Every August, it gets more and more difficult for me to remember
what happened the prior season. I remember Kansas City beating San
Francisco in Super Bowl LVIII, but…do I really? I’d
actually forgotten the game went to overtime until I looked it up.
Do I have any idea who else was in the playoffs? Ehhhh, I’ve
got some educated guesses. Don’t even get me started on who
last year’s elite fantasy performers were. If not for my surrogate
brain (the internet) and an obligation to prep for this column,
I’d be going into this season mostly blind. And, as it turns
out, that would be totally OK. Football amnesiacs, rejoice! Almost
nothing you don’t remember from last year will prove useful
this year. I know this because I’ve been writing this series
to remind us all of that fact for almost 15 years now. Sit back
and embrace the fog while we talk about players to be leery of in
2024.
Note: All rankings are based on FFToday’s
Non-PPR league scoring.
Who Missed the Cut in 2023 (5/10): J. Burrow, G. Smith, K. Cousins,
J. Herbert, & J. Fields
Only 9 of the 32 Week 1 signal callers managed to play in all 17
games last season, which seems like an alarmingly low percentage.
However, it’s about right on average since the league moved
to a slightly longer regular season several years ago. This will
come as no surprise, but…quarterbacks who play more games
tend to have a better chance of achieving Top 10 status. Who knew,
right? In fact, only two QBs have managed to crack the Top 10 club
while missing more than one game since 2021: Jalen Hurts (2021 and
2022) and Justin Fields (2022).
Last year’s five dropouts combined to miss 26 total games
and slotted in almost directly proportional to how many they missed.
Geno Smith slipped from a surprise QB5 in 2022 to QB17 in 2023,
victim of a late-season groin injury which cost him games against
San Fran and Philly. Even had he managed to play in those two tilts,
it’s likely Smith would have ended up on this list, as some
astute prognosticators (ahem) predicted last summer. Justin Fields
missed two more games in 2023 (four) than he did in 2022, when he
still managed to earn Top 10 status. He was still pretty valuable
when he played (21.7 FPts/G) but that’s going to be the problem
this coming season: He just may not unless the Steelers get really
creative. Justin Herbert tucked in right behind Smith and Fields
in 2023, missing four games himself and falling from QB8 to QB19.
You’d have to think Herbie would be a real threat to reclaim
Top 10 status, but he’s already hobbled by plantar fasciitis
in training camp and, more concerningly, by a new coaching staff
determined to ground and pound.
Joe Burrow tore a wrist ligament in mid-November, ending a surprisingly
underwhelming season after just 10 games (18.4 FPts/G v. 26.2 in
2022). There’s almost no chance he doesn’t improve on
that QB25 performance in 2024, provided he plays a lot more games
and gets back to doing Joey Franchise things. Finally, Kirk Cousins,
who’d only missed three starts since 2015, missed three times
that many in 2024, slumping to QB24 in the fantasy ranks, one spot
ahead of Burrow. Strangely enough, Cousins’ last season as
a Viking was both his worst (191.1 total points, a career low as
a full-time starter) and his best (23.9 FPts/G, a career high).
Most Likely Candidates to Fall from
the Top 10 This Year:
Dak Prescott,
DAL: Dak was just as good as Cousins on a per-game basis
last season but played more than twice as many games, parlaying
that stellar 23.9 FPts/G rate into the third most points at the
position. He and CeeDee Lamb formed the league’s most lethal battery
and, on the strength of that connection, the Cowboys notched the
league’s second-best record (tied with San Francisco and Detroit).
Though it ended up amounting to a hill of beans come playoff time,
there’s no denying Prescott-to-Lamb was an irrepressible 2023
force.
There’s little question it could be again in 2024, but as
of this writing, Dak’s favorite target isn’t in camp.
Jerry Jones says the Boys’ franchise receiver is “missed”
(early frontrunner for NFL understatement of the year), but hollow
longing isn’t gonna get Lamb back in camp and Dallas back
in the playoffs. They need action. They need a deal. They need
their WR1 back in the fold to have even a glimmer of a hope of
repeating last year’s success. Even if the two sides do
reach agreement, as always seems to happen when the regular season
approaches, one has to wonder if Dak and the Cowboys can truly
run it back. No free agents of note were added to the mix despite
Jones’ proclamation the team was going “all in”
for 2024. An over-the-hill Brandin Cooks is still the team’s
WR2 and an already thin backfield got super meh this past offseason
when Tony Pollard was swapped out for Zeke 2.0 and Royce Freeman
(GO DUCKS…but c’mon).
Dak-to-CeeDee could again be one of the most prolific combos in
the league come September and the Cowboys better hope it is. Even
so, the offense is becoming dangerously one-dimensional. I think
Prescott takes a tumble in 2024.
Brock
Purdy, SF: Maybe it’s just spiteful
thinking after the Packers were this close to knocking off the
Niners and making it an all-Norris Division NFC Championship in
late January. It’s not the first time San Fran has thwarted this
Green Bay fan’s championship aspirations. Alas, Purdy did just
enough that evening to keep the Niners in the mix and then let
his more celebrated teammates make the plays that mattered most
when they mattered most. He wasn’t necessarily outdueled by Jordan
Love statistically, but anyone watching had to know who the more
dangerous quarterback was and who, more specifically, looked like
a rising star. (Pssst…it was the guy who just signed a $55M-per-year
extension.)
That’s the thing I can’t get over with Purdy. He’s
super savvy and maximizes every bit of his modest athleticism.
There’s no denying that. I’m just not convinced he’s
more than a replacement level facilitator, though. This Niners
team went deep in the playoffs with Jimmy G. orchestrating Coach
Shanny’s system too. Twice. It’s at least worth asking
whether it really matters who lines up under center when guys
like CMC, Deebo, Brandon Aiyuk, and George Kittle are standing
by to make some magic happen.
I realize I’m not being fair to Mr. Purdy and that Niners
fans are gonna cream me for this take. Maybe he’s the second
coming of Joe Montana and I’ll rue the day I ever doubted
him. In a year when there are no obvious candidates for Top 10
demotion, however, I’m gonna look to the guy already exceeding
a fairly modest ceiling and who benefits most from all-world teammates.
The Niners truly are running it back in 2024 (assuming the team
and Aiyuk come to terms soon), but any hiccups / injuries along
the way could expose the once Mr. Irrelevant.
Trevor
Lawrence, JAX: It bears repeating:
There are no obvious candidates for Top 10 demotion this year,
meaning nobody fluked into the club a la Geno Smith the year prior
(apologies, Geno’s mom). There ARE, however, some obvious
candidates to return to Top 10 glory in 2024, some of whom we’ve
already talked about (Burrow, Cousins, Herbert if his new head
man knows what’s good for him) and some we haven’t
(Aaron Rodgers). Then there are the new kids on the block who
soon could enter the chat (C.J. Stroud, Caleb Williams, Jayden
Daniels). To put it plainly, there’s a near 100% percent
chance at least three 2023 Top 10 QBs will be replaced in 2024.
I have the stats to prove it.
Lawrence has been good but not great in three NFL seasons despite
constant predictions of a pending breakout. On the plus side,
he’s never thrown for fewer than 3,600 yards and is coming
off back-to-back 4,000-yard seasons. He’s also very durable,
having missed only one career game (though he was banged up /
less than 100% much of the time last year) and is a lot better
than you’d think on the ground. He’s been a Top 10
runner at the position all three seasons and has scored 11 career
touchdowns with his legs. On the negative side, he turns the ball
over way too much (39 interceptions and 21 fumbles lost). It’s
also fair to question why teams led by Lawrence have mostly underachieved
in his brief Jaguars tenure, winning only a single playoff game
that was more or less gifted to them by Brandon Staley’s
Chargers.
He’s still young and still very talented, but until he puts
it all together, there are higher-ceiling guys out there, including
at least two in Lawrence’s own division.
