Quarterback By Committee

  Posted 8/18 by Chase Stuart, Exclusive to Footballguys.com

Note: An earlier version of this article appeared in the Footballguys.com magazine. Since then, some small but noteworthy tweaks have been made.

Note: If you play in a start-2 QB league, there's another article on the website specifically for, called QBBC (Start 2 QBs).

For the fifth year in a row, I'm advising fantasy players to use the Quarterback-By-Committee strategy in their fantasy leagues. The first six-to-eight rounds of your draft should be used to assemble a wealth of talent at RB and WR (and occasionally, TE); it's usually not wise to waste an early draft pick on a quarterback. Your goal should be to save those high picks in your draft and still get solid fantasy production, by grabbing two or three QBs facing bad defenses every week of the year. That's what the QBBC system is all about. Grabbing three quarterbacks leaves you protected from injury and enables you to face weaker opponents. However, for those in leagues with tight roster limits, you can also get away with just two QBs.

In past years, I've simply graded the defenses and then combined the schedules to see which QBs form the best committees. As will be noted later, doing that will leave you with Jake Delhomme, Jeff Garcia and Tarvaris Jackson. Those guys aren't great QBs, but their schedules combine in a very impressive way. However, I understand that many of you will think that those QBs simply aren't good enough to win your league. To be more specific, those guys might produce the most value relative to their average draft position, but to win your league, you need lots of points. When QB10 performs like QB4, that's more valuable for fantasy leagues than when QB25 performs like QB10. As a result, I'm going to suggest you go with a two-man committee this year of mid-tier guys with great schedules, as opposed to lower-tier guys with excellent schedules.

The first key, of course, is to rank the defenses. I always start by adjusting last season's data on defenses for strength of schedule. I use two statistics - fantasy points allowed to opposing QBs and adjusted yards per attempt allowed to opposing QBs. This is a complicated process, which involves iterating strength of schedule adjustments many times for both QBs and defenses until reaching true ratings for each QB and defense. I recommend using a computer.

Fantasy points allowed (FPA) to opposing QBs is an obvious statistic to use; adjusted yards per attempt (AY/A) needs some explanation. The statistic is derived by taking total passing yards, and adding 10 yards per touchdown and subtracting 45 yards per interception; then those adjusted yards are divided by total attempts. This gives an NFL ranking of the pass defenses, which is important to have. Some teams gave up lots of rushing yards to opposing QBs, while others faced a ton of pass attempts last year. This would overstate their attractiveness to opposing QBs, because rushing FPs allowed to opposing QBs and pass attempts allowed aren't consistent from year to year. Space constraints prevent me from explaining each team's adjustment, but careful study (with the help of Footballguys.com defensive experts Jene Bramel and Jeff Pasquino) was done on each team's offseason to adjust their 2007 defensive numbers. The accompanying table shows each team's defense's 2008 projected rating and rank, along with the 2007 rankings of the defenses in fantasy points allowed and adjusted yards per attempt allowed.

What do those numbers mean? The '3.63' in front of the Buccaneers means I expect fantasy QBs to score 3.63 fewer FP/G when playing Tampa Bay than when playing a league average defense. On the other hand, starting your QB against the Lions and Saints should once again be fantasy gold this season, as both teams should see lots of high scoring games in 2008 (Note: This doesn't mean I've done a 180 on advocating the Saints as part of my defensive team by committee; New Orleans can allow a ton of passing yards and still be a good fantasy defense in most leagues, especially when playing weak opponents.) Finally, when the QB is at home against the opponent, 0.3 FP are subtracted from their score; when the QB is on the road, 0.3 FP are added to their total score. So playing @Miami is graded as -0.60; playing home against Miami is -1.20.

The QBBC Duo

In recent years, I've advocated grabbing three low end QBs. This year, I think taking two mid-level QBs will work better. I used David Dodds' offensive projections for each team QB, and then came up with a predicted fantasy performance by each team's QB in each week, based on strength of schedule. I then matched up every team with every other team, to come up with 496 potential QB pairs. Because the top pairs will be the ones with the highest ADPs, I eliminated all pairs that had a QB with an ADP in the top ten. The fantasy duo that best represents high upside, a relatively low ADP, and a terrific combined schedule is David Garrard and Aaron Rodgers.

The Combined Schedule

• Week 1: Green Bay vs. Minnesota (-0.60)
• Week 2: Green Bay @ Detroit (-3.68)
• Week 3: Green Bay vs. Dallas (0.03)
• Week 4: Jacksonville vs. Houston (-1.44)
• Week 5: Green Bay vs. Atlanta (-2.44)
• Week 6: Jacksonville @ Denver (-1.24)
• Week 7: Green Bay vs. Indianapolis (3.15)
• Week 8: Jacksonville vs. Cleveland (-2.79)
• Week 9: Jacksonville @ Cincinnati (-1.63)
• Week 10: Jacksonville @ Detroit (-3.68)
• Week 11: Green Bay vs. Chicago (0.17)
• Week 12: Green Bay @ New Orleans (-3.07)
• Week 13: Jacksonville @ Houston (-0.84)
• Week 14: Green Bay vs. Houston (-1.44)
• Week 15: Jacksonville vs. Green Bay (-1.23)
• Week 16: Green Bay @ Chicago (0.77)

Nine of the games you'll start Rodgers; seven weeks you'll play Garrard. For Rodgers, six of his nine games are at home, and two of his three road games are against the worst two defenses in the league (if you play your championship in week 17, note that Rodgers has a juicy matchup against the Lions). Two of his toughest defenses - Indianapolis and Dallas - have great offenses, and those games could easily turn into high-scoring shoot-outs.

While Rodgers schedule has some nice games, Garrard's schedule is much better. He's got two games against bottom three defenses, two more against the Texans, a team both he and Quinn Gray played very well against last year. Finally, he's got three games against below average pass defenses in Denver, Green Bay and Cincinnati.

David Garrard - Draft (in 12 team league): Round 8

I became President of the David Garrard fan club following this article back in June. The short summary: after adjusting for games played (Garrard missed a bunch of partial and full games last year) and strength of schedule (Garrard played a very difficult passing schedule), Garrard ranked as the fourth best fantasy QB last year. In other words, if Garrard had stayed healthy, and played a league average schedule, he would have been a stud QB last year.

This year, we're only playing him when he faces some of the worst opponents in the league. And nothing about Garrard's body type or style of play makes me think he's injury prone. In short, he's close to a stud QB on an offense that completes a lot more long passes than you'd expect (he ranked fourth in yards per completion) and he also has good rushing numbers. He's still improving as a QB, and his team added a couple of decent receivers in the offseason. There's nothing but upside with taking Garrard as half of your QBBC.

Aaron Rodgers - Draft (in 12 team league): Round 10

The Green Bay Packers team QB ranked 5th among the 32 teams last year. From WR1 to WR4, the Packers might have the deepest set of pass catchers in the league. Further, Donald Lee (TE) and Ryan Grant (RB) are solid receiving targets, as well. The bottom line? Yes, Rodgers is inexperienced, but he's coming into an absolutely terrific situation. Chad Pennington and Philip Rivers each sat on the bench for two years and then astounded everyone with terrific first seasons starting. Rodgers has been riding the bench for three years, but he's in a perfect situation to succeed. Don't forget the Packers still own one of the league's best offensive lines. For the most part, non-rookies replacing QBs in good offenses have done very well in recent years (Carson Palmer, Marc Bulger, Philip Rivers, Daunte Culpepper), and Rodgers has looked good so far in the preseason.

Obviously he's got a big task following Favre. But don't forget that Young was terrific following Montana, and Garcia was very good following Young. Many more QBs than you might expect have succeeded following star QBs - Boomer Esiason (Ken Anderson), Marc Bulger (Kurt Warner), Ken Stabler (Daryle Lamonica), John Hadl (Roman Gabriel), John Brodie (Y.A. Tittle), Dan Fouts (John Hadl) and Neil Lomax (Jim Hart) all had great careers despite following another great QB. Rodgers doesn't have to look like Jay Fiedler and Brian Griese. Even Vince Young did very well his first year following Steve McNair. Further, the Favre trade should help Rodgers more than if he was still sitting on his couch - there won't be any articles written about how the Packers should go out and sign Favre.

Other Pairs

Obviously, you might not be able to land both guys in your draft. Here's a list of the top 25 duos, when combining strength of schedule and QB ability, after eliminating all QBs projected to be drafted among the top ten. The first column is a rough projection of how many FPs the duo might yield this year:

Going with a Trio

Normally, I advise going with a combination of three lower ranked QBs. You can get a much better combined schedule if you use three QBs and you open yourself up to all QBs outside the top 10, and not just the ones in the QB10-20 range. I think going with three lower ranked QBs is a good strategy, but I would prefer to go with Garrard and Rodgers. Different strokes for different folks and all that, so here's a list of the top 100 committees if you are looking purely at strength of schedule. The first column shows the number of FPs below average the defenses those QBs face on the combined schedule.

Obviously, Carolina-Minnesota-Tampa Bay yields an incredible schedule. The average opponent is 2.77 FP/G below average! That's like playing a home game against the Browns every week. I've got no doubt that drafting those three QBs and playing them based on their matchups will yield good results. You'll probably end up getting borderline top 12 production from three very late picks. On the other hand, for two mid-round picks (Garrard/Rodgers), I think you'll get closer to top-five production. If you think you can do a lot with those mid-round picks, then by all means avoid the Rodgers/Garrard combo and go after Delhomme, Garcia and Tarvaris Jackson.

Overall Schedule Strength

Even if you don't believe in committees, or have no preset draft plan, it pays to know how tough of a schedule each team has. Philip Rivers, for example, might be someone you want to pass on this year. In fact, three of the AFC West teams have the hardest schedules for fantasy QBs. Meanwhile, look at the NFC East - those four teams all have schedules that rank among the easiest six in the league for fantasy QBs.

Play in a Start 2-QB League?

With a growing number of leagues requiring fantasy teams to start 2 QBs, how does strength of schedule come into play? Check out my other article, on QBBC for Start-2-QB leagues.