There's little question about who is No. 1 in Dynasty Fantasy football quarterback rankings. That's Patrick Mahomes and it's not particularly close. In fact, my first run at 2021 projections had me wondering whether Mahomes should be a second-round pick in 2021 redraft leagues.
While there's plenty of room for debate about the order the rest of the top 12 should be ranked, there should be a pretty solid consensus on who should be in that group. Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, Josh Allen and Deshaun Watson have all flashed top-three upside and none of them will be older than 25 when the 2021 season begins. Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson, and Aaron Rodgers have all shown too much upside to be left out, even if they aren't "young" any longer. Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow showed us enough as rookies to lock down a top 12 ranking. You could make an argument for Tua Tagovailoa as well and I would. After that, it's a logjam.
Jalen Hurts is my No. 12 quarterback, but he's at the top of a tier behind the top 11. Hurts started four games as a rookie and he was the No. 9 quarterback in Fantasy in those four weeks. But it was a very mixed bag. The Eagles went 1-3 in the four games, Hurts had only one game with multiple touchdown passes, and he had six turnovers. On the positive side, Hurts also threw for more than 300 yards in two of the games and ran for at least 63 yards in three of four.
If Hurts were guaranteed a starting role in 2021 I'd say he flashed enough as a rookie that his upside alone puts him easily in the top 12. In fact, I wrote something similar during his run at the end of 2020. But Carson Wentz is still in Philadelphia as of the time I'm writing this, and the team made a coaching change, and they'll have at least one first-round pick in the top 10. There are plenty of reasons to questions Hurts' role. That's why Hurts does find his way into my top-12 Dynasty rankings currently, but he's part of a very large (and uncertain) Tier 6.
That tier includes quarterbacks who have questions about their team/role as a starter in 2021 (Wentz and Taysom Hill) as well as two quarterbacks who just swapped teams (Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff). But the most interesting names in the tier could be a couple at the bottom, Drew Lock and Daniel Jones. They're both still plenty young and they've both flashed a little bit of Fantasy upside from time to time. They're also probably one bad season (at most) away from no longer being viewed as NFL starting quarterbacks. Because of that their cost should be very low in a one-quarterback league, low enough that I'd be interested in trying to buy just to see how 2021 starts.
Here are my updated Dynasty quarterback tiers:
