Week 11 NFL Moneyline Underdogs
Mike Randle
Who is the QB1 in fantasy football?
Whether you draft Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts or Josh Allen, you truly can’t go wrong. All three quarterbacks provide a fantastic combination of passing and rushing upside, while all three are also unsurprisingly in elite offenses.
So on the latest edition of Fantasy Crossroads, we break down all three quarterbacks to determine who should be the QB1 in drafts.
Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs
The Case for Patrick Mahomes
Well for starters, he’s the best player in the NFL.
Despite Kansas City trading Tyreek Hill to Miami last offseason, Patrick Mahomes did not slow down. He went on to throw for a career-high 5,250 yards and 41 touchdowns. He won the MVP, won the Super Bowl and finished as QB1 in fantasy. Mahomes added 358 rushing yards and a career-high four rushing scores. When throwing the football, he benefited from seeing fewer two-high safety looks. Back in 2021, Kansas faced defensive looks with two deep safeties on 80% of their pass plays during the first half of the season, an absurd rate.
As a result, Mahomes saw a significant drop in yards per pass attempt, average depth of target and explosive passes. However, with Hill in Miami last year, things changed a bit. According to FTN Data, Kansas City faced two-high safety looks, whether Cover-2, Cover-4, Cover-6 or 2-Man Under, on 241 dropbacks, which was 10th in the league, but down from previous years. They faced two deep safeties on just over 33% of dropbacks, which resulted in Mahomes’ yards per attempt climbing back up to 8.1, his career average mark. He easily led all quarterbacks in pass attempts from inside the 10-yard line (73) and should once again flirt with 645 passes in this offense.
Kansas City remains arguably the pass-heaviest offense in football, especially inside the red zone. Over the last three seasons, only Tampa Bay is sporting a higher red-zone pass rate in neutral-game scripts than the Chiefs (60.2%). During that same span, Kansas City ranks third in the league in neutral-script pass rate at 62.7%, while only three teams called passes at a higher rate on early downs last year than the Chiefs (58%). Mahomes is the best player in the league and an obvious top-three fantasy signal-caller.
Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles
The Case for Jalen Hurts
A Super Bowl appearance and an MVP caliber season? Yeah, it is safe to say Jalen Hurts had himself quite the breakout campaign in 2022. Hurts was unbelievable last season, passing for 3,700 yards, 22 touchdowns and six interceptions, while adding 760 rushing yards and an additional 13 touchdowns. He led all quarterbacks in both fantasy points per game (25.6) and fantasy points per dropback (0.71), while finishing as a top-six fantasy signal-caller in 12-of-15 games. The floor and ceiling combination is as high as any player in all of fantasy football, and Hurts remains in a great situation, playing behind the league’s best offensive line, while throwing to one of the league’s top wide receiver duos.
Hurts was fantastic throwing the football last season but also gave opposing defenses nightmares in the run game. It was a huge part of Philadelphia’s offense, as Hurts easily led all quarterbacks in designed rushing attempts this past season with 123. He finished the season with 760 rushing yards and a whopping 13 touchdowns, as the Eagles consistently called his number from inside the five-yard line. The Eagles’ patented quarterback sneak play was pretty much unstoppable last season, as the combination of the best offensive line in football and Hurts’ incredible strength were too much for opposing defenses.
Hurts ultimately finished second in all of football with 20 rush attempts from inside the five-yard line, accounting for 49% of Philadelphia’s total rush attempts from that part of the field. He scored nine touchdowns on those attempts and averaged an impressive 2.9 red-zone carries per game, easily the most among all quarterbacks. Meanwhile, he had seven rushing attempts from the one-yard line, and if teams continue to struggle stopping it, why wouldn’t the Eagles keep calling it?
Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills
The Case for Josh Allen
QB1, QB1, QB2. Josh Allen has emerged as both an elite real life and fantasy signal-caller over the last few seasons. And if he played all 17 games last year, he would have finished as fantasy’s QB1 for the third consecutive season. Allen threw for 4,283 yards and 35 touchdowns last season, while adding 762 rushing yards and an additional seven scores. He gives you explosive passing plays, as his 83 deep attempts ranked second, while 14.6% of his pass attempts traveled 20-plus yards. He also gives you an incredible floor with his rushing, averaging seven rushing attempts and 38.9 rushing yards per game over the last three seasons.
The turnovers were a bit of an issue last season, but hopefully Buffalo’s offense starts to design more layups for Allen, rather than relying on him to hit deep three-pointers most of the time. And that would be huge, as Allen has ranked 31st and 33rd among qualified quarterbacks in yards after the catch per reception over the last two seasons (4.3, 4.4). And like Mahomes, Allen is going to be throwing the ball a ton. From 2020 to 2021, Buffalo ranked second in the NFL in neutral-script pass rate (64.2%), and during that same span, the Bills were also top-10 in passing rate when leading by at least eight points (50.3%).
This past season, Buffalo remained extremely pass-heavy, sporting the league’s sixth-highest neutral-script pass rate (61.3%, while also calling passes 50.7% of the time when leading by eight-plus points, the seventh-highest rate in football. Meanwhile, only the Chiefs and Bengals ranked above the Bills in pass rate over expected (6.1%).
The Case against Mahomes/Hurts/Allen
Look, I really don’t have any arguments against the top-three quarterbacks in all of fantasy. Odds are, Mahomes, Hurts and Allen once again finish as the top-three signal-callers and average 25 fantasy points per game. The only arguments you can even possibly make are the following:
- Mahomes lacks elite wide receiver talent. However, that clearly didn’t matter last year, as he threw for a career-high 5,250 yards and 41 touchdowns.
- The Eagles lost offensive coordinator Shane Steichen this offseason, but new OC Brian Johnson was the team’s quarterback coach from 2020-2021 and has had plenty of success throughout his career as an offensive coordinator in college with Dak Prescott and Kyle Trask. He and Hurts have also known each other for quite a long time. Johnson tried to recruit Hurts while he was coaching at Florida and Mississippi State.
- As for Allen, he easily has the worst offensive line of the top three quarterbacks. He was under pressure on 34% of his dropbacks this past season. But Allen has had, at best, an average offensive line throughout his entire career and it hasn’t slowed him down.
The Verdict: Jalen Hurts
This could change at any minute because of how close it is between these three star quarterbacks. But as of now, Hurts is my QB1 in fantasy, though it is insanely close. Hurts has the best offensive line in the NFL, as well as quite possibly the best wide receiver duo in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. The Eagles also added a stellar pass-catching running back in D’Andre Swift this offseason. Mahomes has Travis Kelce. Allen has Stefon Diggs. But on top of how great of a player he is, I just like Hurts’ supporting cast more.
Still, if you manage to draft Hurts, Mahomes or Allen, you’ll be very, very happy.
