Fantasy Football Week 3: Quarterbacks with the Most to Prove

The beginning of the 2012 season has been largely up and down for some of the league's most intriguing quarterbacks.

Some of them looked dominant in the season openers and then awful in the follow-up games; some of them experienced the opposite phenomenon. As a result, it's hard to know whether they can make a positive impact for your fantasy team or whether the risk outweighs the potential reward.

Here are the QBs with the most to prove entering Week 3.

Andrew Luck (Indianapolis Colts)
vs. Jacksonville Jaguars

Andrew Luck is precisely one of the QBs who looked awful in Week 1 (despite passing for 309 yards) and rebounded for a strong showing—and a win—in Week 2.

Luck led the Colts to a 23-20 win over the Vikings—his first as a pro—and threw for 224 yards, two TDs, no interceptions and a QB rating of 107.5. It was a substantial improvement over his opening-week numbers, in which he registered a rating of just 52.9.

This Sunday, we saw the Luck many of us expected to see as soon as the Colts made him the No. 1 overall draft pick. But he has to keep the momentum going in order to prove himself to be a worthy fantasy prospect.

This is a good opponent for Luck and the Colts in Week 3: The Jags have been far from the toughest matchup in the NFL this year, and now they're even less so given Blaine Gabbert's injury. Even if Gabbert does end up playing, he probably won't be at 100 percent. 

Tony Romo (Dallas Cowboys)
vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Once again, it's impossible to know what version of Tony Romo is going to show up on any given Sunday (or Wednesday or Thursday or Monday).

In the 2012 kickoff game, Good Romo showed up—the one who threw for 307 yards and three touchdowns in a huge win over the Giants. But in Week 2, Not-as-Good Romo showed up against the Seahawks, throwing for 251 yards, a touchdown, a pick and a 74.1 QB rating.

He wasn't necessarily bad in Week 2; he also wasn't as impressive as the top quarterbacks in the league, or even as impressive as some of the mediocre ones. He was just OK, which isn't what you generally expect out of a quarterback who ranks as one of the top 10 in the NFL.

Whether Romo improves or regresses further against the Bucs should tell us a little more about his potential this season.

Michael Vick (Philadelphia Eagles)
at Arizona Cardinals

I, for one, was not expecting Michael Vick and the Eagles to take down the mighty Ravens in Week 2—especially coming off that lackluster Week 1 victory over the Browns.

Vick may have two one-point wins on his 2012 resume, but wins are wins. And he looked much better in his second one than in his first.

If it wasn't for the four picks he threw against the Browns, Vick's line would have been pretty good in his opener: 317 yards in the air, 32 on the ground, two touchdowns. In Week 2, he managed to cut turnovers down—he limited himself to two, which was an improvement—while leading Philly to a 24-23 win over the Ravens.

Vick is still not perfect, and all of those turnovers are a huge problem. But he's still finding a way to win, and he's finding a way to improve while doing it.

The 2-0 Cardinals will be a big test for him in Week 3: In two games, they've only allowed two touchdowns and a total of 34 points. Vick is going to need to have a very good game to beat them (unless the first two games were flukes), and he's going to need to cut those turnovers in half (at least) once again.