Fantasy football player profile: Matthew Stafford

(As fantasy football dives headlong into draft season, some players warrant a little extra attention. All August, Dom Cintorino and Adam Pfeifer will do deep dives into some of the notable names. Follow along with our player profiles series. Today’s profile: Matthew Stafford)

Fantasy Football Value 2021 – Matthew Stafford

One of the biggest splashes this offseason was the trade that sent Detroit Lions’ quarterback Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams. He was sent over for a haul that included Rams’ quarterback Jared Goff, a pair of first-round picks and an additional third-rounder. Sean McVay has not been shy when it comes to sending first-round picks out in exchange for solidified players. He’s now built what is arguably the most talented roster in the league and has the quarterback of his choice. DraftKings Sportsbook currently has the Rams projected win total at 10.5 in maybe the toughest division in football. 

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Stafford walks into the best situation of his career. Maybe not the best skill players surrounding him, since he spent the early years of his career with Calvin Johnson, but the Rams do have one of the best wide receiver duos in the league with Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp. If you haven’t checked it out yet, Adam Pfeifer did great work on his player profile of Woods. Speaking on this duo though, they have been as consistent as it gets for fantasy football purposes. Over the last two seasons, they’ve each seen 120-plus targets, caught 90-plus balls and had at least 900 receiving yards. Now you add an upgrade at quarterback to the mix, and these two could do some serious work. The touchdowns haven’t quite been there, as Woods has just eight in the past two seasons with Kupp having 13 (10 in 2019). A lot of this has to do with Goff, who had a combined 42 touchdowns over the past two seasons. We should expect to see positive regression in terms of touchdowns for Woods and Kupp with Stafford under center.

The FTN Fantasy air yards tool makes it clear what type of upgrade the Rams are getting at quarterback. As you can see below, the chart is filtered by total air yards. Stafford’s 4,560 air yards were nearly 1,000 more than Goff had last season on 24 less pass attempts. He was one of just seven quarterbacks in 2020 to surpass 4,500 air yards. Goff finished with the ninth-most pass attempts (558) last season but was 19th in air yards (3,606). Of the 15 quarterbacks who had more than 500 pass attempts, only Goff and Ben Roethlisberger failed to throw for over 4,000 yards. Just based on that, it’s impressive how well both Kupp and Woods were able to do statistically. They both get a boost with Stafford when it comes to average depth of target as well. Stafford’s aDOT of 8.64 yards was more than two yards higher than Goff’s 6.53. While the high reception totals may not remain, we should see an uptick in yards with Stafford thrown into the mix. It’s night and day comparing the two quarterbacks on the air yards tool. 

The season-long projections over on FTN Fantasy have Stafford right on the edge of QB1 territory. He’s projected the 12th-most fantasy points among quarterbacks with 297.0, just behind Ryan Tannehill (313.2) and Jalen Hurts (310.7). The only thing keeping Stafford from these two is what they’re able to do on the ground. Both Hurts and Tannehill are projected for over four rushing touchdowns, compared to less than 1 for Stafford. Stafford, however, is projected to have a great season through the air. His 4,827 projected passing yards are the third most behind just Dak Prescott (5,077) and Patrick Mahomes (5,073). Stafford is also right behind these two when it comes to pass attempts (620). He’s one of just six quarterbacks projected to attempt over 600 passes. Last season, McVay’s Rams threw the ball 590 times, the 12th-highest mark in the NFL. 

With questions surrounding the Rams’ backfield, Stafford should be passing at a high rate. Cam Akers was expected to handle the majority of the ground work, but he had a season-ending injury at the end of last month. Now with Darrell Henderson dealing with a thumb injury, the Rams brought in Patriots running back, Sony Michel via trade. (See what our Derek Brown had to say about the Rams backfield now.) These aren’t the most exciting running backs in the world, so we should expect Stafford to be passing early and often.

Fantasy Football ADP Stock Watch – Matthew Stafford

Stafford currently holds an ADP on FTN Fantasy of 90.04, putting him right in the middle of the eighth round. This makes Stafford the QB11, right after Tom Brady (78.60) and Hurts (88.35). With McVay coming out stating that Stafford would be held out of the preseason, we shouldn’t expect his ADP to do a whole lot. Once we get to about QB12 or QB13 there is a tier break, which I don’t see Stafford getting to at this point. 

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NFL Fantasy Football Ranking – Matthew Stafford

The FTN Fantasy consensus ranking of Stafford is QB12. This is right in line with both his ADP, and his projections this season. We see the same group of quarterbacks in this range mixed and matched, so if you have Stafford ranked inside the top 10, like Derek Brown and me, you’re going to have to grab him a bit earlier.