Thinking Outside the Box

As August stumbles upon us, I've began the process of preparing for my fantasy football draft.  I've read various ESPN articles, glanced at some ranking, and started planning out a strategy for my upcoming drafts.  I like to think outside the box for my drafts mostly because it is fun, but as I’ve learned in poker, if you have a similar strategy as everyone else then you leave your results to luck.  For instance, a few years ago I ignored starting pitchers in my fantasy baseball draft, focused on hitting early and finished with closers.  I easily won my league that season (which prompted an immediate rule change).  Prior to today, when I thought of an out of the box idea, I just tried it in a draft and hoped it worked. When my good friend Jason asked me to write an article for his blog I thought it would be a fun opportunity to actually study a new strategy which I will share with you today.  Drum roll please… Is streaming quarterbacks a viable option for fantasy football?      

Let us start with defining streaming.  Streaming is picking up a free agent player based on their opponent for that game and then dropping them the next day.  This strategy is often used in fantasy baseball with pitchers.  If a free agent pitcher is set to start against the worst hitting team in the league, it is a great option to add them to your roster.  Could we use this same strategy for quarterbacks this year?  We would focus our draft on selecting running backs (RBs) and wide receivers (WR).  Once the season begins we pick a new free agent quarterback each week depending on the team they are playing.  I will explore this technique by examining how the strategy would have worked last season.

I am going to assume a 12 person fantasy football league with standard scoring.  The top 11 quarterbacks based on ESPNs preseason rankings are unavailable for me to choose from and of the remaining QBs (free agents) I will strictly pick the quarterback who is playing against the team that allows the most passing yards per game.  For week 1 I will use the Eagles as the opposing defense since they finished 2013 with the most passing yards allowed per game.  For the remaining weeks I will use the teams that finished last in the same category for 2014. 

Top 11 Quarterbacks based on ESPN 2014 preseason rankings:

1. Peyton Manning

2. Drew Brees

3. Aaron Rodgers

4. Matt Ryan

5. Andrew Luck

6. Matthew Stafford

7. Tom Brady

8. Nick Foles

9. Cam Newton

10. Jay Cutler

11. Tony Romo

2014 Passing yards allowed per game:

32. Atlanta

31. Philadelphia

30. Chicago

Week	Defense	QB	Points
1	Philadelphia	Henne	16
2	Atlanta	Dalton	14
3	Atlanta	Glennon	9
4	Atlanta	Bridgewater	22
5	Atlanta	E. Manning	16
6	Philadelphia	E. Manning	6
7	Atlanta	Flacco	14
8	Philadelphia	Palmer	21
9	Philadelphia	Fitzpatrick	18
10	Atlanta	McCown	19
11	Chicago	Bridgewater	8
12	Atlanta	Hoyer	7
13	Atlanta	Stanton	11
14	Philadelphia	Wilson	28
15	Atlanta	Roethlisberger	14
16	Philadelphia	Griffin	7
17	Philadelphia	E. Manning	19
			249

Conclusion:

249 points ranks 13th among fantasy quarterbacks last year.  That isn’t bad considering we did not select a top 11 quarterback during the draft.  Let’s look at how many points the top 11 quarterbacks scored last year. 

1. Peyton Manning- 307

2. Drew Brees- 290

3. Aaron Rodgers- 342

4. Matt Ryan- 268

5. Andrew Luck- 336

6. Matthew Stafford- 237

7. Tom Brady- 267

8. Nick Foles- 113*

9. Cam Newton- 237

10. Jay Cutler- 244

11. Tony Romo- 258

*missed extended time

Of 12 quarterbacks (including our model QB) we finished 8/12.  However, that is not as important as the amount of points per game.  Manning, Rodgers, and Luck put up sensational numbers and were truly in a league of their own.  It would be hard to argue against taking one of those three at the beginning of a draft.  However, the 4th highest scorer was Drew Brees.  His 290 points is 41 more points than our model which if you break that down by game is 3.5ppg higher. Drew Brees’ average draft position last year was around 20, making him a second round pick.  With our model we probably would have selected Chad Henne with a 13th round pick at the earliest.  Sticking with our strategy of loading up on RBs and WRs we can compare 2^nd and 13^th round picks for both positions.  Marshawn Lynch and Demarco Murray were popular second round picks and scored 253 points and 282 points respectively.  A 13^th round pick could have landed you Tre Mason (111) and Knile Davis (95).  On average there is about a 10 ppg difference.  Wide Receivers show a similar result in that there is a big difference between the rounds.  Julio Jones (183), Brandon Marshall (113), and Jordy Nelson (221) compared to Jarrett Boykin (1) and Marvin Jones (0).   Obviously there are going to be outliers as no one would have predicted such poor seasons from Boykin and Jones, but as a whole I believe the differences at these positions are going to be greater than the QB model.

            As with most studies there are plenty of limitations.  Studying one NFL season is not nearly enough data to conclude that streaming quarterbacks is the best drafting option.  Additionally, I did not check week by week who the worst defense in the league was as this stat surely changed throughout the

season.  I also did not have the ability to check when the average fantasy league began to scoop up players. For instance, I doubt Russell Wilson would have been available late in the season.

To conclude, after conducting this short study I am more confident in trying this strategy in one of my bigger buy-in fantasy leagues.  I was very strict with the criteria of picking quarterbacks based on their opponent when in reality this does not have to be the case. I also think there are plenty of other factors that could go into play when steaming a quarterback besides the opponents passing yards allowed per game.  For instance in December I may not pick a QB who is playing outdoors. There is also another possibility you could find a 2014 version of Russell Wilson as you are not going to be "married" to any one QB.  Good luck with your draft this season and finding ways to separate yourself from your competitors!