Fantasy Football: Biggest surprises of the 2024 season — Quarterbacks

• Sam Darnold was 2024’s greatest surprise: The Minnesota Vikings quarterback was so good in 2024 that he likely improved his stock as a temporary stop-gap QB to a potential franchise quarterback for the next few seasons.

• Sophomore slumps for two quarterbacks lead to big value dips: Both C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson let down their fantasy managers as two highly-drafted Year 2 quarterbacks who delivered nowhere near their 2024 expectations.

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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Every NFL season is full of good and bad surprises, and 2024 was no exception. Plenty of fantasy football assets emerged seemingly out of nowhere to become quality starting options, while others let us down, either due to injury, poor play, inefficiency or getting benched.

In this article, we’ll look at some of the pleasant surprises and surprise disappointments at quarterback from 2024, leaving out players who missed significant chunks of time due to injury.

Pleasant surprise: Sam Darnold, Minnesota Vikings

• Finish: QB7
• ADP: QB34

Darnold is by far the biggest surprise performer at the quarterback position this year — and perhaps across all positions as well. When the offseason began, he was not even on the radar of fantasy managers or even NFL pundits getting an early start on previewing the 2024 season. When the Vikings selected J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall pick in this past year’s NFL draft, Darnold remained in the background of conversations around the team until McCarthy required season-ending surgery in August.

Darnold was expected to take over the starting quarterback duties for Minnesota and likely serve as a one-year stop-gap until McCarthy was ready, but his level of play in 2024 made him so much more valuable, as he now is likely to even stay on long-term with the team. Darnold had great weapons in the passing game to rely on, including Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson, though his play matched the talent around him as he set a new career-high in passing grade (83.6) – the sixth-best mark in the league.

Darnold put up strong production numbers throughout the year, finishing top-three in passing yards (4,153), throwing for 35 touchdowns (fourth), and only finished outside the top-15 fantasy quarterbacks in a week four times across 16 games, ultimately being a weekly fantasy starter and finishing the year as the overall QB7 – a result that nobody expected.

Pleasant surprise: Bo Nix, Denver Broncos

• Finish: QB10
• ADP: QB29

It’s not always easy for rookie quarterbacks to hit the ground running in the NFL. However,  a few did so this season, none were more impressive than Jayden Daniels. Still, Nix’s performance in Year 1 should not be overlooked, and judging by his offseason ADP, his top-10 finish was not in the likely range of possibilities as he was drafted well outside the top-24 quarterbacks.

Nix had a lot of experience as a starting quarterback coming out of college, but a lot of his more recent sample of work coming out of Oregon, while looking promising for NFL success, didn’t necessarily provide a lot of hope for fantasy purposes as a low average depth of quarterback passer that figured to translate less to fantasy success in the NFL. However, Nix, while still not a high-ADoT (average depth of target) passer, was so efficient as a passer, while adding some solid rushing production as well, that he ended up being a near-every-week starter by season's end.

Pleasant surprise: Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

• Finish: QB4
• ADP: QB21

While not nearly as surprising as the other two, Mayfield’s ADP being outside the top 20 before finishing inside the top-five is enough of a jump in value that he certainly qualifies as deserving of a shoutout here. Even after finishing as the overall QB10 in 2023 (Weeks 1-17), expectations appeared to be that Mayfield would regress and not remain a weekly starting option, based on his ADP. Not only did he prove that theory wrong, but he was among the truly elite fantasy quarterbacks this season, delivering 12 top-10 weekly finishes across his 16 games played.

What’s more impressive regarding Mayfield’s production is that he did so without Mike Evans for three games and without Chris Godwin for the final nine games of the year. Mayfield’s willingness to get the ball downfield never waivered as he ranked among the top-five quarterbacks in yards per attempt (8.0), ranked third in overall passing yards (4,279) and tied for second in passing touchdowns (39).

This is now the second-straight season that Mayfield has thrown for over 4,000 passing yards and ranked among the top-10 in passing touchdowns but improving on last year should be enough proof to keep him from being a surprise on this list again next season and avoid being drafted outside the top-20 quarterbacks again.

Surprise disappointment: C.J. Stroud, Houston Texans

• Finish: QB18
• ADP: QB5

Stroud’s rookie season was so promising and impressive that hopes were high for him going forward in his NFL career. He was often considered a top-five dynasty quarterback this past offseason, but this year’s disappointing performance has hurt his stock, at least for now. Stroud was also drafted as a top-five quarterback in redraft leagues this season, and despite playing every game, he finished as the overall QB18 should be considered nothing less than a huge disappointment.

Stroud managed just two top-10 weekly finishes all season long and five finishes outside the top-24 across 16 games as he struggled significantly to live up to his 2023 offensive rookie of the year performance. Stroud regressed in terms of his passing grade (76.8) this season, but plenty of other areas caused his low fantasy output this season, as highlighted in the chart below. As a result, many fantasy managers were disappointed in the return he provided on their investment this year.

C.J. Stroud’s production compared over his first two regular seasons (Weeks 1-17):

Surprise disappointment: Anthony Richardson, Indianapolis Colts

• Finish: QB23
• ADP: QB6

He was drafted right behind Stroud this offseason, another second-year quarterback where expectations were high, though there was at least some risk considering the small sample size of his rookie year, he still managed to disappoint in 2024 for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons why Richardson disappointed in Year 2 was that the coaching staff decided to bench him after just 10 games in the NFL, including his rookie year, which felt like an incredibly short leash for a former top-five pick at this point in his career, though also an indictment on his level of play to that point as well.

Through the first month of the season, Richardson ranked 32nd among 35 qualifying quarterbacks in PFF passing grade (48.4) and tied for the league lead in interception (six) through that stretch as well, before Joe Flacco had to step in and take over. Flacco’s stint as a starter was also short-lived, and while he played better when he took back over as a starter from Week 8-on, he still only managed two top-five weekly finishes on the year over 11 games. The rest were all outside the top-10 weekly finishers, ultimately finishing as the QB23 on the year and not living up to his high-end fantasy potential.