• Jayden Daniels could break fantasy football: Daniels scrambles at a rate far higher than any other quarterback, which could lead to elite fantasy production.
• Trevor Lawrence is in an upgraded offense: The Jacksonville Jaguars helped Lawrence with two new wide receivers, which could push him to be a top-12 fantasy quarterback.
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
These two potential breakout players have youth on their side, an ADP from the fifth to the 10th rounds and are ranked notably higher than their ADP.
Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Friday, Aug. 30
Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders (ADP: 8.07, From consensus ADP)
Quarterbacks who are excellent ball carriers have consistently been valuable in fantasy football. Justin Fields was QB6 in 2022 thanks to his 1,143 rushing yards despite only throwing for 2,242 passing yards. Jalen Hurts averaged over 23 fantasy points per start in 2020 despite completing 51.9% of his passes. That same season, Taysom Hill averaged 21.6 fantasy points per game during his four starts at quarterback.
Daniels has a chance to be both a better runner and passer than those players in his first season.
Daniels achieved a 91.5 PFF rushing grade throughout his college career, which is the best among Power-Five quarterbacks over the last decade, joining Lamar Jackson, Anthony Richardson and Caleb Williams. He similarly has the most avoided tackles, while Jackson and Hurts ranked in the top five. Not only was the quality of his running better, but he chose to scramble far more than any other quarterback has. He scrambled 258 times throughout his college career, which was also the most for a quarterback in the last decade. The next closest was 180. This could lead to more rushing attempts and big runs from Daniels than other rushing quarterbacks. Every quarterback with 100 or more rushing attempts in the last decade has averaged at least 18 fantasy points per start, a number that should easily be in reach for Daniels.
His passing shouldn’t be overlooked either, as he has the best mechanics of any passer in the class. He received a respectable 84.0 career passing grade in college. We shouldn’t expect him to be as good of a passer as Hurts is now, but ideally, he is better than Hurts as a rookie.
The Commanders added offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury. Kyler Murray was a top-12 fantasy quarterback in points per game in all four seasons when Kingsbury was his head coach, including his 2019 rookie season. Kingsbury’s offense should be an asset to Daniels, or at the very least not hold him back. He is being selected as one of the worst options among fantasy starting quarterbacks, but he should be closer to the middle of the starters with the upside to finish among the top three quarterbacks.
Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars (ADP: 10.07)
Lawrence was the first overall pick of the 2021 NFL draft and had a rookie season to forget. The Jaguars revamped their coaching staff for 2022, and Lawrence had a much better season. He was the overall QB8. He had a slow start to the season, but from Week 9 to the end of the season, he averaged 19.4 fantasy points per game. It wasn’t just his fantasy production that improved; his 90.3 PFF offensive grade over the second half of that season was third-best among quarterbacks.
In 2023, he similarly wasn’t scoring as many fantasy points early in the season. But over the last eight weeks, he averaged 21.1 fantasy points per game, which was fifth-best for quarterbacks in that time.
Lawrence has shown that he’s capable of being a fantasy starting quarterback over long periods each of the last two seasons, and now, he just needs to do it over an entire season. A lot of the offense will be the same with the same offensive coordinator, Travis Etienne Jr. as his running back, Christian Kirk as his slot receiver and Evan Engram playing tight end. The team chose to make an upgrade over Zay Jones on the outside with Gabe Davis. Davis has a 74.1 receiving grade over the last three seasons compared to Jones’ 68.8 on a similar number of routes despite Jones having the higher target rate.
The Jaguars drafted Brain Thomas Jr. to replace Calvin Ridley. Ridley received a 72.2 receiving grade during his only season with the Jaguars. Fourteen of the 23 first-round rookie wide receivers in the last five seasons have surpassed that grade in their rookie season, so there’s a decent chance Thomas can be an immediate upgrade to Ridley.
Lawrence is about to turn 25 years old early in the season, so he’s at a point where we expect quarterbacks to begin their peak. Mix that with an improved offense, and he should be one of the best options when looking for a high-end backup quarterback for fantasy purposes.
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