We’ve had TWO weeks’ worth of review, and we will be making it a third this week, but this time we are focusing solely on quarterbacks. That might feel odd given that in usual leagues, you only start one. However, it's worth noting that while Caleb Williams was a disappointment relative to some of the community’s lofty expectations, finishing as the QB16, he was a top-36 scorer in fantasy points last year.

We have elite quarterbacks that we take early in drafts, such as Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. Or we can build our teams around drafting two QBs late, taking a sleeper, and a potential streamer. Or, we can just decide to stream the position, targeting potential easy matchups for QBs on the waiver wire on a week-to-week basis.

What all did we learn about QBs in 2025?

This study was different than most, concentrating on a single player rather than a group or position. A lot of people have been concerned with Daniels becoming the next CJ Stroud, but these QBs, while sharing some similar rookie season stats, are very different. If a rookie QB has a +4.5% TD rate, there’s a 66% chance they suffer a decrease in their second year. In addition, there’s an 83% chance of a decrease in FPPG. But Daniels does something that guys like Stroud don’t do: he runs the football.

In essence, rookie QBs who have a season like Daniels generally regress, but Daniels has more rushing upside than most of the sample set used in the study. If he keeps up his rushing numbers and suffers a setback in TD efficiency, he should still end up close to his current ADP price. 🎖

Speaking of regression, we took things a step further with this study, focusing on the QB position as a whole. When looking at every QB who has thrown at least 200 attempts since 2015, we split them into two groups: those who had a TD rate above 6% (a high TD rate) and those who were below 3.5% (a low TD rate). We then looked to see how well those QBs did in their following season.

Of the 43 QBs with a high-TD rate, 88% of them saw a decrease in TD rate the following season, the average being -1.7%! A quarterback with 500 attempts and a 6% TD rate would throw for 30 touchdowns. If he sees the exact same number of pass attempts the following season, he’s passing only 22 TDs! 

Further, 81% of high TD rate QBs suffer a PPG decrease, 63% went down 2.5 PPG.

On the other side of the coin, quarterbacks with a low TD rate see their efficiency increase an average of 1.25% in the following season. Using 500 attempts and a 3.5% rate, a quarterback would see their year-over-year TDs go from 15 to 21, taking them from irrelevant to streaming consideration. 

Of this group, 64% increased their PPG and 44% by 2.5 PPG.

So who had a high TD rate in 2024? Baker Mayfield, Jared Goff, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson.

The two QBs who fit the low TD rate who still have starter potential in 2025 are Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones, who are fighting for the starting spot in Indy. As honorable mentions, Geno Smith and Caleb Williams both had rates just above the 3.5% threshold.

Finally, we looked at what makes a Top-6 fantasy QB. We’ve gone a bit long here, so I’ll be brief. If you want a shot at taking a Top-6 QB who isn’t a known elite, look for rushing upside. 250 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns is a nice baseline. QB’s who don’t manage those marks need nearly 39 passing TD on average to maintain Top-6 status compared to 32 passing scores by their rushing counterparts.

With fantasy draft season right around the corner, I wanted to take a break from doing studies and give some of my personal takes.

Fields had a scare in practice last week, but he should be good to go for the season. He’s a candidate I identified back in the Top-6 QB article. His rushing upside is evident, and he has his college teammate Garrett Wilson at receiver along with Breece Hall out of the backfield. The ancillary options aren’t amazing, but Mason Taylor and Josh Reynolds do have some intriguing flex upside. He’s being drafted as the QB10 right now, so people are still expecting him to be fine for fantasy, but I think he has the ability to reach a ceiling outcome.

Young was the QB16 from Week 8 on after his benching, QB12 if you include Week 18. He’s another year into the Canales system and finally has a young Alpha receiver in Tet McMillan to throw the ball to. The Panthers’ defense is still a work in progress (and so is the offense, but I’m feeling more confident in them than the defense), and should put them into plenty of negative game scripts.

I could mention Brock Purdy, J.J. McCarthy, or Trevor Lawrence next, but I want to give some love to Cam Ward. Nobody has been talking about him whatsoever. Even for a bad QB class, this is a bit much. Or, too little, however you want to put it. Last year, the Titans led the league in offensive turnovers with 34, including 21 interceptions. While not mentioned in my article about Top vs Bottom-6 offenses, the Titans tied with the Bears for seventh worst, so they themselves should be seeing some positive regression. The Titans were among the worst in the league in on-target throws, bad throws, and drops. Interestingly, their offensive line was fine, with the fifth-best in pocket time before pressure. 

Not much changed for the Titans personnel aside from some Day 3 additions in Chimere Dike, Elic Ayomanor, and UDFA Xavier Restrepo, who was Ward’s college slot receiver. An aging Tyler Lockett is in town, Calvin Ridley is still there, as are Tony Pollard and Tayjae Spears. This might all sound like I’m down on Ward because it was an awful time last year, and not much changed. But it is not so. Ward was an accurate QB in college and kept his mistakes down, as well as showing his rushing ability often. Given their ability to protect the QB last year and Ward’s accuracy and mobility, I think it’s even more likely the offense could see positive regression thanks to the pass catchers seeing higher quality targets. 🔥

Quickly now, I’m not a fan of Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff this season. Ok, that’s not completely true, I still like their fantasy prospects, but I do think they will struggle to maintain their scoring output from last year.

🏴‍☠ Mayfield’s career average TD rate is 5%, his rate last year was a career high 7.2%. If he regresses back to 5% (which is still above league average) while maintaining his passing rate (which is also possible, he’s been at 566 and 570 the last two years), he would drop down from 41 to 28.5 passing TDs. That’s a massive drop in scoring for fantasy!

🦁 Jared Goff is in a similar situation, with a career-high 6.9% TD rate compared to a career average of 4.8%. His OC Ben Johnson is gone, and while I don’t foresee the Lions being bad, I’m unsure exactly how well they will do. The team and quarterback are due some sort of regression in 2025; we just have to see how much it might hit.

That is going to do it for this week’s edition of the RotoBanter newsletter! I hope you all enjoyed it, and I will see you next time. Make sure to pop in the Discord by clicking the banner below if you have a question or just want to chat about some football. Let me know what you thought about the Hall of Fame game from Thursday night!