Fantasy Football 2017: This year’s Matt Ryan will be…

Quarterback Matt Ryan surprised everyone with an MVP winning season and a monster fantasy football year. Who will replicate that type of effort in 2017?

Entering the 2016 fantasy football season, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan had no backers. He had no believers. Ryan was ranked as the 21st quarterback, behind the likes of Ryan Fitzpatrick. He was the 195th overall player according to ESPN. That’s not to embarrass ESPN’s fantasy crew; it’s to point out the general consensus on what people expected from Ryan in 2016: nothing.

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Ryan went on to record his best season thus far, with exceptional fantasy football numbers. Which player is destined to be this year’s Matt Ryan and blow away expectations? We debate.

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate Fantasy Football in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

Todd Salem:

Preseason expectations be damned. The Falcons played their games and despite a pretty good career to that point, Ryan still went on to set career-highs in yards, touchdowns, and completion percentage, and a career-low in interceptions. After barely cracking the top 200 preseason, Ryan was third in scoring by the time the year was out. Outside of fantasy circles, he also went on to win league MVP in the real world.

Entering 2017, Ryan is the fifth-ranked player at his position and is a projected top 60 pick. In one season, he went from undrafted or 100 percent ignored to 100 percent drafted and a must-start from Week 1. This kind of stuff isn’t unheard of in fantasy, but Ryan still pulled an impressively massive turnaround. So who is this year’s Matt Ryan?

We need to locate someone going outside the top 150 picks who has an actual chance of ending the year as a top five overall player. It’s a tall order. In terms of fantasy points, Ryan’s end-of-year ranking benefited from playing quarterback, but if we could locate a top-five non-QB scorer, I’d settle for that as well.

In terms of quarterback play, Jay Cutler immediately sparks my interest. He was literally out of the league but now has a full-time starting job to himself. Cutler is going around pick No. 176 according to consensus expert rankings. Yet with the weapons around him in Miami, this feels at least plausible that he could become a top-five scorer. The bad thing here is Cutler doesn’t have the fantasy pedigree that Ryan had during his fall off. Everyone gave up on Ryan for some reason, but he had thrown for more than 4,000 yards in five consecutive seasons heading into 2016. Cutler hasn’t reached that mark even once since 2008.

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Since this is a really hard exercise, the best non-QB option I see is a little further up projection lists. Green Bay running back Jamaal Williams is currently listed as the 138th best player and 51st-ranked RB by Fantasy Pros. (ESPN has him ranked far lower, 180th overall, and perfectly for this exercise.) It is easy for me to imagine him taking over for Ty Montgomery as the Packers’ bell cow back. Running back is notoriously volatile, yet getting him into the top five at his position by year’s end is still quite a tall task. That’s why what Ryan did in 2016 was so wild.

Dan Salem:

While a quarterback has the best opportunity to pull off what Ryan did last season, a running back is far more likely to accomplish the feat. Part of Ryan’s rise to fantasy prominence had to do with a gross underestimation of his abilities as a player. After four-straight 4,000-yard seasons, it’s rather surprising that our experts all thought he would get worse as a player. But the fact that he set career highs in every major statistical category is still impressive. I see one player, a quarterback, who can pull this off in 2017. Your guys are solid choices, especially Green Bay’s running back, but not as good as my own.

Sam Bradford, quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings, is my pick to go from practically undraftable to a top-five fantasy player. Bradford has only two full seasons on his resume, but his accuracy is unquestionable. Its gone up every year and eclipsed 71 percent with his completion rate last season. He also threw a mere five interceptions in his first season for the Vikings, a tremendous sign of things to come. Bradford has consistently thrown for over 3,700 yards and nearly 20 touchdowns in both of his full years under center. He’s never been a flashy quarterback, but his productivity is all there.

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The reason Bradford can vault up the statistical charts is two-fold. His Vikings are easily the second best team in the NFC North and will provide him a bevy of weapons to work with. Furthermore, he has the second easiest schedule among quarterbacks, according to Fantasy Pros. Bad defense is a fantasy player’s best friend. No one will be targeting Sam Bradford, who is currently ranked right behind Jay Cutler. Watch for him to shine in a big way.