The Big Lead

Fantasy Football 2013 Quarterback Rankings: Old Guard Stars Like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and New Young Stars Make for a Deep Draft

By Jason Lisk

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Yesterday, the Big Lead fantasy football rankings came out with 2013 Running Back Rankings, where I also explained what went into coming up with the projections and rankings. Today, we move on to the signal callers, where plenty of star power should still be on top of their game. We have seen plenty of offensive injuries to the top offenses, though we expect guys like Brady and Rodgers to continue to dominate.

These projections are based on a 1 point every 20 passing yards, 6 points for all touchdowns, -3 for all interceptions, and standard scoring for rushing numbers (1 for every 10 yards). If you play in a league with 4 points per passing touchdown, or 1 point for every 25 yards, you should move the mobile quarterbacks up the list another 15-20 points for each of those categories, relative to the pocket passers. For example, in a 4 pt passing TD/1 pt every 25 pass yd league, I would have Newton actually at #3.

The thing that stands out here is not the individual players–I don’t know that any of these are out of sorts with the general consensus. It is that, with the combination of all the veterans who are still putting up huge numbers and have won Super Bowls (Rodgers, Brees, Brady, Manning, Eli) and the young stars emerging (Newton, Kaepernick, Griffin III, Luck, and Wilson), it is as deep a starting quarterback pool as possible. Add in pocket passers like Matt Ryan, Tony Romo, and Matt Stafford, who have elite targets in the passing game, and there is very little reason to reach for a quarterback.

I put an asterisk next to Michael Vick and E.J. Manuel, lowering them because they have not secured starting jobs, but I list the projected numbers for a full season. Keep in mind with Manuel that if he starts, he is likely to going to be in the 30-40 rushing yards per game range, meaning he only needs about 180 passing yards a game to match many of the non-elite pocket passers in the QB14 to QB24 range. Keep an eye on Manuel winning the job if you want a cheap backup who is going right at the edge of draftable range right now.

  1. Drew Brees, NO (433)
  2. Aaron Rodgers, GB (431)
  3. Tom Brady, NE (407)
  4. Peyton Manning, DEN (394)
  5. Cam Newton, CAR (379)
  6. Matt Ryan, ATL (374)
  7. Colin Kaepernick, SF (372)
  8. Robert Griffin III, WAS (371)
  9. Andrew Luck, IND (367)
  10. Matthew Stafford, DET (367)
  11. Tony Romo, DAL (355)
  12. Eli Manning, NYG (353)
  13. Russell Wilson, SEA (336)
  14. Michael Vick, PHI (339)*
  15. Joe Flacco, BAL (310)
  16. Josh Freeman, TB (306)
  17. Matt Schaub, HOU (303)
  18. Andy Dalton, CIN (301)
  19. Ben Roethlisberger, PIT (300)
  20. Sam Bradford, STL (298)
  21. Alex Smith, KC (295)
  22. E.J. Manuel, BUF (295)*
  23. Philip Rivers, SD (286)
  24. Jay Cutler, CHI (284)
  25. Carson Palmer, ARI (281)
  26. Jake Locker, TEN (275)
  27. Ryan Tannehill, MIA (270)
  28. Brandon Weeden, CLE (268)
  29. Christian Ponder, MIN (262)
  30. Geno Smith, NYJ (259)
  31. Blaine Gabbert, JAC (256)
  32. Matt Flynn, OAK (254)

[photo via USA Today Sports Images]