I was surprised when the Bears signed Andy Dalton to a one-year contract. He looks like a decent placeholder quarterback, but not enough of an upgrade for a team that’s been dying at the position for years.
GM Ryan Pace has made three previous quarterbacking decisions, and he’s missed badly on all of them. He signed Mike Glennon to a big contract. He traded up to select Mitchell Trubisky. And he traded for Nick Foles and his bloated contract.
Dalton might still be one of the league’s 40 best quarterbacks. Maybe. He’s at least been around the block, and he helped the Bengals make the playoffs five times (all in his first five seasons).
But Dalton hasn’t made much success recently. He’s 11-22 as a starter over the last three years, with 33 interceptions in those 33 games. He hasn’t ranked higher than 15th in per-game fantasy production (among QBs) since 2015.
Over the past four years, 29 quarterbacks have started at least half the time, and Dalton has posted better per-game numbers than only six of those guys. Of those six guys he’s outperformed, I don’t think any of them will be starting on opening day.
The chart below uses standard fantasy scoring. If a player isn’t going to be a starter on opening day (in my opinion) I’ve got him tagged with a black dot.
QUARTERBACKS PER START (last 4 yrs) | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Player | St | Pass | TDP | Run | TDR | Pt/G |
Patrick Mahomes | 46 | 308 | 2.48 | 18 | .13 | 28.1 |
Lamar Jackson | 37 | 189 | 1.81 | 75 | .49 | 27.2 |
Deshaun Watson | 53 | 272 | 1.94 | 31 | .34 | 26.7 |
Kyler Murray | 32 | 240 | 1.44 | 43 | .47 | 25.0 |
Josh Allen | 43 | 224 | 1.56 | 36 | .60 | 24.8 |
Russell Wilson | 64 | 246 | 2.19 | 28 | .13 | 24.8 |
? Jameis Winston | 38 | 296 | 1.79 | 17 | .08 | 24.4 |
Dak Prescott | 53 | 264 | 1.57 | 19 | .36 | 23.7 |
Aaron Rodgers | 55 | 262 | 2.09 | 13 | .11 | 23.7 |
Ben Roethlisberger | 48 | 282 | 1.98 | 3 | .06 | 23.1 |
Carson Wentz | 52 | 251 | 1.87 | 18 | .12 | 22.9 |
Ryan Tannehill | 37 | 227 | 1.95 | 16 | .32 | 22.9 |
Matt Ryan | 63 | 287 | 1.70 | 8 | .11 | 22.7 |
Tom Brady | 64 | 275 | 1.95 | 2 | .13 | 22.6 |
Kirk Cousins | 63 | 258 | 1.87 | 8 | .11 | 22.2 |
? Cam Newton | 47 | 211 | 1.15 | 39 | .49 | 22.2 |
• Drew Brees | 54 | 264 | 1.96 | 1 | .17 | 22.1 |
Jared Goff | 62 | 276 | 1.65 | 5 | .15 | 21.8 |
Matthew Stafford | 56 | 264 | 1.70 | 6 | .00 | 20.8 |
• Philip Rivers | 64 | 275 | 1.67 | 0 | .00 | 20.7 |
Baker Mayfield | 45 | 243 | 1.67 | 10 | .09 | 20.4 |
Derek Carr | 63 | 249 | 1.41 | 5 | .10 | 19.3 |
Andy Dalton | 49 | 233 | 1.55 | 8 | .08 | 19.2 |
• Mitchell Trubisky | 50 | 212 | 1.28 | 21 | .16 | 19.1 |
• Eli Manning | 35 | 252 | 1.31 | 2 | .06 | 18.5 |
• Case Keenum | 38 | 233 | 1.29 | 6 | .08 | 18.0 |
• Sam Darnold | 38 | 213 | 1.18 | 11 | .13 | 17.5 |
• Marcus Mariota | 34 | 201 | .91 | 22 | .21 | 17.1 |
• Joe Flacco | 37 | 224 | 1.14 | 4 | .03 | 16.4 |
—Ian Allan