"QB Performance Has Been Getting Worse!"

That statement has been uttered in various football circles quite frequently in recent years, and has prompted many fantasy aficionados to place an even greater value on the top tier of quarterbacks. This, in turn, has added to the "first round quarterback" controversy that has been a firebrand discussion topic for the last few seasons.

This article is not intended to rail against the notion of taking a first-round quarterback (although my opinion on that is fairly well documented), but to discuss QB scoring in general, at least with respect to the passing game. However, some interesting facts will lend themselves to that discussion as well.   Read More >>

The following table reflects fantasy quarterback scoring based on passing numbers alone, awarding 4 points per passing TD, .05 points per yard, and -3 points per interception. The rows represent performance tiers, averaging the points per game of the QBs who fall into that particular level. For the 1-3 tier, only the top-three fantasy quarterbacks' numbers are included. The 4-5 tier only displays the average PPG of the 4th- and 5th-best fantasy quarterback of each given season. 

As a side note, the rankings are based on total points for the season. From there, the scoring is broken down to points per game to display in the tables in this article. (This is why 2005's 16-20 has higher PPG than 11-15 - there are QBs with less than 16 games in the mix). 

The first thing that jumps out is that 2004 was a banner year for more quarterbacks than just Peyton Manning, who threw a record-setting 46 touchdown passes that season. In fact, 2004 was the best season through the 11-15 tier, and ranked second in the remaining levels. 

Which brings us to our first point - Memories are short. People remember the "good ol' days" when virtually every starting QB in their fantasy league scored 16+ points per game. What tends to be overlooked is that 2004 was actually an anomaly - an unusual blip that is unlikely to be repeated, and will often be followed by a sub-par season.

In that vein, it is interesting to note that 2005 was, actually, a "down" season at most levels, followed by a 2006 season that seems to have bounced back at the upper-tiers, but slipped some at the lower levels. For many, even most individual players who post anomalistic numbers, the following year will often follow a rubberband effect, rebounding slightly to the other side of the norm - particularly when the anomaly is in a "positive" direction, such as excessive scoring or yardage. In this case, 2005 bounced just slightly below the norm.

Which brings us to our second point - Clearly, QB scoring has not degraded in recent years. In fact, it's almost disturbing just HOW consistent it has remained. If we look at standard deviation of each tier by year, only the top-3 level exceeds a standard deviation of 1.15, and even that is still less than 2 (actually, it's 1.971). In other words, from year to year, each tier has remained quite consistent, with only relatively minor fluctuations.

The argument that the top-tier of quarterbacks has gained value because QB scoring in general has gotten significantly worse over the last several years is patently unfounded.

So let's change focus just for a moment at the scoring variation by tier for each year.  The following table displays how many points per week, on average, were lost by not having a top-3 quarterback. 

Points Per Week Difference From Top-3 QB

Of course, it's clearly better to have a top-3 quarterback, but a difference of around 2 points per game is virtually negligible, and the numbers indicate that we can expect 2007 to end up in a similar fashion. For that matter, the approximately 5-ppg difference between a top-3 and any quarterback in the top-15 is arguably minimal enough to warrant a draft strategy that optimizes scoring at RB and WR starting positions and taking a quarterback later. 

But, as this article was not primarily intended as an argument to wait on drafting a starting quarterback, we'll just leave it here as a point of discussion.

Which brings us to our third, and final point - There's no such thing as impossible. Let's face it, middle- and late-rounders can, and usually do mean the difference between a trophy winner and an also-ran. If you want to draft a quarterback high to ensure that you have a top-3 or top-5 player and count on finding the sleepers or breakout players to flesh out your running backs and wide receivers, that is absolutely a strategy that can work.

It boils down to risk. Are you willing to roll the dice for the extra 5 points per game?

Nobody but you can answer that question...