Fantasy Football Forum Week 13: The Race for QB1

There are a lot of young and exciting quarterbacks in the league right now but two are separating themselves from the field in the race for QB1 in fantasy. Most people will agree that Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback in the league with regards to real football but Kyler Murray enters Week 13 up one point on Mahomes in standard scoring for QBs. Why? Well, Murray is basically giving you high level output as a runner combined with decent fantasy stats as a passer. At the end of the day, we only care about the final number on the stat sheet.

Murray sits at 650 rushing yards with 10 scores. While a 1,000 yard campaign seems unlikely given his final five games on the slate, his rushing ability provides an incredible floor in our fake game. Mahomes, on the other hand, is simply burning down the league in the passing game with an underappreciated running ability to give some bonus points. In the long run, the Mahomes approach is more sustainable.

With five games remaining, Mahomes has almost 3,500 yards and a 30:2 TD:INT ratio. He has a chance to eclipse 5,000 yards and while he’s probably not going to hit 50 TDs, he’ll likely clear 40 with relative ease. The two interceptions are simply remarkable and even more valuable if your league carries a heavy interception tax.

I think Mahomes winds up on top but if you have either guy, you’re probably in good shape for this year. This begs the question, what do you do next year at draft time? Are these two worth the draft capital it takes to secure their services?

My answer is that it likely depends on your league. The fun thing about taking a QB that can provide eye-popping numbers is that you win a couple of games that you probably shouldn’t throughout the year. It also depends on your scoring. If your league has a scoring system that accounts for the importance of QBs in the real game and adjusts their scoring to reflect that (TD throws are 6 points in my book), then I think you should be more aggressive than what the industry tells you.

While the influx of young QB talent may be a good argument to sit back and wait, the value over the QB10 or QB12 in your league may be worth the investment, particularly since QBs are generally durable. I think I could probably talk myself into Mahomes as early as the 1st/2nd round turn in a standard snake draft.

What’s going on in your league? Hit up the comment section below or find us on Twitter @gridironborn and @whiskeyranger29.