Preseason rankings moves happen for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it's injuries or depth charts. Other times it's coachspeak or a beat writer report. It could even be a clip from training camp or a preseason highlight. You have to be careful with a lot of these because they'll often come back to bite you, but you also can't stick your head in the sand for the next four weeks.
While all of the reasons above are common reasons for rankings risers, there's one that has more to do with our game and less to do with real football, it's what we learn from ADP. When we were doing our quarterback preview on Fantasy Football Today this week I noticed that Tua Tagovailoa, Jared Goff, and Trevor Lawrence were available in the double-digit rounds. I was reminded that the floor is available very late at the quarterback position, often on the waiver wire. I was also reminded of something I said last year about Anthony Richardson and in years past about Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson before their breakout seasons: In a one-quarterback league, the upside is really all that matters on Draft Day. And when I remembered that, I realized I was way too low on Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams.
Listen to our 2024 Quarterback Preview here:
Daniels and Williams don't have much floor as rookie quarterbacks, even some of the best quarterbacks in NFL history have been subpar as rookies. But that doesn't matter when there is so much floor available so late. What is undeniable about the two rookies is their upside.
Daniels' upside is more evident and more believable to me. That's because rookie passers who succeed generally do so with their legs and Daniels ran for 1,134 yards in 12 games in his final season at LSU. He also threw 40 touchdowns and averaged more than 300 passing yards per game in that final season. If Kliff Kingsbury sets Daniels loose as a runner and Daniels finds a deep connection with Terry McLaurin, the sky is the limit.
Williams is a mobile quarterback, but we expect him to be closer to Patrick Mahomes than Lamar Jackson as a rusher. That means he'll have to do more with his arm and the combination of D.J. Moore, Keenan Allen, and top-10 pick Rome Odunze will make that a whole lot easier. If Allen hasn't lost a step and Odunze adapts quickly, this could be the best receiving corps in the NFL and Williams will be the first Bears quarterback in history to throw for 4,000 yards.
All that being said, Daniels and Williams are both inside my top 12 QBs now, even in six-point-per-passing touchdown leagues. I am comfortable drafting them as early as Round 9. It's worth saying that this thought exercise also resulted in me moving Anthony Richardson and Kyler Murray ahead of C.J. Stroud and Dak Prescott as well. That wasn't as big of a move, but it certainly impacts how you view the position in the middle rounds.
