Which would you rather have from your fantasy football quarterback: A 30-point explosion followed by a 10-point stinker, or two solid 20-point weeks? The answer may depend on the format you’re in, the rest of your roster and even the time of the season.
Heading into draft season, it’s still important to know which quarterbacks provide roughly the same amount of points each week, and which provide high ceilings but also low floors. That’s what this article is here to do: Look back at 2024’s results to find the most (and least) consistent fantasy quarterbacks.
- Fantasy Football Draft Kit
- 2025 Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football ADP
- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Fantasy Football Consistency: Quarterbacks
Methodology
First, I want to throw out any games in which a quarterback played fewer than 70% of their team’s offensive snaps. Otherwise, any statistical measure of consistency would be massively skewed for any player who had a game or two in which they barely played. You could argue that these games are a part of the consistency, especially for players who repeatedly exited early due to injury. But, especially at the quarterback position, these low-snap games seem to mostly be the result of unique situations (i.e., Drake Maye replacing Jacoby Brissett for just 16 snaps at the end of Week 3), and including them does more harm than good for our analysis.
With that out of the way, I want to calculate the variance for each quarterback who had at least 10 qualifying games in 2024. Variance is exactly what it sounds like: A single number calculating how widely dispersed a set of numbers is around its mean.
Of course, variance is only a helpful measure of fantasy performance when we consider the mean score each player is varying around. Technically, you and I both had variances of 0.0 as fantasy quarterbacks last season, but we weren’t exactly must-starts.
To give context to their variances, I will also list each player’s points per game (PPG) result within this sample, and include data on how often each signal-caller scored at least 20 points (an excellent top-six week), at least 18 points (a good, QB1-level week) and at least 15 points (an OK, QB2-level week). This way, we can see who was consistent around their average and who consistently provided usable fantasy weeks.
That was a lot of preamble, so without further ado, here are the results. Every quarterback who played at least 70% of their team’s snaps in at least 10 games in 2024, sorted by variance and filtered to remove quarterbacks who are irrelevant in 2025 fantasy drafts:
| Player | Games Played | Variance | PPG (Rank) | Elite Game Rate | QB1 Game Rate |
QB2 Game Rate
|
| Drake Maye | 10 | 12.9 | 16.3 (16) | 10.00% | 30.00% | 70.00% |
| C.J. Stroud | 16 | 22.2 | 13.3 (25) | 6.30% | 18.80% | 37.50% |
| Jordan Love | 13 | 25.1 | 17.3 (13) | 23.10% | 30.80% | 61.50% |
| Patrick Mahomes | 16 | 27.1 | 17.6 (11) | 25.00% | 31.30% | 62.50% |
| Geno Smith | 16 | 29.6 | 16.3 (17) | 31.30% | 31.30% | 56.30% |
| Lamar Jackson | 17 | 38.3 | 25.3 (1) | 82.40% | 88.20% | 94.10% |
| Russell Wilson | 11 | 38.4 | 15.7 (21) | 18.20% | 27.30% | 54.50% |
| Justin Herbert | 17 | 38.6 | 16.7 (14) | 29.40% | 41.20% | 47.10% |
| Aaron Rodgers | 16 | 39.2 | 16 (18) | 25.00% | 25.00% | 56.30% |
| Jalen Hurts | 14 | 46.4 | 22.1 (4) | 57.10% | 64.30% | 92.90% |
| Daniel Jones | 10 | 49.7 | 13.5 (23) | 20.00% | 40.00% | 40.00% |
| Kyler Murray | 17 | 51.2 | 17.4 (12) | 41.20% | 41.20% | 58.80% |
| Matthew Stafford | 16 | 51.6 | 13.4 (24) | 18.80% | 25.00% | 37.50% |
| Jayden Daniels | 15 | 53.8 | 23 (3) | 66.70% | 80.00% | 80.00% |
| Baker Mayfield | 17 | 54.8 | 21.5 (6) | 58.80% | 82.40% | 82.40% |
| Bo Nix | 17 | 56 | 18.6 (8) | 41.20% | 52.90% | 64.70% |
| Sam Darnold | 17 | 57.3 | 18.1 (9) | 41.20% | 64.70% | 70.60% |
| Anthony Richardson | 10 | 59.7 | 15.7 (20) | 40.00% | 40.00% | 40.00% |
| Caleb Williams | 17 | 60.8 | 14.9 (22) | 29.40% | 29.40% | 41.20% |
| Brock Purdy | 15 | 66.5 | 17.7 (10) | 46.70% | 53.30% | 60.00% |
| Tua Tagovailoa | 11 | 69.4 | 16.5 (15) | 36.40% | 45.50% | 54.50% |
| Joe Burrow | 17 | 70.1 | 21.9 (5) | 47.10% | 58.80% | 76.50% |
| Bryce Young | 12 | 84.3 | 16 (19) | 25.00% | 25.00% | 41.70% |
| Jared Goff | 17 | 93.1 | 19 (7) | 41.20% | 47.10% | 58.80% |
| Josh Allen | 16 | 132.8 | 23.6 (2) | 62.50% | 75.00% | 75.00% |
Most Consistent Fantasy Quarterbacks
With by far the lowest variance of any quarterback, Drake Maye was shockingly consistent for a rookie. Unfortunately, he was consistent around his mean of 16.4 points per game, a number that is closer to missing the QB2 threshold than reaching the QB1 mark. Still, Maye ranked eighth among these 25 quarterbacks in terms of the percentage of his games where he scored at least 15 points, a very impressive feat given he was 16th in PPG. If he can maintain that consistency while upping his PPG average, we will have a supremely reliable fantasy quarterback on our hands.
Next up, we have C.J. Stroud, who joins Maye in the “consistently bad” category. Along with ranking last in good old-fashioned points per game, Stroud ranks dead last in the rate at which he hit each of the 20, 18 and 15-point thresholds. There aren’t many positives to take away from Stroud’s 2024 season, and this isn’t one of them.
Patrick Mahomes stands out for having the lowest variance among the top 12 scoring quarterbacks in this group. So does that mean he was a consistent QB1? Not really. He was more of a weekly consistent high-end QB2. His 31% rate of finishing above 18 points (my QB1 threshold) ranked just 17th out of these 25 quarterbacks. This is part of the reason I’m very skeptical of his current QB6 average draft position (ADP).
If we’re looking for a quarterback who was consistently a good fantasy option, Lamar Jackson stands above all others. Not only was his 25.3-point average easily the highest among players in this sample, but he also led the field in each of Elite Game Rate, QB1 Game Rate and QB2 Game Rate. Are we sure Josh Allen deserves to be the consensus QB1 in 2025 drafts?
Sticking near the top of the PPG charts, Baker Mayfield deserves a shoutout for ranking second in QB1 Game Rate with a very healthy 82.4%. Jayden Daniels and Jalen Hurts also both consistently provided excellent fantasy numbers. Daniels provided more big games with his 67% Elite Game Rate, but Hurts was the only player who could rival Lamar’s floor with a 93% QB2 Game Rate. I like Daniels’ and Hurts’ chances to run it back as consistent QB1s, but I’m a bit worried about Mayfield if his 7.2% touchdown rate regresses towards his previous 4.6% career average.
Least Consistent Fantasy Quarterbacks
To be fair to Josh Allen, he is being punished in the variance category for having the two highest scoring weeks of any quarterback during the 2024 season, including an absurd 51-point Week 14. However, Allen did have some duds to go with his explosions, as evidenced by the fact that only 75% of his games cleared the 15-point threshold. That’s great for most quarterbacks, but it’s easily the lowest of the big four elite dual-threat quarterbacks.
Next up behind Allen in terms of variance is Jared Goff. Given his reputation as a steady pocket passer, this may be surprising. But Goff’s production was legitimately erratic in 2024. He had two of the top nine scoring weeks of any signal-caller, but also four weeks below 10 points. It’s almost impressive (in a bad way) that he managed to finish as the QB7 in points per game while finishing below 15 points in over 40% of his outings.
The top slots of the variance rankings are mostly filled with pocket-passing types: Bryce Young, Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Brock Purdy and Caleb Williams are the next five names after Allen and Goff. This makes sense when we consider that pocket-passing quarterbacks rely on passing touchdowns, which are high-variance, to drive a large portion of their fantasy production.
However, that doesn’t mean all rushing quarterbacks were consistent scorers. Although he only ranked ninth in total variance, Anthony Richardson is my pick for the actual most inconsistent fantasy quarterback of the 2024 fantasy season. He earns this distinction by pulling off the remarkable feat of not scoring between 15 and 20 fantasy points in a single one of his 10 full games.
Richardson only provided a QB2-level game 40% of the time, but every single time he did, he also scored at least 20 points for an elite-level outing. We don’t even know if he will start for the Colts this season, but this impressive ceiling is what makes Richardson so appealing as a fantasy option, while his nonexistent floor is what has kept him from succeeding so far.
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Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for FantasyPros.com. Find him on Twitter and Bluesky @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.
