With fantasy football postseasons on the horizon, this column is taking a different approach to streaming quarterbacks going forward. Rather than listing the top few quarterbacks to stream, we’re examining nine quarterbacks’ matchups and ranking them with consideration to both their respective floors and ceilings. Picks are also split into sections, which you may as well consider tiers. Anyone in the top tier is a more favorable streamer than the second tier, and so on.
Stream ‘em if you can
These quarterbacks have high ceilings and excellent matchups. Bonus points go to players with high floors to boot.
Brian Hoyer (10.9 percent) vs. New Orleans
Blame it on a journeyman career or the expectation that his unlikely comeback season is due to end. Hoyer’s present ESPN ownership percentage (10.9 percent) belies what has been a successful season. Hoyer passed for at least 230 yards and threw multiple touchdown passes in the five games he started prior to Week 10, when a concussion knocked him out.
His consistency has been paired with an equally-high ceiling, thanks in part to DeAndre Hopkins’ remarkable season. The latter succeeded in making T.J. Yates look like a credible starting quarterback against the Jets last week. Yates passed for 229 yards and two touchdowns, with 118 yards and both scores ending in the hands of Hopkins.
Houston’s offense this week is also in the enviable position of facing a struggling New Orleans defense. They rank last in most significant defensive categories, including the percentage of opponents’ drives that end in scores (46.2 percent). Those numbers peaked during a dreadful three-game run that ended defensive coordinator Rob Ryan’s tenure. Those three consecutive massacres saw the defense allow a combined 1,045 passing yards and 14 touchdowns to Marcus Mariota, Eli Manning, and Kirk Cousins.
Ryan’s coaching replacement, Dennis Allen, was already considered New Orleans’ co-defensive coordinator, so we can expect continuity rather than drastic changes. And it doesn’t require reading into Ryan’s comments too much to determine whether he expects New Orleans to continue struggling.
“I have a lot to do with it, but everything in New Orleans is being blamed on me, including Katrina,” Ryan said in the wake of his firing. While those are the words of a coach scorned and someone who also promised to “come back with a vengeance,” his pessimism is worth noting.
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