• Rookie seasons are often a jumbled mess of inconsistency: Cam Ward, Caleb Williams, Trevor Lawrence and Bryce Young all saw their head coaches get fired in their rookie campaigns, and it didn’t lead to noticeable improvement.

• Year two is where to focus: History suggests that with continuity and improved surroundings, passers tend to take meaningful steps forward in their sophomore seasons, with most posting better fantasy finishes and some even flirting with QB1 territory.

• Unlock your edge with PFF+: Access Premium Stats, dominate fantasy with in-season tools and projections and make smarter bets with the new PFF Player Prop Tool. Get 25% off your PFF+ annual subscription with code PFFFANTASYPODCAST25.

Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes

There are some parallels with the real-world NFL draft and fantasy football drafts: day one impact players will go off the board early, and you’ll talk yourself into the toolsy but unrefined super athlete — and you’ll probably be wrong.

Finally, quarterbacks will also fly off the board. Nine quarterbacks have been drafted first overall from 2015 to 2025.

Those are, in order of draft class: Jameis Winston, Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Bryce Young, Caleb Williams and Cam Ward. When you broaden that out to signal-callers selected in the top five over the past 11 drafts, it’s 20: Marcus Mariota, Carson Wentz, Mitchell Trubisky, Sam Darnold, Tua Tagovailoa, Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson Sr., Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye.

It’s a beautiful, rich, strange tapestry that reminds us that Goff and Tagovailoa looked shaky in their handful of starts as rookies, with Goff tossing five touchdowns to seven picks in seven starts and Tagovailoa having 11 passing scores to five interceptions (and 13 turnover-worthy plays) across nine starts.

All of this is to say, what can we reasonably expect from first overall quarterbacks in fantasy football? Well, that depends. Which team drafted them? Are they paired with a first-time head coach and/or offensive coordinator? Who are they throwing to?

Using PFF data, we’ll be looking back over the past decade’s worth of top overall picks (and some No. 2 overall quarterbacks) to form a basis of fantasy output.

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Rookie Finishes

To know where we’re going, we first need to know where we’ve been. Here’s where each of the nine No. 1 overall quarterbacks finished in standard PPR fantasy football scoring in their rookie years:

Taking these surface-level stats and averaging them out, rookie No. 1 overall quarterbacks typically finish as the QB20 in their first year in pro football, with an average of 15 passing touchdowns, 1.7 rushing scores and 10 interceptions. In superflex leagues, that’s a low-end QB2. But, much like watching “Inception” for the first time, what starts as a simple narrative quickly turns into a doctoral thesis on dreams within projections within headaches.

First, not all of the aforementioned rookies started all 16 (or 17) games for a range of reasons. Some were behind a bridge quarterback until they were deemed ready, and others dealt with injuries. Joe Burrow had his maiden NFL campaign end prematurely when he tore his ACL in Week 11 of the 2020 season.

Second, much like trying to untangle a set of Christmas tree lights, progress isn’t linear. Mayfield started as a mid-tier QB2 before going into a tailspin and more recently coming out the other side as a bona fide fantasy (and real-life) QB1.

Conversely, Kyler Murray shot out of the gate to a QB1 finish in each of his first two seasons, including the overall QB2 in his second campaign, but has struggled to recapture that statistical output. From the 20 quarterbacks selected inside the top five since 2015, only one other player has finished higher in their rookie season: Jayden Daniels, who was the QB5 in 2024. It puts into context how special Murray’s first NFL campaign was, how insane Daniels’ was and how much of an outlier both rookie seasons were.

Take Trevor Lawrence’s rookie campaign, which is more infamous than famous due to his coaching situation. Lawrence was the Jacksonville Jaguars‘ first-ever No. 1 overall pick and was paired with Urban Meyer, one of the most successful coaches in NCAA history. However, Lawrence didn’t walk into an offense loaded with weapons. His best wide receiver was Marvin Jones Jr., and his primary running backs were James Robinson and Carlos Hyde. Jones, in particular, was coming off a season with 978 receiving yards and nine touchdowns, which helped net him a 75.3 PFF overall grade in 2020.

Furthermore, Lawrence was partnered with Darrell Bevell, who was brought to Jacksonville from Detroit to be the offensive coordinator, a role he’d held in the NFL with various franchises since 2006. Bevell brought with him his own championship experience from Seattle, where he won Super Bowl 48 in a dismantling of the previously unstoppable Denver Broncos.

Lawrence endured a rough rookie season. Among quarterbacks with at least 500 dropbacks, only Ben Roethlisberger graded poorer than Lawrence as a passer (58.3). His 17 interceptions also tied for the NFL lead, along with Matthew Stafford, which was coupled with 26 turnover-worthy plays — the third most in the league.

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The former Clemson Tiger has since bounced back and logged a pair of QB1 finishes (QB6 in his sophomore year, and the QB10 in 2023) and is currently the QB16 in standard PPR scoring leagues, making him a comfortable QB2 in superflex leagues. 

It’s not the dizzying heights many hoped Lawrence would hit, and perhaps that is what leads us to feel cheated in a fantasy sense. He was not only meant to be a QB1 — he could have been the QB1, the signal-caller powering us to fantasy championships (and the Jaguars, too).

Lawrence’s fantasy managers will always want more. But QB2s are extremely valuable, and Lawrence has been a steady one, flashing some spectacular upside. He’s the sort of player who, in dynasty formats, is nearly always available via trade for a slightly depressed price because managers always want more from him.

Sophomore Slump or Skyrocket?

NFL quarterbacks often experience a sophomore slump, before taking a step forward because they’ve become more acclimated to the NFL. Yes, those two things are in entire opposition of each other, but it’s the easiest, most common narrative to form around signal callers — or any player — depending on how their maiden season went.

So, how did the eight quarterbacks picked No. 1 overall since 2015 finish in their second season? Cam Ward is yet to be eligible, as PFF has yet to master time travel technology.

On average, the above nine quarterbacks rose six spots in that season’s fantasy football rankings during their sophomore years. In fact, the only player from the group to have a worse finish in their second season was Mayfield, who dropped three spots.

Of the full 19 quarterbacks sampled (again, not including Cam Ward), 13 had higher finishes in their second season, with fallers including Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Sam Darnold and C.J. Stroud.

The most interesting case study here is Goff. Cast your minds back to 2016, and it’s easy to forget that the Rams actually traded up from No. 15 to No. 1 with the Tennessee Titans to draft either Goff or Carson Wentz. The Jeff Fisher-led St. Louis Rams finished 7-9, uprooted back to Los Angeles and wanted a franchise quarterback to pair with emerging star running back Todd Gurley and interior defender Aaron Donald.

Goff spent the first 10 weeks of the 2016 season playing backup to Case Keenum, but from Week 11 (when he became the starter) he had: the worst PFF passing grade (42.9), the third-fewest passing touchdowns (five, tied), the second-fewest big-time throws (three, tied), the seventh-most turnover worthy plays (12) and the fourth lowest average depth of target (7.8).

This is all to say that Goff was a poor, highly conservative quarterback who was still putting the ball in harm’s way. But his environment was working in his favor, and the Rams were generating the worst EPA per play (-0.379) in the NFL.

Enter Sean McVay. To illustrate the turnaround McVay orchestrated in one data point, the Rams’ offense went from that dead-last EPA per play with Goff under center to ninth in 2017 (0.123). Powered by a diverse run game, led by Gurley, and a heavy dose of play action (fourth-most play-action dropbacks in 2017), McVay’s offense elevated Goff to a middle-of-the-pack quarterback, which in turn was enough to elevate his fantasy status to fringe QB1 territory.

And Goff took another step forward in 2018, helping guide the Rams to the Super Bowl. He finished as the QB6 in standard PPR scoring — ahead of Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Russell Wilson. The former No. 1 pick has had his peaks and valleys since those days, plummeting into the mid-20s as a fantasy quarterback and rising as high as a top-10 signal caller. He, along with Mayfield’s recent resurgence and Burrow (when healthy), has maximized his fantasy potential.

Head Coaches and Coordinators

Young quarterbacks need time to develop in the NFL (mostly), and they also need consistency. Baker Mayfield’s early years were filled with coaching changes. Even now, Mayfield has to learn the name of a new offensive coordinator each year — but because of his overwhelming success. The past four quarterbacks taken No. 1 have seen their head coach fired during their rookie seasons: Lawrence, Bryce Young, Caleb Williams and Cam Ward. Of that group, only Williams put together a respectable rookie season (unless Ward goes on a complete tear in the second half of the season).

Let’s take a look at how the first three of those players performed pre- and post-head coach firing:

Trevor Lawrence

Bryce Young

Caleb Williams

For the sake of completeness, here are Cam Ward’s numbers pre- and post-Brian Callahan firing:

Cam Ward

Overall, each of the four quarterbacks remained inconsistent after their head coach was fired, even if they improved in certain standalone categories. It meant that starting them in fantasy was a wild roll of the dice, often with disappointing returns and regrets.

When you distill the data, the arcs become clear: Quarterbacks taken first overall rarely light the fantasy world on fire as rookies, but year two often provides the clearest runway for growth, if not lift-off.

The average rookie finish of QB20 reflects a mix of talent, turbulence and transition, especially when paired with unstable coaching situations and middling supporting casts. Yet, history suggests that with continuity and improved surroundings, these passers tend to take meaningful steps forward in their sophomore seasons, with most posting better fantasy finishes and some even flirting with QB1 territory.

That all gives some hope for Cam Ward, who, despite a rocky start, has flashed just enough under interim leadership to keep the door open for a breakout in 2026, particularly if a stable regime and scheme take root around him.

For fantasy managers, temper expectations in year one, but be ready to pounce in year two when talent, opportunity and familiarity begin to align.