Lamar Jackson is an interesting prospect. He’ll run for plenty of yards and touchdowns, but he looks woefully lame as a passer. Can that combo result in viable fantasy value? As we’re putting together the magazine, I got to see how some others view this outlier quarterback.
In the Experts Poll, 11 of the 20 contestants put him in their top 20. Of those six put him in the top 15 (with a high of 7th).
In the Mock Draft, Jackson went surprisingly early, I thought (9th round, picked before Brees, Wentz, Roethlisberger, Rivers and others).
And in the Mock Auction, Jackson went for $10, which was a lot more than I was expecting (I thought he was more of a $2 guy). Only eight quarterbacks went for more money than Jackson.
With the quarterback position being overloaded with good prospects, I couldn’t fit Jackson into my top 20. I’ve got him just outside, similar in value to guys like Stafford, Dalton, Foles and Carr – decent enough prospects, but there are 20 I like better.
The rushing production is appealing. I think he’ll average 50-plus rushing yards, with a touchdown about every other week. But I’m also very confident he’ll be one of the bottom-3 passers.
So how about this for an experiment? Look at the last 20 years. For each season, take the quarterback who finished with the worst passing numbers and connect him with the quarterback who was the best runner. Glue those guys together and see where they would rank for fantasy purposes.
For this one, I’m looking at per-game production, and looking only at quarterbacks who started at least half of the season (about 32 quarterbacks per year).
Last year, for example, the best runner was Josh Allen, who averaged 55 rushing yards, with 8 TDs in 11 starts. And the worst passer was Josh Rosen, who passed for 172 yards per game, with 11 TDs in 13 games. You stick those two Josh halves together and they would have averaged 21.9 fantasy points 19th-best when compared to others who started at least half of the season.
If we do the same for the last 20 years, I see one season where the QB combo ranked 12th (pretty darn good). I see 3 finishes at 17th and 3 at 19th. The rest are outside the 20.
If you agree with the assessment that Jackson simply isn’t there yet as a passer, I don’t think it makes much sense to rank him much higher than 20th among quarterbacks.
| WORST PASSER AND THE BEST RUNNER (PER-GAME NUMBERS) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Passer/Runner | Pass | TDP | Run | TDR | FPG | Rk |
| 1999 | K.Stewart / McNair | 133 | .55 | 31 | .73 | 16.3 | 17 |
| 2000 | Pederson / K.Stewart | 116 | .22 | 37 | .55 | 13.6 | 29 |
| 2001 | Q.Carter / Culpepper | 134 | .63 | 38 | .45 | 15.7 | 21 |
| 2002 | Carr / Vick | 162 | .56 | 52 | .53 | 18.7 | 17 |
| 2003 | Mirer / Garcia | 143 | .38 | 25 | .54 | 14.3 | 27 |
| 2004 | Brunell / Vick | 133 | .78 | 60 | .20 | 17.0 | 20 |
| 2005 | Orton / Vick | 125 | .60 | 40 | .40 | 15.0 | 25 |
| 2006 | Brooks / V.Young | 138 | .38 | 41 | .54 | 15.7 | 20 |
| 2007 | McCown / V.Young | 128 | 1.11 | 26 | .20 | 14.7 | 23 |
| 2008 | Fitzpatrick / Thigpen | 159 | .67 | 31 | .18 | 14.8 | 26 |
| 2009 | J.Russell / V.Young | 118 | .22 | 28 | .20 | 10.8 | 31 |
| 2010 | Clausen / Vick | 150 | .30 | 52 | .82 | 18.8 | 19 |
| 2011 | Gabbert / Newton | 154 | .86 | 44 | .88 | 20.8 | 12 |
| 2012 | Quinn / Griffin | 127 | .25 | 54 | .47 | 15.6 | 29 |
| 2013 | Ponder / Pryor | 142 | .56 | 61 | .22 | 16.8 | 29 |
| 2014 | Bortles / Wilson | 207 | .69 | 53 | .38 | 20.7 | 17 |
| 2015 | Foles / Newton | 187 | .64 | 40 | .63 | 19.6 | 26 |
| 2016 | Kessler / T.Taylor | 171 | .75 | 39 | .40 | 17.8 | 27 |
| 2017 | Trubisky / Newton | 183 | .58 | 47 | .38 | 18.4 | 19 |
| 2018 | Rosen / J.Allen | 172 | .85 | 55 | .73 | 21.9 | 19 |
—Ian Allan