Daniel Jones Fantasy Football Outlook: Return To Health And Gridiron Success
Fantasy

Daniel Jones Fantasy Football Outlook: Return To Health And Gridiron Success

Ian Hartitz takes a hard look at Daniel Jones and whether his recovery from a torn Achilles will allow him to return to last season's fantasy football success.

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Daniel Jones sure knows how to make a salary drive. For 10 games last season, he was an MVP candidate and lighting up the scoreboard for fantasy football managers lucky enough to pick him. Then came a pair of injuries, but the Indianapolis Colts saw enough to re-sign him to a hefty extension. Can he go back to his early form after coming back from injury? Ian Hartitz breaks it down as part of his Indianapolis Colts Team Preview.

Is Daniel Jones (again) a great late-round QB option?

Jones' aforementioned fractured fibula and torn Achilles sadly put an end to what was easily the seventh-year veteran's best season of his career.

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And it wasn't even like Jones just hit a few big plays to juice his number. Somehow, his 52% success rate (accounts for down and distance) trailed only Matthew Stafford (54.4%) and Drake Maye (54.7%) in 2025.

Here's the thing: It seems a bit unrealistic to simply expect Jones to be anywhere near 100% coming back from a December Achilles tear to his RIGHT leg. This fact is important because right-handed quarterbacks push off this leg. Jones could be looking at a recovery more similar to Dan Marino, who noted, “It was a very tedious rehab. It didn’t actually heal all the way, so I had to deal with not being able to get up on my toe for the rest of my career.”

Of course, Marino threw for 4,453 yards and 30 TD just one season removed from tearing said Achilles, and it’d make sense if modern medicine 30 (!) years in the future is a bit superior to what players were working with in the 90s. Still, Kirk Cousins more recently dealt with this and looked like a shell of his former self from both mobility and arm strength standpoints.

Now, Jones (29) is much younger than our recent Cousins/Aaron Rodgers examples, but at the same time: Nobody should be surprised if we don't see the artist known as Vanilla Vick exactly taking over games with his athleticism in the early going.

Good news: Jones isn't priced anywhere near last year's per-game QB9 fantasy ceiling before the fractured fibula. In fact, as the QB25 (pick 145.6), he's one of the single cheapest options at the position who is fully expected to start all 17 games with the benefit of good health. Cousins (QB19 ADP, finished QB29) and Rodgers (QB18 ADP, finished QB18) were quite a bit more expensive in fantasy land and obviously much older. Don't expect fireworks, but 3-QB best ball drafters and superflex managers shouldn't be completely scared off at this very reasonable price point.

Also note: Anthony Richardson is still on the Colts for one reason or another. Wouldn't it have been so much cooler if the Rams had just drafted Makai Lemon and traded a 4th-round pick and taken Richardson?

Players Mentioned in this Article

  1. Daniel Jones
    DanielJonesQ
    QBINDIND
    PPG
    17.0
    Proj
    267.8
  2. Anthony Richardson
    AnthonyRichardson
    QBINDIND
    PPG
    0.8

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