Welcome to the 2006 Quarterback By Committee (QBBC) article. Many fantasy players have used the QBBC system in recent years with great success, and I think 2006 could be the best year yet.

In 2004 and 2005, I argued that spending an early draft pick on a consensus top 10 QB just isn't worth it. The first six rounds should be used to assemble a wealth of talent at RB and WR (and occasionally, TE), not on a quarterback. While quarterbacks aren't interchangeable, there are two big reasons why you should wait on drafting them. One, the difference in fantasy points (FPs) between a quarterback that ranks 6th and one that ranks 11th usually isn't much - last year it was just one point per game. Two, QBs are pretty unpredictable because they're often the products of their schedules. Most QBs aren't difference makers in fantasy football, and usually perform pretty close to league average once you adjust for strength of schedule. For example, Eli Manning, Matt Hasselbeck and Drew Bledsoe - the fourth, fifth and sixth ranked QBs last year - were barely better than the average fantasy QB in 2005, after adjusting for games played and strength of schedule.

Now imagine if you could save those high picks and STILL get great fantasy production, because you've got two or three QBs facing bad defenses every week of the year. That's what the QBBC system is all about. I strongly advise taking three QBs, especially this year. Having three quarterbacks leaves you much better protected in the case of injury, and also will enable you to face weaker opponents. This year in particular, many of the easiest schedules belong to QBs that you wouldn't use in your QBBC (Peyton Manning or Kelly Holcomb, for example), so to get a great schedule you really need to use three players.

The first key, of course, is to rank the defenses. I've been doing lots of 'rearview SOS' work at the QB and RB positions - this just means adjusting the 2005 data for strength of schedule. So I figure, why not do it for defenses? I'll spare you the lengthy details of what I did (for a few minutes - the explanation for 2005 AFPAR is at the end for those interested) and just provide you the rankings.

'06 FPR = My projected rank of the defenses for this season
'05 AFPAR = 2005 Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed to opposing QBs Rank
'05 Y/AA = 2005 Yards per Attempt Allowed to opposing QBs Rank
'05 FPAR = 2005 Fantasy Points Allowed to opposing QBs Rank

I ranked the defenses based on their 2005 adjusted fantasy points allowed, but with liberal movements based on how many yards per pass a defense allowed. There's usually just as strong a correlation between how a defense ranks in fantasy points allowed in one season, and how it ranked in either yards per attempt allowed or straight fantasy points allowed in the prior one. At the end, I factored in the offseason transactions.

This year was an odd one, because lots of the teams at the bottom of that list had strong offseasons. Thanks to Footballguys.com IDP experts Jene Bramel, Bob Magaw and Aaron Rudnicki who helped me sort that list out. A team like Houston made some nice moves, but Kansas City, St. Louis, New England, Miami and Tennessee seem poised to play a bit better as well. One thing's for sure: all signs point to the 49ers being ugly against the pass once again this year.

Can you really predict the defenses anyway?

Every year after this article is published, readers chime in wondering if it's possible to predict which defenses will be good and which will be bad with any degree of accuracy. Just recently, I got into a discussion on the Footballguys.com message board with a subscriber named Jesse Chasman, who thought preseason SOS was essentially meaningless. He told me he has a background that uses statistics and would run some tests if I gave him my old predictions. I pointed him to my QBBC articles the last two years, and here's what he sent back to me:

I tested your preseason rankings of SOS for 2004 and 2005, comparing them with the final results of those two years. It is not adequate enough to simply line up the predicted rankings and actual outcomes to arrive at a correlation-that only gives us an idea of how well the rankings correlate. Instead, what we want to know is if the difficulty of a 16-game schedule across 32 teams can be predicted by these rankings. To do this, I set up four schedule grids, comparing the average SOS across (a) predicted and (b) actual rankings for the past two years, and ran regression analyses.

Much to my surprise, the data supported the validity of SOS, and by extension, your writings on QBBC. The correlation between the predicted SOS and actual SOS across the past two years is .59. The effect size (R^2) of this relationship was .35. In the world of scientific research (and for your purposes of sifting through schedule strength), this represents a very strong relationship.

Consider this final note. If you take your predictions of the 10 easiest and the 10 most difficult schedules over the past two years, the correlation between prediction and reality reaches .79. The effect size of the predictions nearly doubles to explain 62% of the variance in the final rankings. Contrary to what I had thought, the predictive value of SOS is reliable and robust. While there will always be scattered exceptions to the rule, the data overwhelmingly demonstrate a closely-tethered relationship between the preseason and final SOS rankings.

Jesse's study jives with some of the less sophisticated models I've used in past years to test my predictions. I included it in the hopes that those readers who are doubtful on the predictability of defenses will give the QBBC system another shot. And now I won't make you guys wait any longer…

The QBBC Trio

The Jets, Bills, Bears and 49ers all have very easy projected schedules against the pass - but none of them have very good fantasy QBs, either. Indianapolis, Miami and Seattle are in many of the top combos too, which is equally useless - those teams have QBs that get drafted in the first few rounds. The quarterbacks I'm looking for should have an average draft position (ADP) lower than QB10.

Fortunately, there is a group of five QBs with nice schedules, and pairing any three looks promising. I've included the projected 'points' for the combined schedules of each trio. (For those unfamiliar with the 'points' system, a QB receives 32 'points' when his team faces the worst defense - the 49ers - and 1 'point' when he faces the Bears. All 'points' totals correspond to the defensive rankings in the above chart.)

Because I really like Philip Rivers, Aaron Brooks, and playing the 49ers in weeks 1 and 16, my idea QBBC would be Rivers, Brooks and Kurt Warner.

The Combined Schedule

• Week 1: San Francisco (32)
• Week 2: Tennessee (30)
• Week 3: St. Louis (24)
• Week 4: @Atlanta (10)
• Week 5: @San Francisco (32)
• Week 6: @San Francisco (32)
• Week 7: @Kansas City (26)
• Week 8: St. Louis (24)
• Week 9: @Seattle (13)
• Week 10: @Cincinnati (29)
• Week 11: @Kansas City (26)
• Week 12: @Minnesota (23)
• Week 13: Houston (31)
• Week 14: @Cincinnati (29)
• Week 15: Kansas City (26)
• Week 16: @San Francisco (32)

Kurt Warner
Draft in: Round 8 (ADP: QB13, pick 93)
Start: Weeks 1, 3, 4, 12, 16 (San Francisco, St. Louis, @Atlanta, @Minnesota, @San Francisco)

Warner and Josh McCown each had a 350-yard passing day against the 49ers last year, and Warner also played very well in both games against St. Louis. Warner's wide receivers, Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald, are probably the best pair in the league and would make any QB a strong fantasy player. The additions of Edgerrin James and Leonard Pope should make the Cardinals offense even tougher to stop in 2006.

Dennis Green loves to pass and is great coach for your fantasy QB. Warner topped 250 yards in every complete game he played in last season. The Arizona Team QB ranked fourth in FPs, behind only the Patriots, Colts and Bengals. Against the weak defenses highlighted above, Warner should be a great fantasy start.

The presence of Matt Leinart and Warner's ugly injury history have combined to lower Warner's perceived value in the fantasy market. But you don't have to sweat him being on the bench for the second half of the season: Philip Rivers plays Oakland in week 12 and Aaron Brooks plays KC in week 16. For the first four weeks, though, you'll have what could be a top 5 QB. And if Warner's healthy in week 16, and the 49ers are as bad as we all expect, that could be enough to win you a Super Bowl.

Aaron Brooks
Draft in: Round 9 (ADP: QB16, pick 104)
Start: Weeks 5, 9, 11, 13, 14 (@San Francisco, @Seattle, @Kansas City, Houston, @Cincinnati)

Aaron Brooks was a top-10 fantasy QB in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Last year, with Deuce McAllister and Joe Horn sidelined with injuries, you'd have expected Brooks to drop off quite a bit. But it turns out his 16th place finish last year was also a product of an extremely difficult schedule. Even with all the injuries, Brooks ranked in the top 10 after adjusting for strength of schedule and games played.

Now instead of passing to Aaron Stecker and Donte' Stallworth, Brooks teams up with LaMont Jordan and Randy Moss. That's a pretty big upgrade for a player that was pretty good to begin with. Don't underestimate Brooks' talent or his arm, and Oakland ranked 9th in passing yards with Kerry Collins and a banged up Randy Moss in 2005.

Brooks should excel against the 49ers and Texans; he's always done well against bad defenses. With a healthy Randy Moss, Brooks could post his best year yet. Even if he doesn't finish top 10 - and his current ADP is QB16 - he'll have strong numbers in the weeks you play him. Also, don't worry about four games on the road. From 2002 to 2004, Brooks scored 450 FPs in 24 road games, and 450 FPs in 24 home games. And last year, despite the bad season and all the injuries, Brooks ranked fourth in fantasy points scored on the road among all QBs.

Philip Rivers
Draft in: Round 10 or 11 (ADP QB22, Pick 137)
Start: Weeks 2, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15 (Tennessee, @San Francisco, @Kansas City, St. Louis, @Cincinnati, Kansas City)

Last year, Drew Brees was the star of my QBBC. I'm picking the new Chargers' QB in 2006, and I couldn't be happier about it. Rivers has a better arm than Brees, and has been praised for being a better leader too. He has a great release, exceptional accuracy and is a true student of the game. He also has the league's best TE and best RB at his disposal.

I expect Rivers to have a very good season, and he could finish in the top 10 all by himself. When you start him in these friendlier games, he should perform like a stud QB. The games against the Rams, Chiefs and Bengals could turn into shoot-outs, and the Titans and 49ers don't have the talent to keep the Chargers from piling on the points.

In Keenan McCardell and Eric Parker, Rivers will have four of the league's softest hands as targets. Don't forget that San Diego has ranked among the top five leaders in points scored in both 2004 and 2005. Rivers may be inexperienced but he was handed the keys to a machine that can nearly drive itself. Like Daunte Culpepper, Chad Pennington and Steve McNair before him, I don't expect Rivers to take long to get acclimated to the NFL.

If any of those QBs are gone, Brett Favre (ADP QB18, pick 112) and Byron Leftwich (ADP QB19, pick 117) should be available and are fine replacements in the committee.

The Top Fifteen QB Pairs

Some of you won't be interested in grabbing three QBs, or play in leagues with tight roster requirements and small benches. Here's a list of the top fifteen pairs of QBs, after eliminating any pair which included any of the top 10 QBs (Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer, Tom Brady, Matt Hasselbeck, Eli Manning, Donovan McNabb, Marc Bulger, Daunte Culpepper, Jake Delhomme and Drew Bledsoe).

Stud QBs

Despite all this, I know some people will still want to draft that stud QB. Or maybe he'll just fall into your lap and his value is too good to pass up. So here's a list of the top QBs that match up - in terms of schedule strength - with the stud QBs. Note: I eliminated the other nine QBs in the top 10 when looking for pairs, so you won't see Donovan McNabb and Peyton Manning on this list even though they have a great combined schedule.

QB schedules

I'll close here with a list showing how many 'points' each team's schedule has. In other words, the Jets - and Chad Pennington for now - have the easiest schedule of all QBs in the NFL. Meanwhile, the four most difficult schedules belong to the four teams in the NFC South, so I might be a little wary of drafting those QBs.

Adjusting the '2005 FP allowed to opposing QBs' team rankings for strength of schedule

Here's what I did. I started with the basic FP allowed data for all team defenses. This is pretty easy to calculate - you sum the FP totals for every QB that played a particular defense. To adjust for SOS is a bit more complicated. First we need to rate the QBs, which I had done for the rearview SOS article. I used Fantasy Points per Adjusted Game to rate the quarterbacks. The next step is to calculate how many games a QB played against a defense, using the partial games formula from the same article. Finally, you multiply each QB's FP/AdjG by the number of partial games he played against each defense. This gives you how many points he would have been expected to score. When you sum that data for each QB a defense faced, you get the total number of points you would "expect" a defense to allow.

A quick example. Last year, Mike Vick averaged 18.9 FP/AdjG last year while Matt Schaub averaged 22.8 FP/AdjG. Vick played 36% of the game in week 4 against Minnesota and Schaub played the remaining 64%. You would then "expect" Minnesota to allow 21.4 FPs that week (they actually allowed 19.8). If you do this for every week and every defense, you have expected results.

We'll stay with the Vikings as the example. Minnesota allowed 278 FPs to QBs last year, but was expected to allow 252 FPs. The league average team would have been expected to allow 261 FPs last year, making Minnesota's schedule 3% easier than the average. If you increase the Vikings' actually FPs allowed by 3%, you get 288 FPs. That's how many Adjusted FPs Minnesota allowed, to compensate for the Vikings easy schedule. Those additional points moved Minnesota's defensive ranking from 22nd to 27th.