Tony Romo owners (or those unhappy with their QB play), here’s what you do…

Referee John Parry checks on injured quarterback Tony Romo during the first half in Cowboys Stadium October 25, 2010 in Arlington, Texas.  Romo suffered a broken collar bone.  UPI/Ian Halperin Photo via Newscom

I feel your pain, Romo owners. I had him in two of my six leagues, and was ill-prepared for an injury to my star QB. In one league, I managed to pick up Josh Freeman and Jon Kitna, and in the other, I was only able to get Jason Campbell and David Garrard.

It seems like a good time to recalculate our Quarterback By Committee (QBBC) to see what QB pairs have a combined schedule that will get us through the rest of the season. It’s fine to trade away depth at RB or WR in order to land a solid QB, but in many cases it’s unnecessary. A problem at QB is one of the easiest to mask since there is so much depth at the position. In most leagues, you can get capable QB play by picking up a couple of guys on the waiver wire and using them in tandem.

To that end, I looked at the 18 (at least somewhat decent) QBs most likely to be available on your waiver wire. In order of decreasing availability (in ESPN leagues), the list includes:

Donovan McNabb (94.2)
Jay Cutler (86.4)
Brett Favre (86.2)
Carson Palmer (83.4)
Mark Sanchez (68.6)
Vince Young (62.3)
Chad Henne (60.9)
Matt Cassel (42.1)
Sam Bradford (28.6)
Matthew Stafford (27.1)
David Garrard (26.5)
Ryan Fitzpatrick (25.8)
Josh Freeman (23.1)
Matt Hasselbeck (20.8)
Alex Smith/Troy Smith (12.7)
Jon Kitna (10.9)
Bruce Gradkowski/Jason Campbell (5.1)
Matt Moore (1.8)

I tweaked Footballguys’ rest-of-year (through Week 16) projections to reflect my own ranking for each player. I then applied FBG’s strength of schedule to calculate a projected points for all the remaining games, and then used a giant Excel spreadsheet to determine the best QB pairs for the remainder of the season.

The two best QBBCs are Stafford/Cutler and Stafford/McNabb, but since Cutler and McNabb aren’t readily available in most leagues, we have to dig a little deeper. The third-highest QBBC is Stafford/Fitzpatrick, which has an average percent-owned of 26.5%, so the duo might be available in your league. Stafford/Freeman and Fitzpatrick/Freeman come in at #5 and #6, respectively.

Below is a table of all 153 possible combinations. Duos that are listed in green have an average percent-owned of less than 20% (meaning there’s a decent chance that they’re available), while duos listed in red have an average percent-owned between 20% and 40%. I included expected points (in a high performance scoring system) for Weeks 8-16 and for Weeks 9-16 in case you find this article after the Week 8 games.

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