The elite quarterbacks of the NFL tend to be the most consistent players with Top-10 play for more than one season. With just 32 starting quarterbacks, the group is already limited and those at the top tend to stay at the top.
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Last year reclaimed more repeating Top-10 from 2021 with six. The only “bad” picks were Matthew Stafford and Dak Prescott, and yet both suffered injuries and missed games to account for their decline in ranking.
Below are the rankings of all quarterbacks that lodged a Top-10 performance in the last five years. Quarterback is typically the most stable position, and even more so for the elite players. After a more volatile 2021, the position reclaimed the title as the most likely to repeat an elite year.
Not hard to see why Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are consistently the first two quarterbacks taken in fantasy drafts and often far earlier than the rest. Both quarterbacks are money for the last four or five years in a row.
Taking a Top-10 quarterback from the previous year typically pays off, but it’s also equally as important to select a difference-maker and that means a Top-5 quarterback.
This position regularly repeats a Top-10. Of the 25 quarterbacks reaching that mark at least once in the last five years, only Ryan Tannehill (2020), Geno Smith (2022), Trevor Lawrence (2022), Justin Fields (2022) recorded their first ever Top-10 season. Lawrence and Fields are both in just their third season this year. If a quarterback logs that Top-10 mark once, he almost always does it again.
It is interesting that only Justin Herbert (8 vs. 3) and Josh Allen (2 vs. 1) had worse years in 2022 than they did in 2021 (and Allen realistically doesn’t count). So the elite passers all had better years in 2022 than they did in 2021 – and that probably won’t happen again. Only three Top-10’s from 2021 experienced a better year in 2022.
That’s all to say that the position comes off a great year for the elite players. They almost all improved from the previous year, and the few that didn’t mostly had injuries pulling them down. And above all, anyone outside of Mahomes or Allen is a riskier, and likely less productive, draft pick.