With the NFL season quickly approaching, countless football fanatics are finalizing their fantasy football cheat sheets and readying for their last-minute fantasy football drafts. Unfortunately, there is one mistake that even the seasoned fantasy football managers often make: they draft a quarterback too early.
Sure, it’s hard to pass up on Aaron Rodgers when he’s bound to pass for more than 4,000 yards and nearly 40 touchdowns. That’s a lot of fantasy points. But do you know who else threw for more than 4,000 yards in 2012? Carson Palmer.
Palmer, who spent last season with the lowly Oakland Raiders, was one of several quarterbacks to surpass the 4,000-yard mark last season. Yet, he finished 16th among fantasy quarterbacks in standard leagues. That is still backup status unless you are in a rare league that starts two quarterbacks.
The point is that quarterbacks are overrated and overvalued in fantasy football. People see it as the most important position on the team much like a quarterback in the real-life sport.
In the end, leadership, intangibles and decision making aren’t going to earn you points in fantasy football. Fantasy is based on numbers and the numbers point to quarterbacks being overvalued.
Now there is no doubt that fantasy quarterbacks earn a huge number of points. The reason quarterbacks are overvalued is not because it’s a poor position, it’s because of one simple word – replaceability. There are simply more good quarterbacks than there are running backs and wide receivers compared to the number of players needed to start.
Most standard fantasy leagues can start up to three running backs and receivers. This means that in a standard 12-team league, only 12 quarterbacks will start while 24-36 running backs and receivers will start each week – up to three times as many as the quarterback position.
In addition to fewer quarterbacks seeing the fantasy field, it is also a deeper position in general. In today’s pass-happy NFL, more and more mediocre quarterbacks are putting up huge numbers. In fantasy, it doesn’t matter if these quarterback’s aren’t winning games, all you need are their huge yardage totals and touchdown totals to propel ahead of your opponents.
In 2012, a slew of rookie quarterbacks burst onto the scene – Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick. Quarterback sensation Cam Newton stormed through a productive rookie year in 2011. There are no longer a select few of veteran quarterbacks who dominate the league on the fantasy football stage.
Consider Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco. He probably won’t come off the boards until the late rounds as a backup but there is little doubt he’ll produce consistently good results. The same can’t be said for the running back and wide receiver positions. A late round running back is a toss up player who might not even see the field in certain games.
So next time you’re getting hammered by your co-worker’s team in the office money league, remember that you could have passed up on Tom Brady to snag that second great starting running back and drafted the perfectly capable Andrew Luck in a later round. The playoff hopes and bragging rights will be worth it.
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]