Risk and Reward QBs

One of the things that I always try to do is avoid the consensus opinion. A consensus is usually the 'safe' bet, and by safe, I mean one designed not to get you laughed at on draft day. Last year, I was able to let more questionable RBs and QBs slide while I targeted Brandon Jacobs and Jon Kitna. This year, those players are getting more love and are less likely to be value plays.

So which high value QBs are candidates to let slide and which are candidates to be values? I have some nominations.

High Risk

Matt Lienart/Kurt Warner. I think most people will avoid either, but if you could know for sure one would start and finish the season as the lucky guy throwing to Boldin and Fitzgerald, taking him might not be a bad idea. Unfortunately, all we can do is guess and then hope it doesn't change mid-season. I'll pass, thanks.

Derek Anderson. He's the 9th ranked QB on Footballguys.com right now. The problem is if you take him, you need to turn right around and grab insurance quickly. Anderson had a great year, but the team has invested a lot in terms of draft picks and $$ in Quinn. Sooner or later they'll give Quinn an opportunity. Perhaps more importantly, as I've already discussed in a previous post, pro-football-reference.com sliced the stats and Anderson looks to have benefited from facing some really bad passing defenses last year. He's certain to come back to earth this year.

Medium Risk

Tony Romo. Say what? Yes, he's top 5 in my rankings. However, there is some rumor that Tony Sparano, the new coach of Miami was the 'real' genius behind Dallas' offense. I'm hedging my bets on Romo and won't reach for him.

Jake Delhomme. I think he'll be a serviceable QB if he starts most of the year, but I'm afraid some will be tempted to extrapolate stats from the three games he played last year against 3 of the worst pass defenses.

Honorable Mention Risk

Tom Brady.  Most likely he won't repeat last year's stats. The team did move more toward the run going down the stretch.

High Reward

LATE EDITION: Matt Schaub. See this article above. Should be a top 10 if healthy and you can have him as your backup.

David Garrard. The stats work pro-football-reference.com did on the QBs from last year showed that Garrard was the second most effective QB behind Tom Brady. If you look at the games he completed, he had at least one TD in each of them and only failed to go above 200 yards three times, including a 197 yard effort. If he had started all year, he could easily have had 24-26 TDs and 3500 yards. He's ranked #12 right now and could easily finish higher.

Medium Reward

Jay Cutler. He finished in my top 10-ish list last year and is ranked 11 this year - essentially the crowd is betting he'll do about what he did last year. I'm betting he will comfortably finish in the top 10 in his third year.

Honorable Mention Reward

Marc Bulger. He's a 3800 yard passer when he completes all 16 games. Coupled with at a TD total in the mid-20s and he might make a serviceable starter all year. Unfortunately, there are still about 12-13 QBs I'd take a head of him. He almost always get injured. The line in St. Louis is one or two key injuries away from being as awful as it was last year and though Holt is great, the WR corps is getting older and more suspect.

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