5 Late-Round Quarterbacks to Target on Draft Day
Jake Locker, Tennessee Titans
Speaking of Jake Locker, he actually wasn’t too shabby himself before losing the season last year. On a per drop back basis, Locker’s Passing NEP ranked in between Alex Smith and Jay Cutler. And like Alex Smith and Ryan Fitzpatrick, Locker’s got the Konami Code on his side. Here’s an excerpt from an article I wrote on Locker earlier in the off-season to show you what I mean.
Jake Locker is the perfect Konami Code quarterback. In 2013, he started and [mostly] finished six games. In those six games, Locker had four with 15 or more standard fantasy points, including a monster 29-point performance against the Chargers. Meanwhile, he averaged just over 200 passing yards per game, and only threw for three touchdowns in one contest. Why was he relevant? He ran the ball well. Very well.
In those six contests, Locker had at least 10 yards rushing in all but one, scored two rushing touchdowns and reached 29 yards twice. And don’t forget that, in the San Diego game, Locker rushed for 68 yards and a touchdown.
Locker completed six games last year (actually more like 5.5), and ended the year with three weekly top-12 quarterback performances. That’s roughly a 50 percent rate of being a QB1 in fantasy in a given week, which was a higher rate than Russell Wilson, Cam Newton and Colin Kaepernick last year.
Sample size clearly matters here, but with two young wideouts, Locker could be a nice late-round target if you’re completely ignoring risk.
