3 Late Round QBs To Draft In Your Fantasy Football League

Most years, drafting a late-round quarterback is a strategy I use in my fantasy football league. Today, we’ll be breaking down three quarterbacks who you can draft at QB18 and beyond who could be a viable starter on your fantasy football team.

For this exercise, we’ll be using ADP from FantasyPros. Let’s dive right into the list!

3 Late Round QBs to Draft In Your Fantasy Football League

C.J. Stroud: ADP QB18

Starting with C.J. Stroud, who’s being drafted as the QB18, this seems way too low. Last season, Stroud was being drafted as the QB5, and at that cost, I was avoiding him at all costs.

Now the price seems to have gone down far too low. Stroud is still the same player, and you can argue that he has a very similar situation.

The main concern with Stroud is that PFF ranked them as the worst offensive line in the NFL. As for the team’s offensive weapons, that group should be very strong.

Drafting both Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel from Iowa State was a great decision. Both are fantastic prospects who should be able to step into the WR2 (Higgins) and WR3 (Noel) roles right away.

Going back to Stroud, he’s the former number two overall pick who had 18.4 PPG in his rookie season. While Stroud had a sophomore slump, if he can build on his rookie numbers, that can easily turn into a 20 PPG season.

This takes into account Higgins being great as a rookie, but he was the 34th overall pick, posted a 90.5 PFF receiving grade, and had a 2.67 YPRR mark in 2024. Higgins would end up catching 87 passes for 1,185 yards and nine touchdowns.

As for Noel, he had an 81.7 PFF receiving grade, 2.62 PRR mark, 80 catches, 1,193 yards, and eight touchdowns. Both pass the eye test as well, and I’m confident that they can help Stroud have a bounce-back season.

Michael Penix Jr: ADP QB23

Michael Penix Jr was a prospect who I’ve been a massive fan of since his days at Washington. There aren’t as many stats that back up this take, but this relies more on the film that I’ve watched of Penix.

The Atlanta Falcons clearly showed the NFL that they believe Penix is an elite prospect as they drafted him 8th overall despite signing Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180 million deal.

The main knock against Penix was that he was an older prospect, but that was due to a long list of injuries. Penix broke out in his junior season (5th year of college), throwing for 4,641 yards, 31 touchdowns, and just eight interceptions. After that, Penix would go on to throw for 4,903 yards, 36 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions.

What makes me confident that this style of play will translate is that Penix was dominant deep down the field. Per PPFF, on deep (20+) and medium passing concepts (10-19), Penix had a 93.5 (deep) and 90.9 (medium) PFF passing grade in 2023.

Penix was given the opportunity to start near the end of the year, where he had one massive game. Taking each game that Penix had more than five passing attempts, he went from 6.4 to 11.2 points to 25 points.

Projecting ahead to 2025, Penix is going to have a full off-season as the starter and should naturally take a step forward in his new role. Not only that, but having weapons like Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and Darnell Mooney will only help that going forward.

Anthony Richardson: ADP QB29

I’m not sure why Anthony Richardson is being drafted as the QB29, especially in 1QB leagues. While Richardson may be a bad pick, you’re getting him with no risk attached.

For reference, Richardson was being drafted as the QB6 last year. Just like I said about Stroud, it seems like the community has made a correction way too far.

Now, the risk with Richardson is that he won’t even be the starting quarterback in 2025. That said, you can take Richardson with your last pick and easily pick up another quarterback in his range off the waiver wire if that’s the case.

I believe that Richardson is going to get a shot to start for most of the season because the Indianapolis Colts invested their 4th overall pick into him. Richardson is 23 years old and has only played in 15 games.

Daniel Jones has played in 70 games and hasn’t found success yet, as the New York Giants released him. It would make a lot more sense for the Colts to give Richardson the season to prove himself before they give up on their investment.

If that’s the case, Richardson will be a great pick in fantasy. Despite never throwing for over 300 yards last year, Richardson still had five games with over 20 points.

With Richardson, you’re getting a very low floor but super high ceiling. At his price, Richardson is the best late-round quarterback you can add to your fantasy football team.