When to consider young quarterbacks

By: David Lister

Anyone with any familiarity of fantasy football knows how risky relying on rookie quarterbacks can be. Most of the time they don’t see little, or no, game-time (e.g. Brady Quinn and JaMarcus Russell) and when they do it often isn’t worthy of a spot on your team (Trent Edwards).

So if fantasy owners are to shy away from rookie quarterbacks, then when should they consider them?

Let’s take a look at the top 10 quarterbacks this season based on standard scoring (Brady, Romo, Peyton, Brees, Anderson, Roethlisberger, Favre, Hasselbeck, Palmer and Warner). Aside from Manning, who threw for 3700-plus yards but also 28 picks his rookie season, none of these guys were great fantasy quarterbacks their first year in the league. Both Big Ben and Palmer played a good amount their first seasons, but they weren’t elite guys until later.

Most of the list began to resemble their 2007 incarnations their second years in the league. Brady, Romo, Brees, Favre, Palmer and Warner all put up impressive numbers their second years in the league, while it took Anderson and Big Ben three years and Hasselbeck four years to post top 10 QB-type fantasy numbers.

Given JaMarcus Russell’s week 17 performance against the Chargers (224 yards, one TD), it seems that Russell is a good bet to breakout in 2008. The Bills seem to have given their starting QB job to Edwards next year, and while he showed more bad than good, he did have a couple of bright spots (234 yards, 1 TD week 4 vs. Jets, 257 yards week 13 vs. Redskins) and will be worth a look.

The rest of the ‘07 class seems doomed for next year, with Quinn stuck behind Anderson and Kevin Kolb stuck behind Donovan McNabb (at least for now) and John Beck’s future in question with the massive changes going on in Miami.

Looking at the 2006 crop of quarterbacks, none were able to make the leap into the top 10 this year. Jay Cutler came in at 11 with almost 3500 yards and 20 TD’s, numbers that would put him in the top 10 many years. But if you took Vince Young or Matt Leinart you had to be massively disappointed, and owners have to consider if these guys will ever be dominant fantasy QB’s.

One thing that this years list of top 10 QB’s does suggest is that quarterbacks like Eli Manning and Alex Smith are what they are, so don’t go into next year hoping one of them will blossom. Other ‘04 and ‘05 guys like Jason Cambell, Phillip Rivers and J.P. Losman should also be expected to put up numbers similar to what they’ve already done.

While this method is imprecise (it would be better to consider the exact amount of game-time as well), it does seem after three or four years in the league you should know what a quarterback is capable of. And instead of using a draft pick on a rookie, look at the second-year guys instead, where there is real breakout potential.

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David Lister is the web editor for the National Sports Review. You can reach him at chicagosportsreview@gmail.com. Go Cards.

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