Garrett Nussmeier Dynasty Fantasy Football Outlook: Long-Term Backup to Patrick Mahomes Or Start Elsewhere?

The ‘90s were a different time, with plenty of flannel and grunge music all around. We try to leave those pictures in a drawer. It was also a time where Green Bay was churning out QBs almost as much as cheese curds.

Brett Favre was in the saddle as the starter on a Hall of Fame trajectory, and he was awarded three straight MVPs in the back half of that decade. But sitting behind him was a QB lab that other franchises would eventually benefit from.

Mark Brunell. Matt Hassellbeck. Ty Detmer. Aaron Brooks. And there was that Aaron Rodgers guy in the 2000s. At the time, the idea was to draft quarterbacks with late picks with the sole purpose of developing them to trade them later for better draft capital. One of the coaches on that Green Bay staff for much of that decade was Andy Reid. Yes, the current HC for the Chiefs, and he may be at it again after drafting Garrett Nussmeier in the seventh round with pick No. 249 in the 2026 NFL Draft.

Garrett Nussmeier Long-Term Dynasty Outlook With The Kansas City Chiefs

Lasting until the end of the seventh round of the 2026 NFL Draft did not appear to be where many projected Nussmeier to be selected a year ago. There was first-round buzz around him after throwing for 4,052 yards and 29 TDs in his junior season at LSU. Then injuries hit last season, as well as an imploding Tigers program that cost HC Brian Kelly his job. The young QB’s draft stock took a tumble.

Nussmeier is a fluid passer without a particularly powerful arm, but the ball comes out of his hand smoothly and often hitting pass catchers in stride. He’s not big—just under 6-foot-2 and weighing 203 pounds. Beyond his mechanically sound throwing motion, he’s also the son of longtime NFL assistant Doug Nussmeier, currently the Saints’ offensive coordinator. That QB education had to have made the younger Nussmeier attractive to Reid and the Chiefs.

Let’s not get any ideas that Nussmeier is any threat to two-time NFL MVP and three-time Super Bowl champ Patrick Mahomes, who is entrenched at the QB position for the Chiefs for the foreseeable future. And the rookie is probably not a candidate for QB2, since the Chiefs traded for Justin Fields this offseason. Fields is himself a reclamation project, and if he can somehow grow as a passer in the QB room with the Chiefs it could be a boon to the fantasy community once he hits free agency. His running game plays if his passing improves.

Back to Nussmeier, he’s going to hold a clipboard for probably the entirety of his time with the Chiefs. Let’s not even put it into the universe that Mahomes would sit anything more than a Week 18 game prepping for the playoffs. But in this great learning environment, where he can get so much just by watching an outlier like Mahomes, but is also with an established group of coaches, Nussmeier could be a player who at the very least is a long-term backup QB. But if he can parlay any of those preseason or Week 18 action into a starting job elsewhere, he might be worth a spot on a taxi squad in dynasty formats. He’s currently ranked No. 77 in dynasty rookie rankings, so he’s free there.

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