Which rookies’ fantasy football stock rose and whose fell after the 2020 NFL Draft?
In past articles, I outlined my pre-NFL Draft fantasy football rookie rankings for quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers and tight ends. These gave a good gauge of how to rate these prospects from a pure talent perspective, irrespective of the teams and offenses they’d eventually find themselves in.
Now that the dust has settled from the NFL Draft, we can effectively analyze the impact of landing spots on their draft stocks in fantasy football. We’ve taken the liberty of throwing in a few other high-rising rookies for good measure.
After all, I know you have questions: Who’ll be falling down fantasy football rankings as a result of competition from rookies? Conversely, which veteran players should be creeping up cheat sheets since their teams stayed pat at their positions?
In future articles, I’ll go division-by-division to examine the rising and falling fortunes of established, rostered, and salaried veterans. Just like board games that families play when WiFi goes down, we’ll let the youngest go first.
Fantasy Football rookie quarterback risers, fallers and rankings
We start with the position that has experienced the least amount of volatility. Despite rumors of all kinds, the consensus Top Three quarterbacks were drafted in the consensus order, by the consensus teams: Joe Burrow to the Cincinnati Bengals, Tua Tagovailoa to the Miami Dolphins, and Justin Herbert to the Los Angeles Chargers.
Chalky chalk-chalk. Yay! How exciting. Excuse me while I rouse an aging Ric Flair from his nap for a half-hearted “woo.”
The rest of our board also went in order, though not to the teams we expected. Jordan Love, our fourth-ranked quarterback, was the fourth quarterback selected; we just didn’t see the Green Bay Packers in his future.
Dynasty owners have to like the value stashes of Love and Jacob Eason, our fifth-ranked quarterback, who was selected fifth by the Indianapolis Colts. These two youngsters with undeniable physical gifts will serve as apprentices to Hall of Fame-caliber quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Phillip Rivers, respectively.
One surprise was the Buffalo Bills’ selection of Georgia Bulldogs signal-caller Jake Fromm, who many thought would end up in Foxboro battling Jarrett Stidham and Brian Hoyer for the New England Patriots job.
The other shocker was the Philadelphia Eagles’ second-round selection of former Alabama Crimson Tide and Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Jalen Hurts; as a card-carrying Carson Wentz truther, I’m still scratching my head over that one.
Add it all up, and there were few changes of note to the fantasy football fortunes of rookie quarterbacks. Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, let’s post our current rookie quarterback rankings for dynasty leaguers and get right to the main event: running backs and wide receivers.
1. Joe Burrow, CIN
2. Tua Tagovailoa, MIA
3. Justin Herbert, LAC
4. Jordan Love, GB
5. Jacob Eason, IND
6. Jalen Hurts, PHI
7. Jake Fromm, BUF