Fantasy Football: Derek Carr offers great value

Derek Carr has the potential to carry your team to a fantasy football championship, and he can usually be had late in the draft.

Supplying your fantasy football team with a capable player at quarterback is important. That being said, you have to make sure that you receive good value at the position. Reaching at a position such as quarterback to ensure that you have a talented player is a bit counterproductive, as it can cause you to miss out on talented skill position players.

Personally, I don’t believe in selecting quarterbacks earlier than the eighth round. You can certainly grab a talented QB if you select one in the earlier rounds, but, in my opinion, you’re better off stocking up on players at the skill positions and picking a solid passer in the later rounds of the draft.

With that in mind, I believe that Derek Carr of the Oakland Raiders is the quarterback that offers the best value and most upside. In the many mock drafts that I’ve taken part in over the last few months, he’s consistently available in round eight or later (I’ve been lucky enough to land him as late as the tenth round).

The fact that a quarterback as good as Carr is available that late in the process is perplexing. He’s a player that started to show his potential last season, throwing for 3,987 yards with 32 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. The 25-year-old completed 61.1 percent of his passes, averaging 11.4 yards per completion on the year.

Players like Aaron Rodgers, Andy Dalton, Carson Palmer, and Drew Brees finished the season with similar numbers, but required fantasy owners to select them much earlier in the draft process. And while those players are undoubtedly talented, they don’t offer good value. You would basically be selecting them because of their name, a notoriously bad practice in the world of fantasy football.

Each of the aforementioned quarterbacks are capable of leading your fantasy team to a championship, but so is Derek Carr, and at a much cheaper price. What’s more, I believe that he has the potential and necessary talent around him to actually have a better season than his peers in question.

He has the luxury of having Amari Cooper, a budding star at wide receiver, at his disposal. In 2015, Carr targeted the then rookie wideout 132 times, completing 72 of the passes for 1,070 yards and six touchdowns. Michael Crabtree garnered more targets than Cooper, but I don’t suspect that will be the case in 2016 and beyond.

I firmly believe that Carr and Cooper will build a strong rapport with one another and, in doing so, will become one of the best quarterback-wideout tandems in the NFL. They’re both young and full of potential, and, barring a freak injury, will only get better from here on out.

Fantasy: 5 Surefire PPR Running Backs

As long as Carr has Cooper at his side, I would feel comfortable rolling with him as my starting quarterback. At worst, he’ll post numbers comparable to his numbers from 2015, while, at best, he has the potential to record well over 40 touchdowns.

With his draft stock as low as it is, it’s hard to imagine fantasy owners will find a quarterback of his caliber at a better price. He’s a low-risk, high reward player that can be had late in the process, and I highly advise that people target him come draft day.

Home/Fantasy Football