Issue #233: Professional Backup: Part Two

By Derrick Ernst

December 11, 2025

The Backup Continued

I told you Jacoby Brissett was featured in one them. In fact, here’s the list of QB’s who have partnered with Progressive in addition to Brissett and DeVito:

• Joshua Dobbs

• Case Keenum

• Colt McCoy

• Teddy Bridgewater

• Mitch Trubisky

• Tyler Huntley

Who’s left to keep these commercials alive? Looking at this year’s class of 50 QBs, the likes of Tyrod Taylor, Jake Browning, Mason Rudolph, and Davis Mills seem like pretty good candidates to me.

So here’s another reason I’m growing fond of stashing a highly capable backup QB on your fantasy roster. Last season I had Mahomes as my primary (and only) starter. Once it came to his bye, I had the opportunity to pick up Purdy to go along with him. I very much lucked out having two guys worthy of starting. Fast forward to the end of the season and I found myself in the Championship. I had been rolling with Mahomes the entire season, however, Purdy’s matchup was too good to pass up.

I was in doubt a little bit after Mahomes put up something like 25 points. Heading into Monday night, I was down by a little less than that with Purdy left to play. If I would’ve started Mahomes, the trophy would’ve already been mine. As it turned out, my instincts were correct with Purdy going on to outscore Mahomes and propel me to a victory by mid-single digits.

It takes some guts to start a guy you’ve relied very little on throughout the season, but having two QB’s like I did provides optionality and piece of mind knowing that in any given week you (more than) likely won’t need to worry about your QB not performing up to expectations. It’s this point that I really wanted to explore today in our “part two.” If your leagues are anything like mine, your QB waiver wire probably looks something like this.

There are some decent names here, but the thing that’s missing from each of them is consistency, which limits your ability to trust them. Time and time again I’ve said that your QB needs to be of “set and forget” caliber — probably more than any other position on your fantasy roster. Imagine having two of them. J. Brissett has put up good numbers, but he wouldn’t be someone you drafted. In fact it was only K. Murray and maybe JJ that was drafted in 50%+ of leagues.

Then again, this is my point exactly. Both players have seen their fair share of the IR this season. Having two QBs on roster would’ve eliminated a lot of pain for those who drafted either. Unless of course if JJ was your backup to Murray and vice versa. If that was the case, I’d hope you’d have the wherewithal to admit 2025 just wasn’t your year. There are probably more of these scenarios than you’d think.

Per our Sunday Scramble from Sunday, the top-12 fantasy QB threshold is a 16 PPG avg while the top-24 is 11 PPG. A five point difference may not seem like a lot, but over the course of a season, it adds up. If we operate under the assumption that we can identify a good amount of top-12 QB’s, drafting two of them means your backup is significantly outpacing those on waivers and it also eliminates them from being someone your competition benefits from.

Let me clarify what I mean by “identify a good amount of top-12 QB’s.” This doesn’t mean going forth and drafting J. Allen and J. Burrow. Top-12 QB’s can be drafted intelligently and with careful consideration. AKA, finding value in QB’s that can be drafted in the mid- to late-rounds. To rekindle your memory, here are the QB’s who made this year’s Draft Guide (with their ADP and current positional ranking):

• J. Allen, BUF (R3; QB1)

• J. Burrow, CIN (R4; QB41)

• P Mahomes, KC (R6; QB2)

• B. Nix, DEN (R8; QB8)

• B. Purdy, SF (R8; QB33)

• C. Williams, CHI (R9; QB9)

• J. Herbert, LAC (R9; QB7)

• JJ McCarthy, MIN (R11; QB32)

• J. Goff, DET (R11; QB10)

• J. Love, GB (R11; QB12)

• T. Lawrence, JAX (R15; QB13)

58% of fantasy’s current top-12 QB’s were in our Draft Guide and a 8th is right on the fringe. Not too shabby. This wasn’t a means of gloating, rather solidifying a point. Drafting two QB’s isn’t something you’ll hear most of those in the fantasy community suggest. TDF is here to go against the masses. Put it this way, would you rather have the likes of B. Nix, J. Herbert, or J. Goff backing up J. Allen on your team or have spent that mid-round pick on a flyer who’s probably no longer on your team? Let me speak for you, I think you would.

One more thing. Would you rather have two QB’s from this list or one and another from the screenshot on the previous page? Again, I think the answer is pretty simple. It absolutely helps that virtually all of these guys are still playing for something this late into the season (unlike those likely on waivers). This is something we’ve touched on before too and if you haven’t been all that receptive to that notion, let this be an example that shines some truth onto it.

Whiskey Staves

We’ll end today’s issue with a something cool! Notice anything in the image below:

I’ll help you out — six in from the left. You’re seeing that right! 2025 has been the year of bourbon for me and in growing my appreciation for the spirit, I’ve become a follower of some enthusiasts on YouTube. This video screenshot comes from Brewzle, who’s the best in the game when it comes to all things bourbon. He’s building a distillery from the ground up and to help in those efforts, he opened it up for fans to purchase staves of whiskey barrels that’ll be featured in the distillery. I thought it would be a good opportunity to get TDF’s name out in the world so I bought one and it happened to be featured in his video! Maybe one day I’ll get to see it hanging in person. Fingers crossed.