The importance of Kyler Murray, dual-threat QBs in fantasy football
Yahoo Sports' Andy Behrens and Scott Pianowski talk about the explosion of dual-threat QBs in the NFL, including why they are so important when it comes to fantasy football.
Video Transcript
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: It was a fun Kyler Murray season-- kind of sad the way it ended, where he probably shouldn't have been in that game, you know, but they rushed him in. They were hoping that somehow bail out a win there. But he was terrific. You were on that, man. You have been the quarterback man the last couple of years. You called Lamar Jackson last year as the guy to get. I know you were in on Murray this year. It wasn't anywhere near the same profit because I think the market did like Murray a lot. But I know some silly people-- I'll raise my hand. I was thinking, oh, you can have Kyler Murray. I'll get Russell Wilson a round later. And I felt smart about that for about two months, but it certainly didn't end well.
So and I think this shows us-- we'll talk about Jalen Hurts a little bit later, but of the top 10 quarterbacks, Tom Brady was the only quarterback who really had no running element to his game. A lot of the quarterbacks in the top 10 are proactive runners. And some of the other guys are guys like Justin Herbert, who will run if it's there. Ryan Tannehill-- he had a handful of rushing touchdowns. I'm at the point now that I cannot go to war, go to battle, go to fantasy competition without a quarterback who doesn't fill that column in some way.
ANDY BEHRENS: You know, this is like three years in a row where we've seen historic-level fantasy performances from the very top of the quarterback position. And like, I honestly do feel like we've kind of come out of the era in which it's just really easy to stream your way through the middle of the season and cover the bye weeks. And I don't-- not going to be comfortable in 2021. I haven't been comfortable over the last couple of years coming out of fantasy drafts with-- you know, I used to just go for the quarterback platoon, right? I'd try to be the last person who took a starting quarterback.
I'd be fine with some combo of, like, Matt Ryan and Eli Manning, and I'd let myself drop one of them during the season. And I'd just try to play matchups and stream it. You could do fine. But the gap between those top five or six guys now and the players that you'll find among the straining pool is just too great.
And you don't-- you can't win a week anymore because your quarterback goes for 260 passing yards and two touchdowns and runs for 10 yards. Like, that's just not-- that's just not a winning plan in 2020.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Yeah. Philip Rivers is not good enough anymore. Matt Stafford, although a heroic Week 17, and he played through all these injuries, and he's one of my favorite all-time players, but not good enough anymore. Golf's not good enough anymore. My advice would be I'm still not going to be the first in line to get a quarterback unless the price really comes down on somebody like Mahomes, which maybe I'd be open-minded to. And you know, Murray's rushing upside is gigantic. We saw Jackson play really well the last few weeks.
I'm going to try to play the value game with the understanding that I still want a quarterback who can give me a leg up at the position. I still want somebody who at the end of the week, I can possibly say, I can see him scoring 33 points this week. So I'm going to-- I'm finally-- I've finally gotten the Matt Ryan out of my system. I guess that's the way I can most tidily explain it.