FANTASY FOOTBALL ARTICLES

Other Positions:  Quarterback  |  Running Back  |  Wide Receiver

Every summer there is conventional wisdom that is expressed in the average draft positions (ADP) that you see on the internet and in magazines. They are merely the collections of numerous drafts to see where, on average, players are taken. Certainly every draft has at least the team owners to make them unique and there are plenty of scoring systems out there as well. You cannot take anything too finite from the results of averaging but comparing that to what actually happened last year using a standard fantasy scoring system gives an interesting view. It shows how well, on average, we all drafted against what happened to those players.

Just to see if there is anything in past history to help us not repeat a bad season, I've taken the liberty of assembling the Average Draft Positions from the last three years for quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers and compared each to what happened that season. For ease of viewing, I have highlighted in green or red which players were respectively very good or very bad draft picks.

What Can We Learn?

2009 was a highly uncharacteristic season in that it had so much passing - ten players passed for over 4000 yards when six is more common. As you can see above, everyone pretty much got their quarterback pick right. The only real value was Brett Favre only because he waited until so late to play his ADP numbers were low. For the most part, your quarterback roughly did what you expected last year and no one took a big fall that mattered.

This was in direct contrast to 2008 when both Tom Brady and Carson Palmer were injured. Big Ben Roethlisberger did not match his big touchdown totals of the previous year and fell and as we tried to warn you, Derek Anderson was not going to repeat his surprising 2007 season. 2008 was a horrible season for quarterbacks and yet there were a few very nice picks to have made - Jay Cutler, Philip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers and Kurt Warner all were drafted as backups and yet turned in top ten numbers as big difference makers.

The previous year was when Tom Brady went nuts but other than picking Marc Bulger, your first round quarterback probably did okay for you. 2007 was another big passing year and the top ten quarterbacks almost all responded well while your backup was likely a dog.

The best element to take from this is that everyone will feel pretty comfortable with their quarterback after such a remarkable 2009 season but that had to be an aberration. Don't wait too late to get your starter - usually the top eight are followed by a big step down.

Short of injury, quarterbacks are one of the more predictable positions. There is plenty of rising and falling each year of course but overall, your quarterbacks probably have not hurt you if they remained healthy. That makes taking one earlier than a risky back or receiver to make more sense.

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JC

Posted Jul 10, 2010 5:20am EDT

I think this trend especially holds true when you factor in the popular "RBBC" we are seeing teams adopt. Gone are the days of teams hitching their wagons to one horse of a running back and letting him get all the carries and production. This makes the QB position that much more crucial to success in my opinion.

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