One of the oldest strategies in the fantasy football book is avoiding quarterbacks early in order to load up on running backs and wide receivers and then grabbing a pair of signal callers for a committee. The theory goes that each, the owner will pick the most appealing matchup and, in theory, make up the difference of not having an upper-tier quarterback. It's a great plan (and it often works), but the road to get there is pretty long.

Last week, we rolled out the 2-man QBBCs, and now we will look at 3-headed committees.

Before selecting a committee, the following must be considered:

• Availability - If we're going to wait on quarterbacks, we aren't going to get one in the early stages of our draft.
• Quality - Normally, we exclude to worst of the worst, but since we're looking at three-man committees, we will allow every starting quarterback into our study.
• Compatibility - Our whole theory is based on having as many good matchups as possible throughout the season. If three quarterbacks each have eight easy opponents but play those eight opponents the same weeks, then those three quarterbacks are not compatible. Oh, and they can't have the same bye week as that will require a fourth wheel. (If you are interested in 4-man committees, we'll have that article up next week).

OK. Let's find some 3-man QBBCs.

Availability

First, let's take a look at all 32 starting quarterbacks along with their average draft position (ADP) and their expected fantasy points per game (FPs) using David Dodds' projections and a standard scoring system.

*Note Roethlisberger. When we talk about him in this article,
we are assuming that he will miss four games and then
play after the Steelers' week-5 bye.

Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Tony Romo, Matt Schaub, and Philip Rivers will generally be off the board before we want to start drafting pieces of our committee. These guys are generally gone before the end of the fourth round, and that's simply too early. Besides, if you get one of them, you're going to start them every week and have no need for a committee. They are excluded.

Quality

As mentioned above, we aren't going to exclude anyone. However, our 3-man committee should have an anchor. After all, are we really going to be comfortable entering the season with Josh Freeman, Matt Leinart, and Kyle Orton leading our team? Not really. However, do we want to spend multiple sixth- and a seventh-round picks on our committee? Again - not really. Once we invest that heavily, we might as well spend a higher pick for one of the studs out there or just stick with the 2-man committee.

So we need to add a qualifier to our committee - exactly one quarterback will have an ADP in the sixth or seventh round.

That means our committee will combine one of these guys:

with a couple of these:

Compatibility

So we have 25 quarterbacks that are eligible for committee work. They are listed below along with their ADP and the expected fantasy points allowed per game by their opponents (Sked).

To check for compatibility, we take these quarterbacks and see how their schedules align. Omitting trios of quarterbacks with the same bye week (while also avoiding combining Roethlisberger and a pair of quarterbacks with week-4 byes) gives us 1753 possible committees. The top 100 are listed below, with each player's ADP and the trio's combined Sked.

As you can see, Alex Smith, Sam Bradford, and Josh Freeman combine to form the easiest schedule (by a point). Brett Favre, Bradford, and Freeman are next, and so on, until we get down to Carson Palmer, Matthew Stafford, and Jake Delhomme (who aren't shown in the table above due to brevity) forming the most difficult combined schedule. That's great information, but we aren't quite finished. After all, fantasy football is all about scoring points.

Factoring In Fantasy Points

The last piece of the committee puzzle is factoring in fantasy points. The table below shows the 100 committees reordered based on their expected number of FPs scored over the course of the season.

As you can see, Jay Cutler, Ben Roethlisberger, and Chad Henne combine to form the most prolific scoring duo. Cutler, Roethlisberger, and Stafford are next, and so on, until we get down to Matt Moore, Trent Edwards, and Jake Delhomme (again, not listed in the table above due to brevity) forming the lowest scoring committee. Note all of the Cutler / Roethlisberger / QB3 committees that score 311.4 fantasy points. That means the third cog isn't played at all. That's how powerful the Cutler / Roethlisberger duo is.

A More Aggressive Approach

As you know, things don't always go as planned, and ADP doesn't always hold. There will be many drafts where some of those quarterbacks that are going in the rounds six and seven last until the eighth or ninth (or even the tenth). Or maybe you just want "a lot of good quarterbacks". Whatever the case, here are the top 74 committees just utilizing multiple sixth- and seventh-round guys.

Note that there aren't many committees possible as many of these guys are off Week 8.

The Lack-of-a-solid-option Approach

On the flip side of the table above, sometimes the good quarterbacks (those with ADPs in the seventh-round or earlier) are snapped up at an alarming rate. If that occurs, the three-headed committee will lack a defined anchor. Instead, you'll definitely have to play matchups and generally hope for the best. One thing that was immediately noticeable about these trios is that Ben Roethlisberger's presence dramatically increased their potential. As a matter of fact, the top 67 trios included Roethlisberger. Here they are.

Now, if you miss out on Roethlisberger, here are the next 100 committees:

All Matt(hew) All the Time

Yeah, this is for funsies, but the geek in me thinks an all-Matt QBBC would be pretty sweet.

Of course, if you want to start a Matt every week, you might as well go for the one named Schaub because that table up there is far from appealing.

Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to gray@footballguys.com.