming, please give me the lotto numbers for next week. The projections failed in two ways. First, I still had Darnold playing 15 of 17 games, assuming his inconsistency would lead the way to a possible Nick Mullens start (or two). Even so, all of the numbers were actually pretty spot on if you use them over 17 games instead of 15… but… The second issue was the touchdown rate. Darnold blew away the TD%, checking in at 6.4% instead of 4.1%. As per my first sentence, even with this collection of talent, nothing suggested Darnold turning his career around to this degree. Kudos to him, and I will give players entering terrific situations a bit more benefit of the doubt going forward, but it won’t be an enormous change. While Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff are other good examples of this, they 1.) hadn’t failed to Darnold’s level and 2.) even Mayfield looked questionable with the Rams (and yes, I know he was throwing to jabronis). Speaking of Mayfield…
What can you say? I felt the projections were pretty strong coming off Mayfield’s career-best 2023 season. Who would have expected Mayfield to usurp it with another career-best campaign? Oh, and let’s not forget he decided to surpass his previous career-high in rushing by more than double, and jumped his 4.9 TD% to an absurd 7.2%. Look, sometimes the answer to, “What went wrong?” is simply, “The player shocked us all and deserves tons of respect.” That said, expecting Mayfield to have this level of touchdown success in 2025 is cautioned against, per this stat tweet.
Lamar Jackson & Baker Mayfield posted the 26th & 27th instances of a TD/Att% of 7.0 or higher
– just 18 QBs total since 2000 (min 200 att)
Of previous 17 (LJax had done it once already), the list of QBs doing it again the following season…
Aaron Rodgers 2011-12
End of list
— Jake Ciely (@allinkid) January 10, 2025
(Top photo of Jayden Daniels: Kim Klement Neitzel / Imagn Images)
Jake Ciely is rankings: Fantasy Football, Fantasy Baseball, candy, movies, video games, cereal… anything! Truly, Jake is a ranking prodigy. Oh, he’s also the senior fantasy writer for The Athletic, an award-winning analyst and loves DuckTales. Make sure you #CheckTheLink and #BanKickers … woo-oo! Follow Jake on Twitter @allinkid
