Probably have to hope for a Manning injury or early retirement for Osweiler to be of use.
Osweiler is signed through 2015
Peyton is signed through 2016
Would have to hold and stash for 3 years (2013-2015) and then hope he is re-signed.to a multi-year deal. Thomas (2014), Decker (2013), and Welker (2014) contracts all need to be renewed before Osweilers as well.
Probably best to let him take up another owner's roster spot for a few years.
Osweiler is definitely a long-term play, but he has a couple of avenues to relevance. There's a Manning injury or retirement, but it's also possible that he leaves Denver (either through trade or free agency), at which point he would surely generate plenty of interest around the league. Either way, while it'll probably be a while before we're gaining value from him, it won't be that long before we're gaining information from him- even if Manning keeps the job locked down, we'll probably get plenty of glimpses of him in mop-up duty and preseason. I'll expose players to the wire from time to time if I need the room on my roster, but it's dangerous to leave him exposed for an entire season, because there's no telling when he might come in and pull a Matt Flynn. And even if you let another owner roster him and two years from now he's still an unknown, it's not like you can just swoop in and get him cheap- if the other owner's been holding him for two years, he's not going to give him up cheap just before Osweiler finally gets a starting job. If you believe in him and you've got the roster space, might as well carry him, especially over some of the low-ceiling mediocrities who always wind up rostered just because they currently have a starting job. In a league with 18 roster spots, Osweiler's not worth considering. In a league with 24 or 26 or more, though? Yeah, I think he's a very solid 3rd stringer, especially if you acquire an aging Peyton Manning as your QB1 as a hedge.
None of the QB's in this thread are even worth a roster spot IMO. (maybe, and it's a stretch, in a 2 QB league)
How has no one mentioned the only rookie that will actually be starting? EJ Manuel is probably the only QB I would draft from this class. Doubt he does well this year, but he has fantastic physical traits.
Oz will be a career backup in denver.
I think it's crazy to suggest that no backup QB in the NFL today is worth being rostered. If we were making a list of backups worth rostering this time last year, it would have included Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson. In other years, it might have included Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers. Looking at the
top 20 fantasy QBs of the last decade, 17 of the 20 began their careers as backups (Brees, Brady, Eli, Roeth, Palmer, McNabb, Hasselbeck, Favre, Rivers, Romo, Rodgers, Vick, Cutler, Schaub, Bulger, Delhomme), with the exceptions being Peyton, Ryan, and Flacco. Looking at the
top 20 QBs in points per game gets us a few more week 1 starters, but it also gives us five guys in the top 20 (Rodgers, Brady, Rivers, Warner, Romo) who were scheduled to be a backup QB on opening day for at least two years before getting the starting job. Those guys hold five league MVP trophies between them.
I think odds are very high that at least one guy who is currently a backup quarterback will wind up having a monstrous fantasy career. I would much rather roster a high-upside backup like Osweiler or Mallet than a known mediocrity like Carson Palmer.
Virtually all the guys you listed were high draft picks and were being groomed. Sorry I just don't see any of the current backups in the league being worth a damn. One or two may eventually turn into a bye week replacement type guy, but that's it. QB depth in the league is just ridiculously poor right now.
A lot of those guys were high draft picks being groomed, yes. Brock Osweiler is a high draft pick being groomed. Mallett and Foles were both 3rd rounders who were presumably drafted to eventually take over for an aging starter. I'm not advocating grabbing every backup in the league, I'm advocating some of the guys who have solid pedigree and who seem to have positive buzz around the league (KC tried to trade for Foles, Mallett will probably get a starting job on the open market, Osweiler was drafted and has been spoken about as the heir apparent). Throw in Cousins, who was a slightly later pick, but who seems to be well-regarded around the league and who has some great game film (similar to a young Matt Schaub in Atlanta), and I think there are four backups in the league who are reasonable fits for the profile of the breakout star QB.And, again, if this conversation had played out a year ago, everyone would be talking about Colin Kaepernick the exact same way. He was a 2nd round NFL pick, but because he was a backup, he was an afterthought. I got him as a free agent in most of my leagues. I even felt comfortable enough to expose him to the waiver wire for a week during byes if I needed the roster spot. Nobody in my leagues thought he was even worth owning, and now he's a consensus top-10 dynasty QB. As I said, I think the odds are exceptionally high that there's a backup in the NFL right this very moment who few people even consider worth owning, but who will become a consensus top-10 dynasty QB in the next couple of years. My money is one one or two from the Osweiler/Mallett/Foles/Cousins foursome. Maybe it's someone slightly more off the radar, like a Graham Harrell or a Chase Daniels or a Colt McCoy. Maybe it's a complete and total shocker, like a Jimmy Clausen or a Dennis Dixon. The idea that the 32 men who currently hold starting jobs in the NFL are the only ones who have a shot at fantasy stardom, though, is an idea that has repeatedly been proven wrong throughout history.
I'm certainly biased, because I've made an absolute killing in the backup QB market over the years. Yes, speculation will certainly leave you wasting roster spots on your share of Sage Rosenfelses, Chad Hennes, Billy Voleks, Charlie Whitehursts, and Joe Webbs. That's an inevitability- most of the backups you roster are going to be worthless and a complete waste of whatever capital you spent to acquire and hold them, not least of which is the roster spot you devoted to them. On other occasions, drafting backups will yield very modest returns that at least let you break even- think of your Matt Flynns and your Kevin Kolbs. Sometimes, though, drafting and holding backup QBs will yield an absolute grand-slam of value. I've mentioned Colin Kaepernick, and if Kaepernick was the only hit I'd had when trolling among the backups, his value today alone would have recouped all of my investments over the years and then some... but Kaepernick was far from the only hit. I owned Michael Vick in 75% of my leagues in 2010 when he was the most valuable player in all of fantasy football. I owned Aaron Rodgers in 33% of of my leagues in 2008. I started dynasty in 2007, but was in keeper leagues prior to that, and was in a position where I was keeping Matt Schaub and Philip Rivers for 20th round draft picks because I'd had the foresight to draft and hold them a year early.
Success stories like these aren't the norm- maybe 75-80% of the backup QBs you roster are going to return bupkis- but they're common enough, and each individual success is so hugely valuable that it easily offsets a half dozen failures. And over the past two decades, drafting highly-regarded backups has been a much more fruitful strategy than drafting lightly-regarded starters- it's been several times more likely to yield a perennial top-12 fantasy QB. So once the top 20-25 QBs are off the board, and your choices are between a talented backup or a guy like Christian Ponder or Carson Palmer or Kevin Kolb or Blaine Gabbert- a guy who has a starting job, but who we are pretty sure isn't all that good- the backup is more likely to yield dividends. In a 12-team league, unless each team only rosters 2 QBs, these top backups absolutely should be rostered. They might not be, but they should be.
