I’ve played fantasy football for over 15 years and the 2016 group of fantasy relevant QBs is as deep as I can remember. This will be a great year for all the QB streamers out there, and if you have never tried streaming QBs, this will be a good year to start. Of course, the key to successful streaming is finding the right matchups each week in which a sub-par QB can have a decent fantasy week. Since we are coming up on drafting season, I thought I’d feature the top QBs to consider streaming in Week 1.
Matt Ryan vs Buccaneers
Let’s play a little game. I’m going to give you three QB stat lines from games against the Buccaneers, and you tell me which one was Matt Ryan…
- 20/26 273 yds 3 TDs no INTs
- 21/24 286 3 TDs no INTs
- 37/45 397 yds 2 TDs 1 INT
Okay, it was a trick question. They were all Matt Ryan. Those are his stat lines in his three home games against the Bucs over the last three years. His current ADP has him going at 153 overall. That equates to a 15th round pick in ten team leagues. Ryan is the prime streaming candidate to open the season.
Teddy Bridgewater @ Titans
The Titans were ranked 26th overall in pass defense in 2016, and while I expect Bridgewater to be handing it to Adrian Peterson a lot, he has a couple of weapons on the outside in Stefon Diggs and Laqoun Treadwell that could help him pad his passing numbers. Sometimes, when it comes to streaming QBs, you don’t need a guy that is going to win the week for you, you just need a guy that won’t lose it for you — and Bridgewater, with his paltry nine interceptions in 2016, is that type of QB.
Sam Bradford vs Browns
The Browns were a mess defensively last year and ended the year ranked 22nd in passing yards allowed — but that stat doesn’t really tell the whole story. Only the Eagles and Saints gave up more yards on the ground than did the Browns, so teams didn’t need to pass the ball on this defense. The fact that teams ran the ball so much against the Browns skewed the stats making the Browns pass defense look better (on paper) than they actually were.
A more telling stat is their average yards given up per pass play. The Browns 8.2 was only better than the Saints (8.7) in 2015. If offenses had passed on the Browns (511 attempts) as much as they passed on the Saints defense (544) it would add another 273 yards to their season total — and that would have ranked them 28th in pass defense.
Bradford wasn’t great last year, but he did end the season with three straight games with over 300 yards passing, one of which was against the great defense of the Arizona Cardinals, so carving up the Browns in Week 1 shouldn’t prove to be too difficult for a guy playing to keep his job.
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