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Top Quarterback or Quarterback Tandem?

One of the questions that many fantasy football players ask themselves is when to draft their starting quarterback. Many sites suggest waiting before drafting your starting QB because there is generally good value in later rounds. In our Average Draft Position Analysis Article we came to the conclusion that the two groups that have value at QB are the top four and the 11 to 18 group. However, the problem with the 11 to 18 range is that there are some risky picks in that group so this made us think: what if we selected two QBs in that 11 to 18 range to increase our chances of finding a big sleeper and reduce the risk of being left without a starter? In the following article, we will compare the strategy of drafting a top QB with a below average backup to the strategy of drafting two QBs in the 11 to 18 range.

For this analysis, we used average draft position statistics since 2005. The first step is to look at how many total points your best QB would have averaged in the past five seasons had you always gone with the strategy of drafting a top four QB and a below average backup (19th to 24th best). There were 24 different possibilities in each season (1 and 19, 1 and 20, 1 and 21 and so on…). The minimum we gave for each possibility was 150 fantasy points since you likely would have been able to pick up a QB on waivers if both of your starters were hurt. The following table shows the average number of points you could have expected from your best starting QB in each season, in a scoring system that gives 1 point per 20 (or 25) pass yards, 4 (or 6) pts per TD pass and deducts 1 pt for each INT:

The average number of points that your best starting QB would have had is 300 (or 316) over the last six years which is not much of an increase over the 293 (or 309) that the top four QBs average since 2005. The few additional points come from years in which one of the top QBs disappointed and the QB you drafted to be your backup outperformed him. We then did the same thing for the strategy of drafting any two QBs in the 11 to 18 range in each season. There were 28 possibilities in each season (11 and 12, 11 and 13, 11 and 14 and so on…). We have presented the yearly averages as well as the average over five seasons in the following table:

As you can see the average over six seasons is 281 (or 293) points which is only 19 points behind the strategy of drafting a top QB and a below average backup. More importantly, the average points for the 11th to 18th QBs drafted since 2005 is 247 (or 254) which means that you increase the number of points you can expect from your starting QB by 34 (or 39) points simply by drafting a good backup.

One other advantage of having two QBs in the 11 to 18 range is that you will have a better backup when your starter is on his bye week. The QBs drafted in this range average 247 fantasy points while QBs drafted in the 19 to 24 range average only 201. This means that if you choose to draft two QBs in that range, your backup QB will average 46 more points than if you had a top QB and a below average backup. 46 more points is an average of 2.9 more points per week so the 19 points difference now becomes only 16 since you will have to start that backup during your starter’s bye week.

The calculations made above assume that between your starter and your backup you will have started the QB who will have the most points at the end of the season in all weeks except his bye week. There is however one additional advantage of having two good QBs which is that you can adjust for matchups and start the one which you believe has the most favorable matchup every week.