Arizona Cardinals - Fantasy News

Is Blaine Gabbert A Worse Fantasy Play Than Drew Stanton?

by Adam Markowitz

11/12/17

NFL

Arizona Cardinals

Blaine Gabbert

Saturday's report that Drew Stanton has a sprained knee is posing a question that Arizona Cardinals fans never wanted to have answered: How much worse could Blaine Gabbert be than Drew Stanton?

Stanton is going to be out of the fold next Sunday when the Cardinals visit Houston. Gabbert is the only other quarterback on the roster, and he would be defaulted as “next man up” in Glendale with Carson Palmer's season likely over thanks to a broken arm.

To Stanton's credit, he wasn't nearly as woeful against the 49ers and Seahawks as we would have expected. Even though Stanton just barely completed half of his passes in each of those games, he beat his Dober Projected Fantasy Points totals in both outings. Stanton tallied 14.24 Dober Fantasy Points against the 49ers and 15.02 DFP against Seattle, numbers that are right on par with the 14.87 DFP per game Palmer averaged this season before getting hurt.

Is it possible that we could expect the same out of Gabbert against the Texans in Week 11?

The weapons Gabbert has around him are exactly the same as what Palmer and Stanton had, so theoretically, it's possible. One glance at what Gabbert has been able to do in his 13 starts over the course of the last two seasons with San Francisco offer a little bit of hope.

In those 13 starts, Gabbert threw for 2,921 yards with 15 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. He showed some masked mobility as well, averaging 27.5 rushing yards per game.

Though Gabbert didn't have any individual games that broke fantasy scoring records, he only had one game in which he didn't reach double digits in DFP. That game happened to be at Seattle, one of the toughest places for quarterbacks to make headway in the NFL. Take out that 4.96 DFP dud and what's left is a man who averaged 16.67 DFP per game, a mark that would make him the ninth-best quarterback in the NFL this season.

Of course, there is a tremendous statistical anomaly in here. The 49ers averaged just 18.46 points per game with Gabbert under center, and his touchdowns accounted for more than half of those points. San Francisco had a total of five rushing touchdowns scored by players outside of Gabbert in those 13 games.

The Cardinals will surely ask Adrian Peterson to run the ball a ton against a Houston defensive line that has been weakened by the absence of J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus. However, keep in mind that Bruce Arians hasn't been afraid to let his backup quarterbacks throw the ball in the past. Back in 2014, Ryan Lindley attempted 39 and 44 passes in his two starts, respectively, when both Palmer and Stanton were injured.

You hate to suggest that Gabbert is going to have a good game against Houston next Sunday, but he's got the potential to be a live sleeper to consider for your Dober Play Cards, especially knowing that he's going to be facing a single-digit PFP in all likelihood. There are certainly worse third-string quarterbacks to be stuck with than this.