If you’re comfortable enough with your 2-QB fantasy football team, to a point where you think you’re going to be making the playoffs in your 2-QB fantasy football league, now is the time to get rid of your unneeded quarterback depth.
Back in late August, or early September, when you were drafting your 2-QB team, and strategically planned for bye weeks, you needed three quarterbacks.
Now, with most of the bye weeks out of the way it’s time to maximize the return of investment on your QB3.
There are only six teams with byes left, and the starting quarterbacks effected by the remaining byes are Tony Romo and Kellen Clemens in Week 11, and EJ Manuel, Andy Dalton, Nick Foles, and Russell Wilson in Week 12. That’s it.
If your quarterback depth is made up of quarterbacks who have already completed their byes, and you feel you like you have a solid starting quarterback combination you can roll out each week, it’s time to shed the virtual dead weight from your 2-QB team.
Whether you’re in need of a RB2, WR3, or flex player, that QB3 you’re hoarding isn’t going to help you win your league by sitting on your bench every week. While you might not want to trade the valuable quarterback depth you own because you don’t think you can get fair value in return, you have to alter that mindset.
A back-up QB3 that you never insert into your 2-QB line-up is going to score you roughly zero fantasy points every week, so why not trade him?
Once you’re on board with trading away your quarterback depth, the first step is to take a look at the rosters of your fellow 2-QBers, to see which team could use a quarterback boost.
There has to be at least one team in need of an upgrade at the quarterback positions, whether it’s because of injures, such as the team rostering Aaron Rodgers, or a team that had bad luck when it comes to drafting quarterbacks, and currently trots out Matt Ryan and Kellen Clemens every week. Target the weak.
When facilitating a trade, you should of course think about the players you want or the players you want to give up, but you should also be thinking about the teams that could use an upgrade at a certain position. If you’re willing to trade your QB3 depth, then you need to target the team with a hole at the quarterback position. That should get the trade talks rolling.
Maybe the team that needs a better QB2, is stacked at the running back or wide receiver position. If that’s the case, see if you can work out a 1-1 trade, involving your QB3. You could also try to acquire an even better player, by tacking on a player form a different position, in addition to your quarterback, to make it a 2-1 trade.
You’ll never know what you can get for your QB3 unless you try, and some 2-QB trades that revolve around the quarterback position can be pretty crazy.
Even the low-end QB2s will have value in 2-QB trades, and you might wind up trading away a Joe Flacco type for an RB2 like Zac Stacy or Steven Ridley. Even more in some cases. Desperate 2-QB owners are willing to pony up for quarterback help, if they believe that’s what their 2-QB team needs to make a playoff run.
There is a drawback to trading away your quarterback depth though, and I would be remiss not to mention it, which is you’ll leave yourself thin if at least one of your quarterbacks gets injured or is benched.
While you can’t plan for either of those occurrences to happen, they do happen in the NFL, and if you trade your bench stash QB3, you won’t be prepared to take the proper measures, if you were to lose one of your quarterbacks.
You can hold out hope a quarterback worth picking up is on the waivers, or another Mike Glennon, Case Keenum, or Scott Tolzien suddenly emerges. Other than that, you might have to trade for a QB2 yourself, or roll without one.
Fantasy football is full of risks, and it’s up to you to decide if trading your QB3 is a risk worth taking, and one you feel will put your 2-QB team over the top, and solidify it as a 2-QB fantasy championship contender. At the very least, it’s something you need to consider.
