Recent Fantasy Football Bust Quarterbacks: What can We Learn from Russell Wilson, Kenny Pickett, Trey Lance and More?

There’s nothing worse than drafting a player high in your fantasy draft (or paying a lot in an auction) only to watch him go down for the year within the first few weeks of the season. I was high on Nick Chubb last year, expecting him to be a top-five lock among running backs with a chance to challenge for the top spot; he suffered one of the worst injuries I’ve ever seen during Week 2.

Chubb was a fantasy draft bust, but it wasn’t really his fault. Injuries can happen to any player at any time. They don’t even have to be touched, as we’ve seen on multiple ACL, Achilles and other ligament tears. Luck is the biggest factor in who wins championships, both in real and fantasy football.

What about the guys who don’t suffer major injuries but still disappoint greatly in fantasy football? It’s a little easier to be upset with those players because they had control over their performance and still underwhelmed. Don’t worry, though: I’m sure the millions of dollars they make will help them sleep despite ruining your fantasy season.

At FantasySP, we have fantasy draft bust information from recent seasons that show the average draft position and final scoring rankings of each player. I went through the last three seasons (here is the information for 2023, 2022 and 2021) to look at how many players “busted” to try to determine if any position was safer than others and identify any clues that could have warned us about pending failure.

Injuries are a big part of the equation every season. Most fantasy busts end up as such because the players in question miss extended time. I’m more interested in the non-injured, though. Is there a common thread that might hint toward the busts of 2024?

I went through the top 20 drafted quarterbacks each season and listed the players who finished at least 10 spots lower than their draft status among QBs. I’ll be filtering out those who sustained major injuries and breaking down those who simply regressed or failed to break out.

2023

Joe Burrow: Drafted QB5, finished QB25

Justin Herbert: Drafted QB6, finished QB16

Justin Fields: Drafted QB7, finished QB17

Deshaun Watson: Drafted QB10, finished QB36

Aaron Rodgers: Drafted QB12, missed whole season

Daniel Jones: Drafted QB13, finished QB43

Kirk Cousins: Drafted QB14, finished QB24

Anthony Richardson: Drafted QB16, finished QB37

Kenny Pickett: Drafted QB19, finished QB30

Injuries ruined the seasons of Burrow, Watson, Rodgers, Jones, Cousins and Richardson. Herbert and Fields missed four games apiece and each would have missed the cut for this list had they stayed healthy.

That leaves one man: Pickett. Now, Pickett wasn’t being drafted in most leagues, but he was expected to be somewhat of a weekly starter in two-QB leagues and a streaming option otherwise. The idea was that entering his second season, the former first-round pick would make major improvements. It helped that he could run a little, having gained at least 20 yards on the ground in four of 12 games as a rookie and scoring three times.

Well, it turns out his lack of quarterback acumen wasn’t just a rookie problem, as his poor passing stats didn’t improve and he lost the running production that gave him value, topping out at 16 yards on the ground and only scoring once. Pickett was traded to the Eagles this offseason to play a backup role.

Lesson for 2024

No one is guaranteed to improve, even first-round picks. This applies specifically to Bryce Young, the top overall pick in 2023 who had a brutally bad rookie season. Carolina took steps to surround him with NFL-level talent after leaving him on an island last year: Diontae Johnson, Xavier Legette, Jonathon Brooks, Damien Lewis and Robert Hunt are new probable starters/rotation players on offense.

Young’s draft profile pegged him as a guy who could do damage with his legs, making him a more valuable fantasy QB. He ran for over 20 yards in five of 16 games last season, though he didn’t get in the end zone (no one scored much in Carolina).

Entering his second season, Young’s argument for fantasy relevance sounds a lot like Pickett’s: A second-year quarterback who will improve with more experience and can add some juice running the football. I have much higher eventual hopes for Young than Pickett, but it’s hard to expect a huge turnaround in just one season after how putrid Young looked.

There might be a few weeks that he can be used as a fantasy streamer, but Young is unlikely to be a top 10 fantasy quarterback this season. Draft with extreme caution, even if you will be starting two QBs. Tennessee’s Will Levis and Las Vegas’ Aidan O'Connell are lesser examples of the same situation.

2022

Kyler Murray: Drafted QB7, finished QB17

Russell Wilson: Drafted QB8, finished QB20

Matthew Stafford: Drafted QB12, finished QB31

Trey Lance: Drafted QB13, finished QB56

Jameis Winston: Drafted QB20, finished QB40

Everyone here was brought down by injuries aside from Russell Wilson. This was Wilson’s first season in Denver, and he was expected to come in and take a team with talent across the roster to the next level.

Instead, his completion percentage, yards per attempt, TD:INT ratio, quarterback rating and QBR were all worse than any season he had in Seattle. (There was one season with a slightly lower yards per attempt in 2017: 7.2 vs 7.3 in 2022.) The move to a new team didn’t work out, and Wilson was released after not showing enough in 2023.

Lesson for 2024

We can’t expect a player in a new situation to play at the same level he did in his old home. Kirk Cousins is the direct comparison in this one after jumping from the Minnesota Vikings to the Atlanta Falcons. The expectation is that Cousins will give Atlanta the piece it’s been missing to elevate their young, top-10 drafted offensive talent to big fantasy performances and success on the field.

Cousins was in the top 11 among fantasy quarterbacks in both 2021 and 2022; he was sixth last year from Weeks 1-8 before tearing his Achilles and missing the rest of the season. It’s easy to imagine him entering the Falcons lineup and picking up where he left off surrounded by first-round picks at the skill positions and on the offensive line.

Again, though, he’s returning from an Achilles tear. He’s also moving from one of the most pass-happy teams in the league to a situation in which we don’t know what to expect as far as play distribution.

Cousins isn’t being drafted as more than a late QB2, and owners shouldn’t hope for much more. Between injuries, age (turning 36 in August), an unknown situation and more, there’s a lot that has to go right for Cousins to thrive in his first year in Atlanta. Gardner Minshew in Vegas is another low-level example.

2021

Russell Wilson: Drafted QB7, finished QB22

Trey Lance: Drafted QB14, finished QB42

Justin Fields: Drafted QB15, finished QB30

Jameis Winston: Drafted QB18, finished QB32

Wilson, Fields and Winston were affected by injuries, leaving Lance as our lone case study here. I forgot that Lance was drafted in the same year as Fields since we’ve seen so much of the latter and very little of the former. This was the rookie season for both players.

Lance got a little time in 2021, throwing 71 passes and running six times, but fantasy owners were drafting him with the hopes he would become the starter over the middling Jimmy Garoppolo. That didn’t happen until 2022, when Lance suffered an early injury and gave back the job to Jimmy G, who then got hurt himself and gave way to the Brock Purdy era.

Lesson for 2024

If a rookie isn’t named the starter, we can’t assume he will take over the job just because the veteran talent is underwhelming. There’s no right answer when it comes to playing versus sitting rookie quarterbacks. Some are adamant that game action is the only way to get up to speed, but Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love and Patrick Mahomes have all proven that it’s not a necessity.

Teams should do whatever is best for their young quarterback. If that means playing in live games, he should be the starter. If that means watching from the sideline and refining his game in practice, every franchise would be best suited by keeping their passer away from potential in-game disaster.

Drake Maye and J.J. McCarthy are this year’s examples, with Bo Nix on the outskirts of the conversation. Each rookie quarterback will eventually take over, but their respective teams have been hesitant to hand them the starting role.

The answer is probably different for each player. The Patriots and Broncos are unlikely to be playoff contenders and have nothing to lose by putting in their rookie quarterback. That’s where the true “best for the player” strategy will be used. Even if either guy gets the starting job, though, they will likely only be deep streamers and inconsistent fantasy performers.

Minnesota has been adamant that Sam Darnold is in the lead for the starting job. They must fancy themselves as a possible playoff team, which would lead them to make decisions based on what’s best for winning. If McCarthy isn’t that guy, he won’t get on the field while the team is competitive.

McCarthy and Darnold have a slight bit of fantasy intrigue because of Minnesota’s play-calling tendencies since head coach Kevin O'Connell arrived (2022). In O'Connell’s first season, the team was third in most pass attempts. They were only five attempts short of first place last season, and that’s with Cousins missing half the games.

Is O'Connell going to change his whole philosophy because of the change at quarterback? I see the Minnesota quarterback, whomever that may be, as a possible streamer on the right weeks simply due to volume.

As we learned from Lance and the 49ers, though, don’t draft the rookie assuming he’ll quickly take over and maybe fill your QB2 spot. It’s best to see it before you believe it in the case of McCarthy, Maye and Nix.

Takeaways

Most busts are going to come from players who get hurt. That’s not a surprise, but it is important to see that many of the top quarterbacks drafted didn’t crash and burn, making the position somewhat safe.

Those few players who busted without getting hurt were generally young guys we were expecting big things from before we saw them succeed at the NFL level. This also stretches to QBs entering new situations, as we talked about with Wilson/Cousins making transitions later in their careers.

Rookies Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels are two guys being drafted outside the top 10 quarterbacks but whom some people are expecting big things from. I’ve been really high on Daniels, so this gives me a little pause in expecting the rookie to perform at a high level right away (I’m still in on Daniels).

Drafting a player in a familiar situation who has had success is the safest way to go. I mean, I’m not saying anything groundbreaking, but it is a reminder that high-upside players often come with high risk, and limiting risk is a great strategy when building the foundation of your fantasy team.