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.
Even though Bronco fans weren’t very happy with him after last week, I’m still a (fantasy) fan of Kyle Orton (#4), who faces a 49er defense that was torched by Matt Moore, David Gettis and Brandon LaFell last week. Throw in a gimpy Knowshon Moreno and I think Orton will have a big day…With Tony Romo out for most of the rest of the season, Jon Kitna (#7) takes over the Cowboys’ dynamic offense. The defense can’t really stop anyone, so no matter how much Dallas wants to run the ball, Kitna is going to have to make some plays, and he proved he could be a good fantasy QB when he was in Detroit. Besides, the Jags have given up a league-leading 16 pass TDs this season…First game back? No worries for Matthew Stafford (#12) who looked great in preseason and had a bye week to prepare. The Redskins have had trouble stopping the pass this season…Need a sleeper/waiver wire-type guy? David Garrard (#18) should have a good game against a Cowboys defense that is reeling after getting sliced and diced by Eli Manning last week.
