Trevor Lawrence Among Quarterback Streamers with Good Fantasy Football Matchups in Week 1

Quarterback is something of a paradox in fantasy football. It's the most important position in real football (and maybe in all of sports), but it's as easy to find fantasy production at the QB spot as any other place in your lineup. Because of that, many owners are fine waiting to draft their quarterback and playing matchups, essentially treating it as a streaming position if no one breaks out.

If you're going to stream, it starts as early as Week 1. It doesn't do any good to draft a guy you think you might use some weeks if he has a tough matchup in the first game and can't fill the spot in your lineup. Instead, if you miss the top group of quarterbacks and/or decide to stream, it's good to have a few names being drafted outside the top 10 at the position who you can grab late for the sake of using them as your Week 1 passer.

Let's look at three quarterbacks with good matchups in the first week of the season who you can probably draft with one of your last few picks and plug in right away. These guys might only be worthy of a roster spot for a week or two, but that's the nature of streaming; you can always drop them for the next guy.

I'm using our own FantasySP ADP rankings to determine current draft spots. Don't forget to check out my recent look at kickers and defense/special teams units to draft as streamers for Week 1.

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Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Carolina Panthers

Bryce Young, Carolina Panthers @ Jacksonville Jaguars

Things change from year to year, so we can't simply look at last season's stats and pretend that we know who will succeed and struggle on defense. New players come in, coaches/coordinators/schemes change, and simple luck turns during a new set of games, for better and worse.

Here, we have two teams facing off who had two of the most porous pass defenses in the league last year, though, and look like they could be vulnerable again in 2025. In 2024, Jacksonville gave up the most yards per pass attempt of any team in the league, and Carolina was fourth worst. The Jags also gave up the most passing yards per game (while Carolina was 10th worst), and the Panthers allowed more points than any other team (Jacksonville was tied for fifth most).

The Panthers made a few moves to improve the defense, notably bringing in Bobby Brown III (Rams) and Tershawn Wharton (Chiefs) as part of the defensive line rotation and Tre'von Moehrig (Raiders) to man one of the safety spots, but this is likely to be a below-average defense again without major internal improvements.

The Jaguars brought in two new starters in the secondary in safety Eric Murray (Texans) and cornerback Jourdan Lewis (Cowboys), so that should help. They really need to get more out of the pass rush, though, where two former top-10 picks start on the outside (Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker). Again, internal improvement would be huge, but I'm looking at Jacksonville as a team likely to struggle against the pass. Rookie cornerback/wide receiver Travis Hunter is also in the mix, but he's more likely to make an impact on offense early, and we need to see him playing both ways before we can really tell what he will bring.

Between the two guys here, I prefer Lawrence. Jacksonville has more talent both on offense and defense, and Lawrence has been the better pro. Young looked much better during the second half of last season, but he was unplayable through his first year-and-a-half, so I want to see more before I really trust him (or his team). While they are only streamers in the fantasy world, both Lawrence and Young have prime matchups to start the season.

J.J. McCarthy, Minnesota Vikings @ Chicago Bears

This is as much about the Vikings as it is the Bears. Just look at Sam Darnold last year: for six seasons, Darnold looked like a below-average quarterback and clear bust after entering the league as the third overall pick in 2018.

Entering the Minnesota ecosystem, he immediately set career highs in attempts, completions, completion percentage, yards, touchdowns, yards per attempt, touchdown-to-interception ratio, quarterback rating, and QBR. In most of those areas, he blew away his previous bests.

Rather than believe that Darnold suddenly found a new skillset, I'm banking on Justin Jefferson and (especially) head coach Kevin O'Connell being the big differences, along with a better offensive line putting Darnold in position to succeed. If that's the case, then McCarthy is stepping into that same role and theoretically has the same chance to succeed.

Chicago's raw numbers weren't so bad against the pass, as they were in the middle in passing yards allowed and toward the bottom in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. They gave up the second-most yards per pass attempt (7.4, behind only Jacksonville), though, worse on a per-play basis than it might otherwise seem.

The Bears don't look much improved on defense either. Grady Jarrett and Dayo Odeyingbo are new starters on the defensive line, but Jarrett is aged, and Odeyingbo has just been OK, not a true impact player. There's a chance here for Minnesota to start hot on offense against a team that is more prepared on offense than defense with their new head coach.

I like McCarthy's season-long outlook more than Lawrence or Young. There's an obvious caveat that we haven't seen him play in any real games yet, but there is potential to hit the ground running if he can emulate what Darnold did, and I'm willing to bet that McCarthy will be at least an average fantasy QB.