For a number of years any fantasy football publication worth its
salt will offer up the same advice to its readers: Wait on taking
your starting quarterback. Let others spend an early pick at a position
of depth where steals can be found in later rounds.
Veteran fantasy owners pride ourselves on how deep into a redraft
we can go before taking our first QB. It’s kind of like a
limbo contest where the last person to continue going under the
bar is declared the winner.
But, eras in fantasy football (much like in football in general)
come and go and sometimes you have to recognize change before it’s
too late.
In this article, we will examine whether waiting to draft your first
quarterback is still rooted in wisdom or if doing so without any
consideration for an alternative plan can be folly. We’ll
begin with the case for staying the course and not taking a QB until
the middle rounds…
Stay the course and take a QB in the middle rounds
Using standard FFToday scoring to calculate the difference between
having the No.1 fantasy QB on your roster vs. having the No.12 fantasy
QB in 2020, that difference was 7.0 points per game. The number
lowers to 3.5 points per game if you look at the difference between
No.1 and No. 7.
In leagues that have starting lineups of 8, 9, 10 or even more players
and only 1 QB cracks that weekly lineup, the difference in points
is commonly seen as not warranting a high selection of a QB on draft
day.
In the case of this year’s top three projected QBs (Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Kyler Murray), one might have to spend anywhere
from a mid-to-late second round pick through a mid-fourth round
pick in order to obtain one of those three coveted signal callers.
Let’s focus on Allen for a moment. Assuming Allen goes at
or near the 3/4 turn in most 12-team redrafts, you are likely taking
him over a No.16-20 RB or a No.12-16 WR. If you pass on Allen and
take the No.9 QB off the board, that would likely occur three full
rounds later if not four - about the same place as you would get
a RB or WR in the No.30-35 range.
So, what’s the difference between last season’s No.18
RB and the No.34 RB? It’s about 5.3 points per game, nearly
two full points per game more than the variance in QBs. Add in the
fact that running backs are more often injured than quarterbacks
and getting quality at that position seems justified over nabbing
the QB position early in which depth is much more attainable.
And, we haven’t even factored in PPR yet which doesn’t affect the
gap from QB to QB at all, but further widens the gap between a top-20
RB and a low-end RB3 by most projections. Those in favor of “waiting”
on a QB until the middle rounds thus have an argument in this court
of draft opinion.
But, the top 6
All that said, the top half-dozen QBs of 2021 don’t play like
the QBs from a decade ago and for fantasy purposes, don’t
score like them either.
Case in point, the quartet of Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, Lamar Jackson,
and Russell Wilson rushed last season for a combined 2,758 yards.
The trio of Allen, Murray, and Jackson rushed for 26 TDs.
This year’s projected No.7-12 QBs (Herbert, Rodgers, Brady,
Tannehill, Stafford, and Burrow) combined to rush for 909 yards
and 21 TDs. That’s about 150 yards rushing per player and
exactly 3.5 rushing TDs as compared to 690 yards per player and
nearly 9 rushing TDs for the previously noted QBs residing in the
top five of most QB lists this summer. That’s quite a disparity
and it points out how rushing ability has separated the most elite
fantasy QBs from the tier of QBs that run the ball sparingly.
Even Patrick Mahomes rushed last season for over 2x as many yards
as the QBs noted above who rank from No.7 to No.12. And, as these
talented, young dual threat QBs continue to develop as passers,
that aspect of fantasy production will also be enhanced.
Again, we will use Josh
Allen as an example. Already considered a top-7 QB heading into
2020, Allen’s improvement in terms of passing propelled him to heights
that few could have ever predicted by the end of the season. Some
might argue that as passing numbers improve, rushing numbers will
decline and there is likely some validity to that given that Allen
did rush for fewer yards in 2020 than he did in each of the previous
two seasons. But, his fantasy production went from 21.2 to 29.1
points per game. No one I know who had him on a roster last season
was lamenting much of anything.
Maybe the difference between QB1 and QB7 in terms of scoring doesn’t
have you convinced to take a quarterback earlier yet. But, the difference
between No.1 and No.12 (again, a full seven fantasy points per game)
should very much have your attention.
QB is more predictive
Another thing to consider is the overall stability of the quarterback
position. In 2020, eight of the projected top ten QBs by way of
FFToday projections ended up finishing in the top ten at season’s
end. That’s an 80% rate of success generally speaking from
year-to-year at that position.
In contrast, only half (5 out of 10) of the running backs projected
to be in the top ten ended up there. Injuries, as was noted earlier,
played a part, but so did the general volatility of the position.
At WR, the ratio shrinks to 40% (4 out of 10). The bottom line is
that success from year-to-year can be most readily predicted with
respect to the QB position. As such, why wait late into your draft
with the odds of picking a top 6-8 guy being so good?
In the end, it will feel foreign and maybe a bit immoral to consider
taking a QB in the first 4-5 rounds for many longtime advocates
of late-round QB. But, it is something worth considering.
Critics will point to statistics that show that fantasy managers
who take a QB in the first three rounds of a redraft only finish
in the top half of their league 1/3 of the time. But, the fourth
and fifth rounds look like an ideal time to pounce on one of the
top half dozen or so QBs given they all possess the ability to score
in multiple ways.
Maybe it’s not a question of whether to take a QB early or
late…maybe, in fact, that is asking the wrong question. Maybe
the question is how do I get my hands on one of the elite, dual-threat
guys before I am left with a QB whose dual-threat skills include
150 rushing yards a season and 3 TDs?
No more weekly headaches
One final benefit of taking a top-6 QB is that it eliminates the
guess work from week-to-week. For example, drafting Matthew Stafford
and Matt Ryan this season could end up being exhausting as a fantasy
manager. There are few things in fantasy football more frustrating
than having two quarterbacks of nearly equal value and not predicting
how match-ups will impact their production correctly.
So, unless you have an unyielding devotion to Patrick Mahomes, to
wait or not to wait comes down to...
Yes, wait until at least the fourth round to look for your starting
QB… and no, don’t wait past the sixth round…maybe
not even past the fifth. The new breed of dual-threat QBs are worthy
and you’re likely to see the late-round QB strategy take a
back seat in 2021.
