While the 2022 NFL regular season ended, it’s never too early to look ahead to the 2023 campaign. That’s especially true when it comes to fantasy, which never sleeps!
Andrew Erickson, Pat Fitzmaurice, and Derek Brown check in to provide you with their early 2023 fantasy football draft rankings. Take a look at who falls into their consensus early top-10 rankings at the quarterback position. We’ll provide player notes for each pick, and you can find our full early 2022 redraft fantasy football rankings below.
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Check out all of our 2023 NFL Draft Scouting Reports & Prospect Profiles 
2023 Fantasy Football Draft Rankings: Quarterbacks
Check out our early consensus top 10 quarterback rankings and player notes courtesy Pat Fitzmaurice:
Josh Allen finished QB2 in fantasy scoring behind Patrick Mahomes last season after finishing QB1 in 2020 and 2021. Allen remains capable of putting fantasy teams on his shoulders in any given week with multi-TD spike games. He’s thrown for more than 4,000 yards in three straight seasons and has finished with 35 to 37 TD passes every year during that span. Allen adds immense value with his legs. He’s run for 700+ yards in each of the last two years and has had at least six TD runs in each of his five NFL seasons. Allen is likely to be the first QB off the board in most 2023 fantasy drafts.
2) Patrick Mahomes II (KC – QB)
Arguably the best pure passer to ever play in the NFL, Patrick Mahomes enters his age-28 season at the height of his powers. Mahomes led all players in fantasy scoring last season with 428.4 points, giving him his second QB1 finish. In his five full seasons as a starter, Mahomes has averaged 303 passing yards and 23.95 fantasy points per game. Playing his first season without WR Tyreek Hill, who left for Miami, Mahomes finished the 2022 season with a career-high 5,250 passing yards and a league-high 41 TD passes. Mahomes is the safest bet you can make at quarterback.
Hurts gave us a taste of his fantasy potential in 2021 and then cooked a seven-course meal in 2022, improving his passing numbers across the board, providing enormous rushing value and leading all quarterbacks with 25.6 fantasy points per game. Hurts was a highly efficient passer in his second full season as a starter, completing 66.5% of his throws at 8.0 yards per attempt, with a miniscule 1.3% INT rate. But it’s the running game where Hurts really makes his bones. He ran for 13 touchdowns last year and has 23 TD runs over the last two seasons. Hurts has topped 750 rushing yards in each of the last two seasons, averaging 51.5 rushing yards per game over that span. He plays behind one of the best offensive lines in football and can throw to three terrific targets: A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert. Hurts belongs on the top QB tier along with Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes.
Brimming with swag and surrounded by ample pass-catching weaponry, Joe Burrow has firmly established himself as a premium fantasy quarterback. Burrow finished QB4 in fantasy scoring last season after throwing a career-high 35 TD passes. Over the last two years, Burrow has completed 69.3% of his throws, averaging 8.1 yards per attempt. He added some value with his legs in 2022, running for five touchdowns. Burrow gets to throw to the fabulous WR duo of Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, and the Bengals have made significant investments in their offensive line. Burrow will be a consensus top-five QB in 2023 fantasy drafts.
Drafters might get a slight discount on Lamar Jackson this year after a second consecutive season in which injuries limited him to 12 games. In 2021, it was bone bruise in his ankle that prematurely ended Jackson’s season. In 2022, it was a sprained PCL in his knee. Jackson has been a lethal running threat throughout his career, averaging 63.4 rushing yards per game over his five NFL seasons. The Ravens’ below-average WR room is a work in progress, and Jackson will be playing for a new offensive coordinator after the Ravens parted ways with Greg Roman. Even with the uncertainty and the recent injuries, Jackson is still an upper-echelon fantasy quarterback capable of a QB1 finish.
Justin Fields was electric as a runner in 2022. If he can significantly boost his passing numbers in 2023, look out. Fields ran for 1,143 yards and eight touchdowns last season, averaging a league-high 7.1 yards per carry. He ran for 178 yards and a touchdown against the Dolphins in Week 9, breaking the single-game rushing record for a quarterback – then ran for 147 yards and two touchdowns against the Lions the following week. But Fields averaged 149.5 passing yards per game and topped the 200-yard mark only twice in 2022. In his defense, Fields was saddled by a mediocre offensive line and arguably the worst WR group in the league. The Bears will enter free agency with more salary-cap space than any team in the league, and if they significantly improve Fields’ supporting cast, the young QB could make the same sort of quantum leap that Jalen Hurts made in 2022.
Justin Herbert has abundant arm talent and the mobility to add rushing value, so fantasy managers were expecting him to take another step forward last season in his third year as a starter. Instead, Herbert took a step backward, with significant declines in his yardage per game, yardage per attempt and touchdown rate. He ran for only 147 yards and didn’t have a single TD run. In Herbert’s defense, he gutted it out through a rib cartilage fracture sustained in an early-season Thursday-night game vs. the Chiefs, and Herbert’s top two receivers, Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, both missed time with injuries. The Chargers have jettisoned oft-criticized offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, replacing him with Kellen Moore. Herbert remains one of the toolsiest quarterbacks in the league and will likely produce much-improved fantasy numbers in 2023.
After a lost 2021 season under former Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer, the talented Trevor Lawrence began to blossom in 2022 under the tutelage of first-year Jags HC Doug Pederson. From 2021 to 2022, Lawrence improved his completion percentage from 59.6% to 66.3%, boosted his YPA from 5.2 to 7.3, and upped his TD rate from 2.0% to 4.3%. Also a willing and able runner, Lawrence had five TD runs last season. Lawrence finished QB8 in fantasy scoring in 2022, and the former No. 1 draft pick is still ascending. Invest with confidence.
This seems like a crossroads year for Dak Prescott, who’s coming off a forgettable 2022 campaign. Prescott finished as the QB2 in 2019, giving us a glimpse of what his fantasy ceiling looks like. But has missed significant time with injuries in two of the last three years, and his passing efficiency numbers are trending in the wrong direction. Prescott threw an NFL-high 15 interceptions in 2022. His 7.3 YPA was his lowest since 2017. After averaging 278.1 passing yards per game in 2021, Prescott averaged 238.3 passing yards per game in 2022. He ran for six touchdowns in each of his first three seasons but has only eight TD runs over the last four years. Consider Prescott a low-end QB1, stationed somewhere between the elite fantasy quarterbacks and the streamer class.
The 2022 version of Deshaun Watson was a far cry from the early-career Watson who finished top five in QB fantasy scoring in each of his first three seasons as a starter. Amid allegations of sexual assault, Watson didn’t play in 2021 and served an 11-game suspension in 2022 before making a Week 13 debut for the Browns against his old team, the Texans. Watson was predictably rusty, producing numbers befitting a fantasy backup over a small sample size. It’s reasonable to assume that Watson will look at least a little more like the dynamic dual-threat QB he used to be in 2023, but it would be a leap of faith to assume that he’ll be as effective as he was from 2018 to 2020.
Consensus 2023 Fantasy Football Draft Rankings
Beyond our fantasy football content, be sure to check out our award-winning slate of Fantasy Football Tools as you prepare for your draft this season. From our free mock Draft Simulator – which allows you to mock draft against realistic opponents – to our Draft Assistant – that optimizes your picks with expert advice – we’ve got you covered this fantasy football draft season.
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