After 16 seasons with Philip Rivers under center, the Chargers are left in the hands of Tyrod Taylor and rookie Justin Herbert. At the moment, Taylor’s in the driver’s seat to start and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him enter Week 1 as the starter due to his experience, which would allow Herbert to develop.
Rivers was a top option in fantasy football for more than a decade, but his replacement is capable of making fantasy owners happy this upcoming season.
Taylor has a couple of things going for him. The first thing is his familairty with coach Anthony Lynn’s system. In both 2015 and 2016 when Taylor and Lynn were on the Bills, the 30-year old threw for over 3,000 yards and 37 combined touchdowns as opposed to just 12 interceptions.
On top of that, Taylor rushed for 1,148 yards and 10 touchdowns on 199 carries in both those seasons combined.
The other thing that should benefit Taylor is that the team’s offensive skill players are flooded with talent. Keenan Allen (top-10 WR), Mike Williams (high-upside 20-30 WR), Hunter Henry (top-10 TE), and Austin Ekeler (top-10 RB) should all help make life easier on Taylor in 2020.
Taylor isn’t the perfect passer and is unlikely to surpass 4,000 passing yards, but if he has developed more of a downfield passing element as opposed to his play from recent seasons, along with his ability to limit turnovers and the skill players at his disposal then it will help his case.
Even if Taylor ends up being average as a passer, his rushing ability picks up the slack due to how valuable rushing yards are for fantasy scoring. For example, Bills’ Josh Allen finished as a top-10 quarterback in fantasy despite having the worst completion percentage of any starting quarterback.
It goes to show rushing yards/touchdowns are the most valuable thing a quarterback can do in fantasy. Taylor will have plenty of opportunities to flourish in that area as there will be plenty of zone read and other quarterback option runs in the team’s new offensive scheme.
If Taylor performs well this upcoming well, he presents himself as a solid QB2 or a high-end streaming option in all formats.