Nowadays, fantasy football players want that young, sexy quarterback at the top of their lineup, and 36-year-old Matthew Stafford isn't really that anymore in fantasy football. Now, maybe it's because statistically, he's been under 4,000 yards passing and 25 touchdowns in each of the last two seasons, but we already know that recency bias runs rampant in fantasy football. So let's really take a look at why his numbers have been a little bit lower the past two years.
2022 was an absolute disaster. Matthew Stafford himself suffered multiple injuries in season and dealt with elbow injuries in the offseason leading up to the regular season. He ended up missing eight games that year. But let's also not forget that Cooper Kupp missed eight games that season as well. The team's wide receiver one that year was Ben Skowronek for half the season. I mean, come on. 2022 has to be a wash.
But what about last year in 2023? He wasn't that far off. The guy had 3,965 passing yards and 24 touchdowns, and he did it while missing two games. Plus, he didn't even have Cooper Kupp for five games. Kyren Williams missed five games as well. I don't think this offense really started to hit its stride and be a cohesive group until the second half of the season. When Kyren Williams came back from his midseason injury in week 12, the offense just clicked.
Prior to week 12, Matthew Stafford had only one game all year long where he'd thrown for multiple touchdown passes. That's out of nine games played. From week 12 on, he had multiple touchdown passes in five of his six games played. Now, if we look at the weeks from 12 to 17, Matthew Stafford averaged over 20 fantasy points per game and was the quarterback six overall during that span. If you really look closely at the numbers during that span, he was only two points away from being the overall quarterback three. Between those weeks, he would have outscored the likes of Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Dak Prescott. The dude was absolutely balling.
At the end of 2023, he finished the season top 12 among all NFL quarterbacks in passing yards and passing touchdowns. But something that I see no one else talking about is the ridiculous amount of dropped passes that he had to deal with by his pass catchers last season—almost more than any other quarterback in the league. 36 dropped passes by his ball catchers; 13 of them came from Puka Nacua alone. We have to expect Puka to get better in that area. That's not something we're going to count on each and every year.
Now, the Rams enter the 2024 season healthier than they have been in years. We've got Puka Nacua, Cooper Kupp, they brought back Demarcus Robinson, Kyren Williams, and Blake Corum in the backfield as well. Don't forget about tight end Tyler Higbee. And a lot of people have Matthew Stafford ranked lower this year than where he finished last season. That just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Let me just put it in perspective a little bit. The quarterback 12 overall in fantasy football averages right around 280 fantasy points per season. That's going to be in the neighborhood of 4,250 yards passing, 28 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions. That's what Matthew Stafford would need to approach top 12 numbers. So in reality, he needs, what, 285 yards passing and four touchdowns more than he had in 2023? With LA entering the season healthier than they have been in a while, that number is for sure a possibility, and we're getting him at a dirt cheap price this season.
Comments