Fantasy Football: QB matchups, streamer of the week, Week 4 rankings and more

• Hurts is soaring: Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts has led the NFL’s most-efficient passing game through three weeks of action.
• Target Lawrence: Jacksonville Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence stands out as Week 4’s top waiver wire addition.
• Time for Ryan to get back on track: Indianapolis Colts QB Matt Ryan might finally have the sort of get-right spot that this passing game desperately needs

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

Week 4 is here, so it’s truly a great day to be great. Today’s goal is to break down the week’s key fantasy football questions facing the quarterback position before producing the group’s specific ranks. Updated rankings throughout the week from myself and the rest of the PFF Fantasy crew can be accessed with PFF+.

The Ravens should pay Lamar Jackson billions of dollars

Jackson has 12 touchdowns through 12 quarters of 2022.  As the engine of the Ravens offense, Jackson is putting up the same sort of numbers that earned him MVP honors back in 2019:

Weeks 1-3:

Jackson has ripped off back-to-back overall QB1 finishes and enters Week 4 as fantasy’s highest-scoring player at the position. Things won’t be easy this Sunday against the No. 2 scorer Josh Allen and the rest of Bills Mafia.

Do you even Tua, bro?

Many have been hesitant to crown Tua Tagovailoa as the next big thing at quarterback despite the Miami Dolphins’ 3-0 start in 2022. While I’ll admit that Tagovailoa doesn’t have the sort of arm talent to make sidearm heaves to all corners of the field in the same manner as Patrick Mahomes or Justin Herbert, nobody can doubt the effectiveness of the Dolphins passing attack at the moment.

• EPA per play: +0.187 (No. 2)
• EPA per pass play: +0.352 (No. 2)
• PFF pass grade: 76.4 (No. 2)
• Yards per pass attempt: 9 (No. 2)

Many have had a hand in this excellence: New head coach Mike McDaniel has set his team up for success by utilizing play-action (No. 3) and pre-snap shift/motion (No. 1) at top-three rates while wide receivers Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill have been the league’s two most-efficient pass-catchers in terms of yards per route run.

Of course, the Dolphins’ No. 2 ranked passing attack ranks just behind the NFL’s only other undefeated team.

Jalen Hurts has objectively been the best quarterback in football

Pick a stat, any stat, and Hurts has probably been the NFL’s best quarterback in it:

• PFF passing grade: 88.2 (No. 1 among 32 qualified quarterbacks)
• QB rating: 106.5 (No. 5)
• Big-time throw rate: 5.6% (No. 6)
• Turnover-worthy play rate: 0.8% (No. 1)
• Yards per attempt: 9.3 (No. 1)
• Adjusted completion rate: 78.4% (No. 9)

Of course, Hurts has also made defenses pay on the ground to the tune of a 37-167-3 rushing line after three weeks of action, putting himself on pace to rack up an asinine 210 rush attempts by the end of Week 18 – Lamar Jackson is the only quarterback in NFL history with more than 150 rush attempts in a single season.

Pass-catchers A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert certainly deserve plenty of credit for the hot start while PFF’s top-graded pass-blocking offensive line has also helped matters. Regardless of who is most important: Hurts has this Eagles offense cooking at a high level at the moment; don’t be surprised if his name is a staple in the MVP conversation all season long.