5 Quarterbacks Who Should Outperform Their Fantasy Football Cost This Year
Drew Brees
Drew Brees has been one of fantasy football’s golden boys since 2006 when he took the Big Easy by storm, eventually leading the Saints to their first franchise Super Bowl title in 2009.
Since coming to New Orleans, Brees has been a model of consistency for fake footballers, racking up 600-plus attempts per season in all but two seasons, while tossing more than 33 touchdowns in each of the last seven seasons and only missing one game since 2006.
Brees alone has accounted for four of the eight total 5,000 yard-plus passing seasons among quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. Yes, life as a Drew Brees owner has been grand for a long time for those who have had the pleasure.
But the perception around much of the fantasy football community is that Brees and Father Time have already met and the inevitable decline in performance has already begun.
Not so, according to numberFire’s projections. The numberFire algorithm currently projects Brees to finish as the second best fantasy quarterback in 2015, whereas fantasy footballers are drafting him as the fifth best quarterback off of their respective big boards.
As our own A.J. Weinburg documented a few weeks back, there hasn’t been any detectable decline in Brees’ performance relative to his peers in terms of real football. Brees is still a top-10 quarterback in volume and, importantly, per-drop back efficiency. Sure his efficiency has came down some in 2014, but it was only his third worst season to date since coming to New Orleans.
There are a few reasons that are likely to help explain his per-attempt efficiency “decline” from last season that are not age-related. One, Jimmy Graham wasn’t himself for most of the season as he battled on and off injuries all year while posting his lowest yardage total since his rookie season.
Two, key target and resident-speedster Brandin Cooks, who Brees was directing an impressive seven targets a game to, was injured after 10 games and missed the rest of the season.
Finally, and this is probably understated, according to ProFootballFocus, the Saints’ offensive line ranked 22nd in terms of pass-blocking efficiency and allowed the third-most combined pressure situations in the league, tied with Atlanta. Since 2007 and prior to 2014, the Saints had only one season in which their offensive line’s pass-blocking efficiency fell out of the top 10 (2008).
As good as Brees has been, he’s had phenomenal protection since coming to New Orleans, and the Saints seem to be reinvesting in that formula by acquiring Pro Bowl center, Max Unger, in the Jimmy Graham trade to Seattle. This offensive line upgrade will likely enable Brees to recover some of his lost efficiency from the 2014 season moving forward into 2015.
And while the loss of Jimmy Graham and Kenny Stills might hurt, the Saints did procure C.J. Spiller, a bona-fide beast when given the rock out in space. They’ll also see the return of Cooks, and still retain the services of Marques Colston, who, believe it or not, still gets busy, having posted six straight seasons of top 12 per-target efficiency among qualified receivers since 2009, in terms of our Net Expected Points (NEP) metric.
Brees has always been able to get the best out of his cast, no matter who they are, and as it currently stands, that cast is more than acceptable. As such, Brees's elite-level fantasy production should continue into 2015. Snag him in the early fifth round of 12-team leagues and reap the rewards.
