Quarterback Draft Strategy:

By: Nick Zylak

A complete record of success by year since 2015 can be found by clicking here

Quick Intro:

I highly recommend everyone reads the running back draft strategy article first. Or at the very least reads the introduction to that article. It goes over how I collected the data for this study, and what exactly the data is. It’s not the end of the world if you just skip to the findings, but I do think it’s important to understand the limitations of the underlying data. Also I think this study is really cool, and I’m sure many of you will just be interested in how it was done. Below I have a quick summary of the data if you’re on a time crunch.

Where Did the Data Come From TL:DR

  • I spent 4 months scraping ESPN public leagues
  • I removed:
    • Keeper leagues
    • In-Person drafts
    • 2 QB leagues
    • TE Premium Leagues
    • Leagues with impossible value picks (unreal steals and reaches)
    • Leagues with clear draft pick trading
  • The final dataset includes close to a million teams
  • I used a random sample of 110,000 teams from each year between 2015-2021 (770,000 teams)

When to draft your first QB:

Right off the bat we see a graph that confirms our prior beliefs. Even though some elite QB’s might grade out as 2nd or 3rd round values…you’re hurting your team by selecting them over the early round skill players (RB/WR/TE). The value grades I use for my rankings account for this by nerfing the value of early round QB’s. I make sure that they don’t get ranked in the first 2-3 rounds because the opportunity cost of selecting a QB this early is too high.

What I was interested to see in this study was the cutoff. Was it about neutral EV in the 3rd round to take a QB? Or did it start being fine in the 4th or 5th? As this first graph shows, the 4th round is the first point where it’s ok. Selecting a QB in the 4th round has lead to a perfectly average playoff rate over the last 7 years. You’re not helping your team by doing this…but you’re also not hurting it. If a guy you really like is there at a value, then it’s fine to go for it.

The optimal range for selecting QB however seems to be rounds 5 through 10. Every single one of these rounds leads to an above average playoff rate, with round 6 winning the prize as most optimal.

I actually think round 6 makes a lot of sense historically, and I do expect that trend to continue. As we’ve discussed for years now, there seems to always be a talent drop off when you enter the 5th round. We see a ton of elite players go in the first two rounds, then slightly riskier (but still elite) players in rounds 3 and 4. But every year we see a cliff in round 5! I’ve never found a scientific answer to why this happens. It could be as simple as there being 32 teams. Some teams have multiple high end fantasy options, while some have zero. Overall it likely evens out to around 1.5 per team…which comes out to 48 high end fantasy players…also known as the last pick in the 4th round of 12 team leagues. I’m sure it’s more complex than this, but if you think it over logically, that sort of makes sense.  

So then why is round 6 best for QB? Why not round 5? Well…because that level of thinking has become more popular! People understand that RB’s and WR’s see a drop off in success after round 4, so they are very easily talked into QB in round 5.

What’s interesting about this is that there isn’t really a huge difference between the mid-range QB’s historically. Sure we all have our preferences…and there will be minor differences in projections. But it’s not like QB rankings and ADP’s are bullet proof! Just look at the ADP of QB’s that went in rounds 5-10 last season. I do think that these ADP’s were relatively sharp, but look at ADP compared to the PPG for each QB. There’s no correlation! You could flip the ADP’s the other way around and it would follow the exact same trend! And yes, I know this is just for 2021…but the first graphic is telling a very similar story. This is the range where you’re likely to find QB 1’s…but exactly where the league winners will fall is far from an exact science.

So that brings us back to round 6. If people are easily talked into QB in round 5…then maybe we should just let them do so and take whoever’s left after that? I absolutely preferred Lamar/Rodgers/Dak over the rest of those QB’s last season. And I truly believe that if we played the season over 1,000 times that those three would finish ahead of this pack more often than not. But even if I’m right, the data says it doesn’t really matter. These other mid round QB’s will perform even better sometimes…and other times the difference will be so minor that you’re better off just taking the ADP discount!

Just look at Aaron Rodgers vs Matthew Stafford. Rodgers cost you a 5th round pick, was the 5th QB off the board and finished 6th in PPG. Seems like a good pick right? Yes, yes it was. He provided a slightly than better playoff rate to the teams that drafted and kept him. But let’s compare that to Matthew Stafford. Stafford cost you an 8th round pick on average, was the 10th QB off the board and finished 10th in PPG. Also seems like a good pick right? Sure was! Only this time teams that drafted and kept Stafford made the playoffs nearly 22% more often than Aaron Rodgers lead teams. Because while their difference in QB rank was 6 vs 10…there was a 3 round gap in ADP, and the 1 PPG difference in fantasy production couldn’t make up for that.  

Now, is this a cherry picked example that fits perfectly into my narrative? Yes. But I wanted to highlight my overall point, and I think that was a good way of conveying that. Not only are we wrong all the time…but even when we’re right…we can still be wrong (Rodgers did better than Stafford and yet Stafford was still more valuable)! And if we know that we’re often wrong in a particular range (Round 5-10 QB’s), then why on earth should we be the first to attack the position! Let others go first and wait for a value.

Value:

The final word of the previous paragraph might be the most important. Value. We all know that we should be patient at the QB position…and we now know that the best time to draft the position is rounds 5-10. But value has to come into play, right? You might not be trying to draft a QB early…but all of a sudden Mahomes is falling. Or maybe you love the mid-range QB’s, but so does everyone else!

To solve that problem, I’ve created a graphic to display what value the data says is needed in each round will result in a better than average playoff rate. Value here means the difference between where you’re picking and that players ADP. So if your pick is 100 and a players ADP is 88, then that’s 1 round of value. If their ADP was 76, then that’s 2 rounds of value. It works the other way as well. If you were to draft someone with an ADP of 112, then that would be a 1 round reach.

So how do you read the chart? Let’s say your in the 10th round and have yet to draft a QB. According to the data, you’ll need to get 1 round of value with that pick to make it worthwhile (increase your playoff rate). But Nick! The chart above says we increase our playoff odds by picking a QB in the 10th! Now you’re saying we need an entire round of value? Yup! That’s because the first graphic is an AVERAGE. It encompasses everyone. Teams that reached multiple rounds, teams that drafted players at ADP, and teams that got great value. So, according to the data, if you draft a QB in the 10th round at their exact ADP, you’re actually hurting your chances of making the playoffs. It’s not a massive hit (around 2%-3%) but suboptimal decisions start to add up over a draft.

This chart also highlights the danger of waiting too long. You can certainly get bailed out by finding a 4 round steal in the 15th. But what if you don’t? Then you have no choice but to take the massive hit to your playoff chances by drafting your first QB too late.

This chart again highlights the optimal range of drafting a QB. Though it does restrict that range to rounds 6-8. In those rounds you can actually reach an entire round and still come out improving your chances of making the playoffs.

When to draft your second QB:

I think this chart beautifully shows how I was wrong last year. I genuinely felt that your later round picks were best used in searching for more breakout RB’s and WR’s. I knew mid round QB was best, but I thought that, since you spend so much draft capital at the position, you should end your draft with only 1 QB. Opting to instead take one more shot at RB or WR late. The data shows that this line of thinking is wrong. As you can see with the round 0 bar (round zero on all of these graphs mean you didn’t select any more players at that position) your playoff rate is perfectly average if you draft a QB in rounds 5-10 and then zero after that. However, no matter what round you choose to take your second in, you’re better off drafting a second QB.

I also ran the results for if your first QB was in our optimal range of rounds 6-8. The results are pretty much the same as above. You’re at a neutral playoff rate if you choose to stick with one QB, but your playoff rate is above average no matter what round you select your second. Both graphs also indicate that rounds 9-12 are best when selecting your second QB. Personally, I’d stick to what we know about value. I’d wouldn’t keep an exact round in mind when selecting your second QB. Just know the general range that’s best (again rounds 9-12…with 13-15 being perfectly fine) and try to wait for a great value in that range. Especially when we know you’re playing with house money if you took your QB 1 in rounds 5-10 (with round 10 needing to be a value).

 

When to draft your third QB:

Don’t draft 3+ QB’s unless you’re in s SuperFlex league or you have 10+ bench spots and you’re scared that zero starting QB’s will be on free agency. If you’re in a 8-14 team league that starts 1 QB and has 9 or fewer bench spots, then stick with 2 QB’s. I’m part of a 16 team league and I do think it’s viable at that point to take 3. Especially if the league has deep benches. You don’t want to automatically lose your league if your QB’s get hurt and there are none on free agency. But again. If your league has 14 or fewer teams, and you only start 1 QB, then stick to 2 QB’s. I don’t care if your league always drafts a ton of QB’s. In these types of formats it’s just not worth it.