Using the Late Round QB Draft Strategy in 2-QB Fantasy Football Leagues Part 2

In part one of this installment I looked at using the late round quarterback (LRQB) draft strategy in a 2-QB fantasy football league where quarterback points were valued higher than standard fantasy leagues, as I looked at using the LRQB strategy in 2-QB league where passing touchdowns were worth 6 points instead of the standard 4.

For part two of this 2-QB fantasy football LRQB draft strategy series I decided to see if the LRQB draft strategy was something that could or could not be utilized in a standard scoring 2-QB fantasy football league. Just as an example I had the LRQB team draft in the 12^th slot and below you’ll find a spreadsheet with the mock draft results comparing the LRQB and extreme LRQB draft strategy in a standard scoring 2-QB 12-team league snake style mock draft. Just like I did in part one, the players drafted were based off of 2013 MyFantasyLeague.com ADP results in 12-team leagues from March 7^th and below each drafted team is their projected points total based off of Mike Clay’s 2013 Pro Football Focus projected points totals from March 7^th as well.* The bracketed numbers are the combined quarterback points for each team.

Now that you’ve had a chance to go over the results let’s take a deeper look at them. Drafting at the tail end of a 12-team snake draft in a 4-point touchdown league and going with the flow and taking your QB1 and QB2 in line with the rest of the league resulted in a 5^th place finish. Your QB duo in that scenario would consist of QB12 (Romo) and QB24 (Locker). The extreme LRQB draft strategy that didn’t draft a QB until all the other teams drafted their QB1s and QB2s wound up with QB23 (Schaub) and QB24 (Locker) as its starting QB duo and that team ended up with the 8^th highest scoring team.

• The difference in points between the LRQB team and the highest projected scoring team was 73 points and the difference in QBs was 53 points.
• The difference in points between the extreme LRQB team and the highest scoring projected team was 165 points and the difference between the QBs was 165 points.

I mentioned this in part one but it bears repeating: five/six player mini mock teams doesn’t paint the whole picture in 2-QB leagues and you will still have other positions to fill up but it does show that drafting a quarterback really late in a 2-QB league might not be the most advantageous draft strategy.

Once again I tried out the extreme LRQB draft strategy at each draft slot and below you’ll see three spreadsheets of mini six/seven-player mock drafted teams in which the extreme LRQB draft strategy was used at each draft slot.

In a standard scoring league there was one team that did end up finishing in the money when utilizing the LRQB draft strategy and that was the team that drafted out of the 11^th slot, as it finished in 3^rd place and 133 points out of first place.

That wasn’t the best points differential though for an extreme LRQB drafted team. The extreme LRQB team that drafted first finished 5^th overall but was only 83 points behind the first place team that drafted second overall.

Here are the extreme LRQB draft strategy results for each draft slot:

1 – 5^th place
2 – 8^th place
3 – 12^th place
4 – 12^th place
5 – 12^h place
6 – 6^th place
7 – 12^th place
8 – 12^th place
9 – 6^th place
10 – 12^th place
11 – 3^th place
12 – 8^th place

In a standard scoring 2-QB league you will have more leeway to play around with your roster because the quarterback position won’t be as valuable as any other position, since passing touchdowns are worth less than rushing/receiving touchdowns but there is still a benefit to drafting a top tier quarterback early if you can and if you can draft a running quarterback that will give you even more of an advantage since you get the full 6 points for rushing touchdowns.

What you have to remember is that I mock drafted the most extreme QB heavy league possible to show you what it would be like when waiting to draft a quarterback. There won’t be a run of eleven quarterbacks drafted in every league and you will probably find like minded LRQB draft enthusiasts in your league that will wait on a quarterback too, allowing you to keep waiting yourself until the value is too good to pass up. Like I had mentioned earlier in part one of this series when looking at QB heavy points leagues you run the risk of teams drafting a back-up QB3 before you draft a QB2 because teams will be looking for that third quarterback they can play during bye weeks/use as trade bait. You have to keep that in the back of your mind when drafting in a 2-QB league.

Part three will compare the LRQB draft strategy used in both standard scoring leagues like the one in this article and the QB heavy points 2-QB leagues scoring system like the one featured in part one.

*The following players weren’t projected by Clay at the time of my writing: Reggie Bush, Greg Jennings and Wes Welker. For Welker I took his average yearly fantasy points since joining the Patriots, for Bush I used his yearly fantasy points average minus his 2010 season, in which he only played eight games, and for Jennings I used his yearly fantasy points average, minus the 2006 season where he only started 11 games, and minus the 2012 season where he only played in 8 games.

Stats used in this article courtesy of TheFakeFootball, MyFantasyLeague, ProFootballFocus Fantasy and NFLData.

Salvatore Stefanile

Salvatore Stefanile is a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and believes that 2-QB fantasy football leagues will be the future of fantasy football. You can read about his 2-QB fantasy football opinions and analysis at XNSports.com.

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