Week 16 Dynasty Fantasy Football Stock Watch: Geno Smith, Kyler Murray

Two NFC West quarterbacks have seen their careers flip with the 2022 dynasty fantasy season.

If you had told me before the season began that Kenny Pickett would have a handful of points more than Matthew Stafford this year, I’d have said, “Wow! He must have had an incredible rookie year!” Obviously, that hasn’t been the case because Stafford and the Rams fell off.

You can apply this a thousand different ways with disappointing 2022 quarterbacks who fell well short of expectations like Stafford, Matt Ryan and Tom Brady against the position's overachievers like Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Daniel Jones, Jared Goff and Geno Smith. The middle of the quarterback rankings is a good place to shop for value. Parsing through each quarterback's value heading into 2023 is an evaluation process worth monitoring as we move to the conclusion of this season. In particular, there is a pair of quarterbacks, an underachiever and an overachiever out of the NFC West, that I feel exemplify this value dichotomy. 

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QB Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks
The crux of any dynasty conversation about Smith boils down to how the Seahawks will handle his contract situation. He will be an unrestricted free agent next year and it’s likely Seattle opts to hit him with a franchise tag, giving him a one-year deal in the $30 million range. It’s a hefty price tag, but would pale in comparison to the cost of a long-term deal. Seattle (7-7) is on the playoff bubble with three games left. Those matchups (at KC, vs. NYJ and vs. LAR) could result in a 1-2 finish, likely keeping the Seahawks out of the postseason. A long-term deal may not make sense even if Smith leads Seattle on a deeper run toward a Super Bowl. 

With that in mind, I'd like to oversimplify this dynasty conundrum. In 1QB leagues, I'd be holding Smith. Generally, I prefer to use my backup quarterback spots in 1QB leagues to aim for ceiling instead of a high-floor backup like Smith. But considering he isn't that valuable or very unlikely to command much in return, it doesn't make sense to sell. In superflex, I'm more willing to roll the dice, bet on him to continue to succeed. You could certainly do a lot worse than Smith and he's an ideal QB2 given his relatively consistent play.

Ultimately, his trade demand is a bit depressed despite his incredible 2022 season. He's the QB7 so far in 2022. Yet on FantasyCalc, Smith is ranked as the QB15 in 1QB and superflex, just a touch higher than Pickett and Derek Carr. Smith is lower on KeepTradeCut (QB17 1QB and QB19 on superflex). That may be fair given we don't know how willing Seattle is to bring in an heir apparent to be the Trey Lance (or Brock Purdy) to Smith's Jimmy Garoppolo. With Smith, it's a buyer's market, so I'm likely to trot him out again in 2023 rather than taking the low offer I would get for him in the open market.

Price check (1QB): 2023 2nd
Superflex: 2023 mid 1st
Win-now: Hold
Rebuild: Hold

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QB Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals
In 2020, Kyler Murray finished as the QB2 and QB3 in points per game. In 2021, he was the QB11 and QB4 in points per game. Through 14 games this year, Murray is the QB23, QB9 in points per game. We’re trending in the wrong direction here. Murray’s dynasty outlook really depends on whether or not you believe in him and by extension, this offense and coaching staff. Arizona ranks 29th in both pass and rush DVOA on Football Outsiders. That's bad. Like Davis Mills, Russell Wilson or Baker Mayfield bad. Oh, and icing on the cake, Murray has a torn ACL.

I'm not sure what to make of this team. We had the whole weird Kyler Murray drama with him removing the club from his social media pages. The "homework clause." Head coach Kliff Kingsbury and general manager Steve Keim were given contract extensions through 2027. And I don't have enough patience to outline all this team's problems on both sides of the ball. Inconsistency has been the main issue and a perpetually injured offensive line has done this offense no favors. Pro Football Focus grades this team third-worst in the NFL, ahead of only the Bears and Texans. The talent gap between Arizona and San Francisco felt neck-and-neck just two years ago. Now, the difference is night and day.

Murray can have all the individual talent in the world, but this team feels mismanaged. With all this dysfunction, Murray’s trade value remains resilient as he’s the QB10 on both FantasyCalc and KeepTradeCut, respectively. You may view it as a buying opportunity since guys like Fields and Lawrence have pulled ahead of Murray in the rankings. However, Tua Tagovailoa is the QB11. With head coach Mike McDaniel at the helm and stud receivers Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle holding down the wide receiver corps, this situation feels a whole lot better to me than whatever you want to call what Murray has going on.

For what it’s worth, I’m selling low on Murray. I’ll haggle to try to get the most for him that I can, but there’s not a ton of silver lining here. Murray was at his best in 2020 because he rushed for 819 yards and 11 touchdowns. That was never sustainable. He doesn’t need to be the overall QB1 to be a great fantasy QB, but I don’t like DeAndre Hopkins given his age. I don't like Marquise Brown to be a WR1 if DHop moves on or retires. Rondale Moore can be a decent WR2 if he could just stay healthy, which he can't apparently. James Conner? Child please. “Hindsight is 20/20,” says those who are befuddlingly optimistic about this team.  “This is the bottom, it can’t get any worse,” they say. Yeah, that’s true, but I’m not sure how it gets any better because the Cardinals’ ownership and management competes with the Commanders and Texans to be the absolute worst. If anything structurally is fixed about this franchise, I’ll take back this recommendation—until then...

Price check (1QB): 2023 late 1st
Superflex: 2023 early 1st, 2023 2nd + throwaway player
Win-now: Sell
Rebuild: Sell