All 2009 Fantasy Articles | 2009 Position Rankings

Generally speaking, there are three schools of thought when drafting a quarterback. The first is to draft a stud in the first round or two and hope that he’s destined for a great year like the one Tom Brady had in 2007. The risk here is if this early pick doesn’t vastly outplay most of his peers, or if the owner isn’t able to unearth a good RB or WR in the middle rounds, the team is going to have trouble competing on a weekly basis.

The next theory is to go with running backs and/or wide receivers with the first two or three picks and then start looking for QB value in the next few rounds. This strategy could lead to an owner getting a player ranked in the top 5 in the third or fourth round, or a guy ranked 6-10 in the fifth or sixth round, or even later.

The final approach is to intentionally ignore the quarterback position in all of the early rounds, instead building up depth at running back and wide receiver (and maybe even tight end). Then in the eighth or ninth round, start to look at drafting a QB or three in the next few rounds with the hope of putting together a cohesive Quarterback By Committee (QBBC). (I recently posted a more detailed article that focuses solely on the QBBC.)

All of these strategies can work, but they each represent a different level of risk. For owners that always draft a QB early, they need that player to stay healthy and perform at a level commensurate with their draft position. The same goes for the owner who waits for value to emerge in rounds 3-6, though his QB has better odds of matching or outplaying his draft position. The owner that holds off until the middle rounds and then picks two or three guys that he expects to start throughout the season ultimately has quite a bit more room for error. If one player has a down year, the other (or other two) could very well pick up the slack.

Which strategy you choose may ultimately depend on your draft position. If there are five or six running backs you really like in the first round, but you have pick #12, you may elect to go with Drew Brees, Tom Brady or Peyton Manning instead of taking a RB leftover. Or if you have pick #4 and don’t deem any of those three worthy of your first rounder, but they’re all gone by 2.09, you’ll probably end up taking another RB or going with a WR.

The key is to look for value. That might mean waiting until Aaron Rodgers slips to you in the early 5th, or going with David Garrard and Jason Campbell in the late rounds as part of a QBBC, or even pulling the trigger on Peyton Manning in the early third, especially if there isn’t a RB or WR there that you like.

Below is a list of several guys that seem to represent good value at their current average draft positions (ADP). We’ll also provide rankings for the entire QB position, broken into tiers. Keep in mind that your scoring system will have a great impact on the value of the QB position.

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With the relative depth at the position, one approach to drafting a fantasy quarterback is to spend the first six or seven rounds drafting running backs, wide receivers and even a tight end. Then, in the eighth round or later, start to think about drafting a QB. Oftentimes, the players available in the 4th or 5th round won’t drastically outscore those QBs taken in the 8th or later.

Why is this? Well, one reason is that, once fantasy owners have a starting QB, they tend to draft for depth at running back and wide receiver instead of drafting a backup QB, whom they know probably won’t sniff their starting lineup, except as a bye week fill in.

Another reason is that most leagues require two starting running backs, which means 24 starting RBs in total (assuming a 12-team league). With more and more real NFL teams utilizing a RBBC, the position is much thinner than QB, which requires 12 fantasy starters of 32 real world starters.

Typically, this results in good depth at the QB position, where the expected production from QB10 isn’t all that different than QB20. This year the QB10 off the board is Matt Ryan (7.01) while the QB20 is Joe Flacco (11.02). To illustrate my point, in a “high performance� scoring system (4 pts per pass TD, 1 pt per 20 yards passing), Footballguys projects Ryan to score 255 fantasy points and Flacco to score 235. Are those 20 fantasy points worth burning a 7th round pick instead of an 11th? Over a 17-game schedule, that works out to less than 1.2 fantasy points per week.

In other words, it’s probably not going to cost you too many wins to go with Flacco instead of Ryan. In fact, you’ll probably be better off because the WR or RB you draft in the 7th round (Santana Moss?) is likely to vastly outperform his 11th-round counterpart (Michael Jenkins?). Footballguys projects Moss to outscore Jenkins by 75 points, a 4.4-point per week advantage. So by going with a Moss/Flacco combo instead of a Ryan/Jenkins combo, you’re gaining a net of 3.2 points per week.

Going one step further: why not draft two middle- to late-round quarterbacks whose schedules mesh well together to create a Quarterback By Committee (QBBC)? That way, you can load up on RB, WR and TE talent in the first seven or eight rounds knowing that you’ll still be able to get good QB play from a couple of later picks by taking advantage of the ebbs and flows of each player’s schedule.

To that end, I took the QB strength of schedule data from Footballguys and calculated the per week projections (by using the aforementioned Footballguys projected stats) for every starting quarterback in the league.

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Everything you need to know (and a lot that you don’t) about the fantasy implications of Sunday’s action.

QUARTERBACKS

Trent Edwards threw two picks and fumbled, but he threw for more than 197+ yards and a TD for the sixth time in eight games…Kyle Orton suffered an ugly ankle injury and it looks like he could be out for a month. Rex Grossman will fill in for him…Gus Frerotte (182 yards, 3 TD, INT) continues to play solid ball for Minnesota. Since he took over six games ago, he is averaging 245 yards and 1.3 pass TD per game.

RUNNING BACKS

Kevin Smith got 16 touches to Rudi Johnson’s 10, and Smith also scored a TD, so it looks like he is the lead back in Detroit…Cedric Benson (25 touches, 109 yards, TD) seems to be settling into the RB1 role in Cincy…All that pregame talk about Michael Bennett getting most of the work for Tampa Bay turned out to be erroneous. Earnest Graham is a solid start as long as Warrick Dunn is out. He fumbled twice, but threw a TD to Alex Smith to make up for it…There were rumors that the Cardinals were going to cut Edgerrin James’ touches and give Tim Hightower more of the workload, but I wasn’t expecting Hightower to register 23 touches (108 yards, TD) and James to register zero. It looks like Hiightower is officially RB1 in Arizona…Ryan Grant (20 carries, 86 yards) ran pretty well against a good Titans defense, which is encouraging for his owners. He failed to score a TD, however…The Denver running game was awful against the Dolphins. Three RBs (Michael Pittman, Andre Hall and Ryan Torain) combined for 12 yards on 11 carries…Michael Turner (31 carries, 139 yards) once again tore up a bad rush defense. He has four 104+ yard games (OAK, GB, KC, DET) against mediocre-to-bad defenses and four sub 58-yard games (PHI, CHI, CAR, TB) against four good defenses. He doesn’t get any action in the passing game (3 receptions all year), so he can’t make up for a bad rushing day in PPR leagues…Maurice Morris (8 touches, 43 yards) and Julius Jones (11 touches, 45 yards) split the RB work almost evenly…BenJarvus Green-Ellis (16 touches, 65 yards, TD) and Kevin Faulk (15 touches, 98 yards) split the work with Sammy Morris and LaMont Jordan out. Faulk has more value in PPR leagues while Green-Ellis is the better play in standard and TD-heavy leagues.

It seems like there are a number of middle- to late-round young QBs that are thriving this year in fantasy football. Here are eight guys that are 26 years-old or younger and are all in the top 20 in total fantasy points scored in 2008. This list doesn’t even include other sub-30 guys like Eli Manning (27), Matt Schaub (27), Tony Romo (28), Drew Brees (29) and J.T. O’Sullivan (29), who are also tearing it up.

Most of these players were available in the 7th round or later in a typical fantasy draft, and one probably wasn’t drafted at all. I listed their current ranking in parenthesis next to their name and calculated what kind of numbers they’re currently on pace to finish with. Fantasy points are calculated using Antsports’ High Performance Scoring System.

Without further ado, here’s the list (in order of current fantasy ranking)…

(Note: For the “on pace” stats, “29/11″ represents 29 TD and 11 INT)

1. Aaron Rodgers (QB2)
Age: 24
On pace for: 3952 pass yards, 29/11, 280 rush yards, 8 rush TD, 23.7 FPPG
Rodgers has stepped into a very tough situation and has performed beyond even the most optimistic of expectations. Sure, the Packers are only 3-3, but Rodgers isn’t directly responsible for any of the team’s losses. He is confident in the pocket and has a strong and accurate arm. Moreover, he has a nice set of wheels to create more time to throw or to take off and try to get a first down himself. Most of us thought he’d have to take over for Brett Favre after #4 hung ‘em up (for good), and even that would have been a tough situation. But to deal with all that went on this summer and still perform so admirably once the season started – that’s truly impressive. Looking ahead, he has the Colts, Titans, Vikings and Bears, so the upcoming schedule is not easy. His schedule gets quite a bit tougher going forward, so it’s going to be interesting to see if he can carry his good start through the entire season.

Matt Ryan (301 yards, TD) looks like the real deal. It’s rare for rookie QBs to have this kind of success, and when they do, it’s a great sign for things to come…Marc Bulger (136 yards, 0 TD) didn’t shine in his first start since being benched two weeks ago. He’s just backup fodder at this point…David Garrard (276 yards, TD) is looking much better over the last three games and is working his way back into fantasy starter territory…Aaron Rodgers (208 yards, 2 pass TD, rush TD) continues to put up good fantasy numbers. Despite the sore shoulder, he threw a strike downfield to Greg Jennings for a TD…Phillip Rivers (306 yards, 3 TD) threw for three TD for the fourth time in six games this season and has developed into an every week starter…Matt Cassel (203 yards, INT) hasn’t thrown more than one TD in any game this season.