By Ben Bagley
In each of the last two seasons, a second-year quarterback has skyrocketed to superstardom with unforeseen phenomenal seasons that resulted in MVP awards and – for many fantasy owners who were lucky (or savvy) enough to draft them – a league championship. Of course, those players were Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson.
Last season, coming off of a 5,000-yard, 50 touchdown MVP campaign, Patrick Mahomes was the clear-cut QB1 across all fantasy leagues. He shot up draft boards and his average draft position was 16 across all fantasy platforms. However, in 2019, he suffered a massive drop off in production, only throwing for 4,000 yards and 26 TDs, en route to ending the season as QB8. Part of that was due to a knee injury that saw him miss two games, but most of it was due to a trend that can be observed over the last 10 years: players who win the MVP award perform at a lower level in their encore season.
Take, for example, Matt Ryan in 2016. He led the Falcons to a Super Bowl appearance while throwing for 35 touchdowns, 8 interceptions, 4944 yards, a 69.85% completion percentage and a 117.1 quarterback rating. In his encore season in 2017, every one of those numbers decreased: 20 TD, 12 INT, 4095 yards, 64.7 comp%, 91.4 QBR.
You may be telling yourself, “well, that’s Matt Ryan. Everybody knew it was a fluky year and that the Falcons overperformed. He just regressed to the norm the next year.” In part, that is true. But he is just one example of this noticeable trend of MVP’s having a down year after winning the award. Even though Patrick Mahomes broke the Madden curse this year with a Super Bowl win, the MVP curse has been going strong for nearly a decade.
Let’s take the last 7 quarterbacks to win MVP before Lamar Jackson: Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, Aaron Rodgers (2014), Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers (2011). Even if you weren’t sold with Matt Ryan or even Cam Newton on performing at an MVP level consistently, this sample set contains some all-time great players.
Here is what is interesting. In the season after their MVP award, every single one of these QBs threw for fewer yards and touchdowns with a lower completion percentage and quarterback rating, and each had more interceptions except for 2019 Mahomes. Not only did they have worse seasons in the air, but they had significantly worse seasons. On average, they threw for 12.07% less yards, 30.18% less touchdowns, 33.46% more interceptions, and had a 13.33% worse QBR and a 4.47% worse completion percentage.
What we can derive from these numbers is this: quarterbacks who win the MVP award produce at a lower rate than they did the year before. This does not mean that they will never be good again, but just that it is historically inaccurate to expect them to repeat with the same numbers in their encore year. What this means for fantasy football is that just because one quarterback took the league by storm does not mean they will have an equally good year the following season.
In 2019, Lamar Jackson threw for 3127 yards, 36 TDs and 6 INTs with a 113.3 QBR and a 66.1 comp %. If we take those MVP average drops in production and apply them to Jackson, we can project his 2020 passing totals to be roughly 2750 yards, 25 TDs and 8 INTs with a 98.19 QBR and a 61.14 comp%. This stat line compares very nicely the career averages of Cowboys QB Dak Prescott – 3944 yards, 24 TD and 9 INTs with a 97 QBR and 65.8 comp %. So, considering the statistically verifiable “MVP curse”, we can expect Lamar Jackson to be Dak Prescott (with 1200 less passing yards) in 2020.
Of course, the wonder of Lamar Jackson’s game is his running ability. While he was a good passing quarterback in 2019, he was an outstanding rusher with 1,206 yards, 7 TD and 9 fumbles. Among MVPs, there are no quarterbacks that even come close to those numbers, so projections for his running numbers have to be taken from the other notable dual-threat QBs of the 2000’s: Michael Vick, Russell Wilson, Robert Griffin III, and Cam Newton.
The reason that these four were chosen is because they are the only other quarterbacks to ever record a season with 700+ yards rushing (both Vick and Newton have done it twice). Unfortunately, Michael Vick did not play the year after his previous-record 1,039-yard 2006 season, so that decline in rushing yards cannot be taken into effect.
Interestingly enough, we see an incredibly similar pattern to the “MVP curse”. There have been 7 seasons since 2000 in which a quarterback had at least 700 rushing yards (excluding 2019 Jackson and 2006 Vick). In the season after, only Cam Newton ran for more yards (once) and only Michael Vick ran for more touchdowns (once). On average, after a tremendous year on the ground, these quarterbacks ran for 32.39% less yards and 50% fewer touchdowns with 20.66% fewer fumbles.
Assuming these trends hold true for Lamar Jackson, his projected rushing total for 2020 would be 815 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns with 7 fumbles. With these projections, his 2019 to 2020 stat line change would look like:
2019
3127 pass yards, 36 TD, 6 INT, 66.1 comp %, 113.3 QBR, 1206 rush yards, 7 TD, 9 fmb.
2020
2750 pass yards, 25 TD, 8 INT, 61.14 comp %, 98.19 QBR, 815 rush yards, 4 TD, 7 fmb.
Here is the important kicker for fantasy owners: In 2019, those numbers added up to 416 fantasy points – the most points from a QB. But in 2020, even with his stats expected to be significantly lower, the projected numbers add up to 334 fantasy points, which would have placed him at QB2 behind only Dak Prescott. He would have also still been the #3 overall player in non-PPR and #4 in PPR.
So, what does this mean? Lamar Jackson’s 2020 season is going to be worse than 2019. Defenses will learn to contain him, he may get injured, who knows – but history says he will have a statistically down year. However, even with our projections, he still would have been one of the best QB options in all of fantasy and is an elite option behind only Patrick Mahomes for 2020. Be wary of taking him in the first round and be aware that his numbers will not match 2019, but you can feel confident in taking him and watching him lead your team to victory all season long.