Dynasty Fantasy Football Quarterback Tiers: Bengals’ Joe Burrow in a tier of his own

Updating Dynasty rankings monthly makes a lot more sense than updating Dynasty tiers monthly, at least in the offseason. Because while players definitely do move in my rankings, there are very few that make big changes in terms of what tier they’re in. Someone like Deshaun Watson would be one exception to that rule, but I’m still not sure anyone has any basis for acting like they know where they should rank or tier Watson.

Changes in tiers this time of year often have less to do with the players themselves and more to do with how I’m viewing them. That’s how Joe Burrow ended up in Tier 3 on his own this month, after being grouped in with Dak Prescott and Jalen Hurts in the past edition. Currently, Burrow is not a quarterback I feel comfortable tiering with anyone else at this time.

The reason he isn’t in Tier 1 or Tier 2 is that he’s not really come close to showing us the same upside as Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, Justin Herbert, or Lamar Jackson. That could absolutely change in the future, maybe even the very near future, but it’s hard for me to tier them with them when he’s projected for at least 25 fewer Fantasy points than everyone in this group in 2022. 

As I’ve said before, Burrow needs one of two things to drastically change before he should be ranked as an elite redraft quarterback. Either the Bengals need to throw the ball 100 more times or Burrow needs to run for a couple hundred more yards. As it is, I have him projected for 63 more pass attempts and 46 more rushing yards in 2022 and he’s far closer to 12th than he is to the top-five. 

Just don’t take that to mean I don’t get the appeal. Burrow is a 25-year-old quarterback who just led his team to the Super Bowl while leading the NFL in both completion percentage and yards per pass attempt. All the evidence suggests he’s an elite passer and his team absolutely should throw the ball more. It’s just hard to project a huge change in philosophy from a team that just went to the Super Bowl. The Bengals plan worked to near perfection last year, why would they make major changes?

If you asked me to make a wager, I’d bet Burrow has top-five Fantasy seasons in front of him. It may just have to wait until the team is paying him so much money that they can’t afford to put a good defense on the same budget. And since he’s not significantly younger than anyone in the top five and has less short-term upside, there’s really no good place for him. I just couldn’t leave him in the same tier with Prescott and Hurts, because they don’t have near the same long-term security that he does. 

If you’re asking me to tier the players in order of likelihood that they’ll give you long-term top-12 production, Burrow would be a Tier 1 quarterback already. He’s going to have to show us more Fantasy upside before he gets there in the Dynasty Tiers below: