Ranking players for dynasty leagues is notoriously tough – especially for quarterbacks. It involved measuring what a player is doing right now against what might (or might not) occur in a different offense with different teammates 5 years from now.
As quarterbacks stand right now, there is no obvious No. 1. Cam Newton has special abilities, with his tendency to power the ball into the end zone on runs, but is that kind of play sustainable? Hard to envision him playing that way in his 30s.
But who else would take the No. 1 spot? Andrew Luck is supposed to develop into a Manning-Brady type quarterback, but it hasn’t happened yet (and he takes just as much punishment as Newton). Russell Wilson is nifty, but there’s also a mobility dimension to his game. You can’t look at him and be confident you’re getting top-5 quarterbacking numbers for each of the next half-dozen years.
Matthew Stafford and Matt Ryan are both putting up big numbers right now, but for most of the last five years, you would have thought of them more as top-10 quarterbacks. They won’t necessarily keep it up.
Aaron Rodgers is supposed to be a franchise-type difference maker, but he’s 32 (the oldest quarterback in my top 10) and has been slumping for the last year.
With the younger guys – Wentz, Carr, Bortles, Prescott, Mariota – there’s the appeal of them perhaps playing for another dozen years, but they haven’t quite established that they’ll be great quarterbacks for years and years.
In this exercise, I have downgraded four reliable old veterans – Roethlisberger, Rivers, Brady and Brees. These guys are all great. If you’re drafting for the next 2-3 years, then Brady and Brees most certainly would be right near the top. But they don’t have much time left – Brady and Brees are closing in on 40.
Anyway, here’s my stab at it. This is using standard scoring.
| DYNASTY LEAGUE QUARTERBACKS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Team | Player | Age |
| 1. | CAR | Cam Newton | 27 |
| 2. | IND | Andrew Luck | 27 |
| 3. | SEA | Russell Wilson | 27 |
| 4. | DET | Matthew Stafford | 28 |
| 5. | ATL | Matt Ryan | 31 |
| 6. | TB | Jameis Winston | 22 |
| 7. | GB | Aaron Rodgers | 32 |
| 8. | PHI | Carson Wentz | 23 |
| 9. | OAK | Derek Carr | 25 |
| 10. | WAS | Kirk Cousins | 28 |
| 11. | PIT | Ben Roethlisberger | 34 |
| 12. | SD | Philip Rivers | 34 |
| 13. | NE | Tom Brady | 39 |
| 14. | NO | Drew Brees | 37 |
| 15. | JAC | Blake Bortles | 24 |
| 16. | DAL | Dak Prescott | 23 |
| 17. | CIN | Andy Dalton | 28 |
| 18. | TEN | Marcus Mariota | 22 |
| 19. | NYG | Eli Manning | 35 |
| 20. | BAL | Joe Flacco | 31 |
| 21. | BUF | Tyrod Taylor | 27 |
| 22. | MIA | Ryan Tannehill | 28 |
| 23. | DEN | Paxton Lynch | 22 |
| 24. | MIN | Sam Bradford | 28 |
| 25. | ARI | Carson Palmer | 36 |
| 26. | HOU | Brock Osweiler | 25 |
| 27. | DEN | Trevor Siemian | 24 |
| 28. | LA | Jared Goff | 22 |
| 29. | NE | Jimmy Garoppolo | 24 |
| 30. | KC | Alex Smith | 32 |
| 31. | CHI | Brian Hoyer | 31 |
| 32. | LA | Case Keenum | 28 |
| 33. | MIN | Teddy Bridgewater | 23 |
| 34. | CLE | Cody Kessler | 23 |
| 35. | SF | Colin Kaepernick | 28 |
| 36. | DAL | Tony Romo | 36 |
| 37. | NYJ | Christian Hackenberg | 22 |
| 38. | CLE | Robert Griffin III | 26 |
| 39. | NYJ | Ryan Fitzpatrick | 33 |
| 40. | CHI | Jay Cutler | 33 |
—Ian Allan