Tiered Fantasy Football Rankings QBs: 2011 Draft Kit

Per usual I’m busting out my fantasy rankings a month before the season takes place – it’s still wild in NFL land, and while we have had a plethora of moves in the last week, there’s still decisions to be made. As so, the list might change a little bit here and there, but don’t expect anything drastic.

Overall, we’re pretty excited about our ranking system here at LuckyLester.com – a lot of discussion has gone down, and while we all don’t agree wholeheartedly, these tiered rankings are the consensus. I’ve always been a huge fan of tiered rankings as a draft tool, 10x better than a Top 300 or even positional rankings, because of their usefulness in any draft situation. If you’re unfamiliar with tiered rankings or have never used them as a cheat sheet for your fantasy drafts, check out my “How To Use Tiered Rankings” article. The main idea behind tiered rankings is that you want as many players from the higher tiers as you can get, and you don’t want to settle for low-tier players at any one position if you can help it.

Okay, over the next 2 days I’ll be publishing all 4 positional rankings – QB, RB, WR, TE, and Def – we never rank kickers because they fluctuate so much from year to year – our advice, take a kicker from a good offense – regardless of how good that kicker is – but if he kicks a high percentage, he’s even that much better.

Running Backs – Wide Receivers – Tight Ends – Defense/Special Teams – have all been updated as well.

Quarterbacks!

QB Tier I

Aaron Rodgers
Michael Vick

Tier II

Tom Brady
Peyton Manning
Phillip Rivers
Drew Brees
Tony Romo

Tier III

Matt Schaub

Tier IV

Ben Roethlisberger
Matthew Stafford
Matt Ryan
Josh Freeman
Eli Manning
Kevin Kolb
Joe Flacco
Matt Cassel
Jay Cutler

Tier V

Sam Bradford
Donovan McNabb
Mark Sanchez

Tier VI

Cam Newton
Kyle Orton
Ryan Fitzpatrick
David Garrard
Tarvaris Jackson
Matt Hasselbeck
Chad Henne
Colt McCoy
Alex Smith
Jason Campbell

Tier VII

Tim Tebow
Rex Grossman
Vince Young
Andy Dalton
Christian Ponder
Jake Locker
John Beck
Carson Palmer

These two are the cream of the crop. We ranked Rodgers ahead of Vick because, as a group, we feel that Rodgers is the safer of the two – and his chances of staying healthy are greater. It’s tough to get more upside than Michael Vick, though, so we feel pretty comfortable taking either of these two guys as the #1 quarterback overall.

We’ve moved around a bit with these rankings as free agent signings and trades have piled in. We’re pretty high on Tony Romo, but it’s hard to rank him higher than the other six guys ahead of him on our big board. We just feel he’s definitely in this tier. Brady’s stock has gone up the most, while Manning continues to hang on despite a little worry over his health – he never misses games! All these guys are close, but you have to have one of them (or the guy sitting alone in our next tier) if you want an elite grade from us. There’s not a ton of certainty at the QB position, but these guys are 5 to bank on.

Tier 3 is made up of Matt Schaub and, well, that’s all. WE couldn’t quite put him in the first two tiers because we’d easily rather have any of those Top 7 over Schaub, that feeling was universal. However, we all concurred that we’d rather have him over the rest of the field. Talent, Andre Johnson, and a strong running game behind Foster is what we like. Running the ball a lot more these days limits his consistency.

Tier 4 is where we absolutely draw the line. If you went for that extra stud receiver or running back, hoping that one of the elite 8 came back to you, and they didn’t – then don’t freakout, just hold your horses and take one of these cats when the value seems right. But don’t hold your breath until you pass out and end up with Mark Sanchez and David Garrard as your starting cavalry. We like Big Ben more than Cutler, but not enough to think you’re WAY better off with the former. These guys are all close, and they all have their worries. Big Ben was so very average last year (and most years – fantasy-wise) that we’re just not sold – but he’s safe and he will produce, more than you can be sure about with Stafford, Cassel, Cutler and even Manning (who is a roller coaster every year). Freeman was probably the most consistent guy last year, but we’re being careful with him this time around. We think Stafford has the highest upside, but with his health concerns, probably the riskiest in the bunch. We’re intrigued by Kolb in Arizona, enough to toss him in with the bunch.

Tier 5 is is only three deep, but I personally love Sam Bradford’s upside, especially if they get a proven WR to help him out a bit. Randy, Plax, here’s talking to you, fellas. Bradford has elite upside – I think he’s the best youngster in quite some time – I’m the only one on staff that thinks it, but I’d be happy with him as my starter this year. Okay, maybe not happy, but comfortable… Donovan is getting the benefit of the doubt here, but we certainly are worried. This is the best running game he’s had since Brian Westbrook we doing work for the Eagles, and McNabb has always been a good playaction guy. Sanchez has all the tools, and if he takes the proper steps forward this year – he’ll outperform this ranking.

The second to last tier is full of guys that have starting jobs (we think) and have some upside. But #2s or #3s at the most, here. I’m interested in what Tarvaris Jackson will do as a leader and a teacher of the offensive scheme he’s been learning in Minnesota – he’ll be one of the vets of this offense in Seattle. With Rice and Williams there’s two great targets that will help a QB out – I think he’ll be solid. Not solid enough to want on my fantasy team – ha – but in a pinch….

Tier 7 is borderline off-limits, but hey, Vince Young could be good when Vick is hurt for a few games. That’s why the Eagles got him – it might not be pretty, but he wins games. All these guys could get starts, but all could do very little. Don’t put much stock in them.