Meandering Fantasy Lessons: Quarterbacks

1. Quarterbacks are the best fantasy scorers. This makes logical sense. Consider that an average starting fantasy QB throws for 3,000 yards and 20 TDs. This type of QB production is common. And yet in fantasy points, in the Hazelweird league this production equates roughly to the production of a RB with 1,500 total yards and 10 TDs. That's very good production for a RB. So an average fantasy QB can be as productive as a very good fantasy RB. There were 11 fantasy scorers averaging 10 fantasy ppg in 2006 (well, 10--let me round 9.986 up): 7 of them were QBs, and 4 of them were RBs.

2. But there are more good QBs than RBs, making a good QB less valuable than a good RB. In 2006, there were 12 QBs that averaged more than 9 ppg in the Hazelweird league. There were just 5 RBs to average more than 9 ppg. On my list of draftable players, there are 17 QBs with more than 8 ppg, and 11 RBs with more than 8 ppg. This is why good RBs are still valuable: there are many productive fantasy QBs to choose from, and they don't have a great deal of separation between each other, while there are fewer productive fantasy RBs with slightly greater separation. Any competent fantasy QB is going to give you solid production, so if you don't spend your pick/money on a stud QB, you can still get a decent QB. This makes the very good QBs worth less than the very good RBs, and makes the decent QBs worth a lot less than the decent RBs.

3. Unlike other positions, yards indicates fantasy success of QBs better than touchdowns. The reason is simple: there are a lot of QBs with solid TD production, and fewer QBs with good yardage production. In 2006, 10 QBs threw for at least 20 TDs. There were 16 QBs with at least 18 TD passes. The difference between 4th in TD passes and 16th in TD passes is 6 touchdowns, or 18 points in the Hazelweird league, or about 1.1 fantasy point per game. But look at yards: in 2006, there were only 5 QBs with 4,000+ yards, and 8 QBs with 3,500+ yards. The difference between 4th place and 16th place in yardage is 1,318 yards, or 26.36 points in the Hazelweird league, or about 1.6 fantasy ppg. There is less difference in touchdown pass production between the competent fantasy starters than there is in passing yardage production.

This analysis is probably pretty pedestrian, but if I'm going to be a knucklehead doing all this fantasy work (rather than spending a few measly dollars on a stinking magazine), I may as well put some of it up on this blog in July. But not too much information: I still distrust the rat-bastards in the Hazelweird league trying to screw me.