Early? Late? Stream? Does it even matter really? Let’s get take a look at what the numbers show.
There are a lot of different ways to go about picking who will be your starting QB for any given fantasy season. Sometimes, there is a QB who is projected so head and shoulders above the number 2 that it’s unthinkable for him to be on the board past the mid second round. Then there are the guys who get drafted wildly apart in the mid rounds, yet they all seem to end the year clumped together in the same points region. Why does that happen? How can we avoid over-spending on a QB, or waiting too long and ending up with Jared Goff (sorry, Lions fans)?
As with any position in any fantasy sport, it’s all about draft value, i.e. their point production relative to where they are selected compared to the point production of players taken after them. However, because of the nature of the position being the highest scoring generally on the team, draft value among NFL QBs makes it the most delicate of any fantasy position. If you take a guy in the third round who is projected to put up 400 points, and he puts up 380, that’s a MASSIVE fail because there are undrafted QBs who will put up 380. So if you are taking a QB before round 4 or 5, it’s because you are relying on this guy to far exceed expectation. otherwise it would be much smarter based on draft value to take a Chris Carson in the 3rd because he will out score a later round RB or flex by (based on 2020) an average of 11 points (!) wheras Pat Mahomes was generally putting up QB1-5 numbers with the likes of Josh Allen, Justin Herbert (both generally late round or undrafted). Their point differential ended up being fairly inconsequential as opposed to the point differential between a guy like Carson and a late round/undrafted RB or WR flex such as a Cole Beasley or Nelson Agholor. For the article on my Point Differential Theory (PDT) click here.
Until my 2021 QB rankings drop in a few days, I will use some guidelines from that to give it to you in a nutshell: don’t draft a QB too early. Don’t draft one just to fill a slot when there are high upside position players on the board. Josh Allen is a very valuable QB this year, but not in the first round. Not in the second round or third round either. Especially considering that with ANY QB, you should be thinking about what to do when they get hurt, because they generally do. So why waste that high of a pick on a Mahomes or an Allen, when Russell Wilson and Lamar Jackson are available four rounds later? Hell you can take Justin Herbert or Joe Burrow late in the draft and the capital you gain from the position players you take in those mid rounds generally exceeds any advantage Allen or Kyler Murray would expect on a weekly basis. That being said I want Allen and Murray on my team, but only if they can fall to me at a reasonable value based on the projections.
Comments