FANTASY FOOTBALL ARTICLES

Repeatability - Quarterbacks
David Dorey
August 15, 2006
Quarterbacks | Running Backs | Wide Receivers | Tight Ends | Kickers

Each season the cheatsheet and rankings are prepared and the greatest single indicator of a player's success is always what they accomplished the previous season. Freshest on the mind, easiest to remember and hey - it's only nine months since they've been playing. But how often do players actually repeat great fantasy performances? How much stock can we put in the previous season? If there are players who demonstrate "repeatability", who are they and how reliable are they?

All player listings to follow were created using the standard performance scoring as seen on The Huddle statistics. Points were determined awarding 1/20 per pass yard, 3 point passing TD's and 6 Point rushing TD's with 1/10 rushing yardage. While other scoring scenarios will have different rankings to some degree, the repeatability of the players remains intact.

	2001	Pts	2002	Pts	2003	Pts	2004	Pts	2005	Pts
1	K Warner	297	D Culpepper	314	D Culpepper	269	D Culpepper	351	C Palmer	258
2	J Garcia	283	R Gannon	291	P Manning	252	P Manning	323	T Brady	254
3	P Manning	272	M Vick	283	M Hasselbeck	246	D McNabb	275	M Vick	238
4	S McNair	260	P Manning	268	T Green	242	T Green	260	P Manning	237
5	A Brooks	259	D Bledsoe	257	M Bulger	241	J Plummer	256	E Manning	235
6	B Favre	257	A Brooks	254	S McNair	231	B Favre	251	D Bledsoe	228

7	R Gannon	255	S McNair	249	J Garcia	229	J Delhomme	248	D Brees	225
8	D McNabb	250	T Brady	244	A Brooks	228	A Brooks	247	M Hasselbeck	224
9	K Stewart	239	J Garcia	244	B Johnson	225	M Bulger	238	K Collins	219
10	J Fiedler	232	T Green	239	B Favre	225	M Vick	227	B Favre	218
11	D Culpepper	216	D McNabb	222	J Kitna	222	T Brady	225	T Green	218
12	T Green	211	B Favre	222	T Brady	217	D Brees	223	J Delhomme	216

13	M Brunell	208	K Collins	217	D McNabb	214	M Hasselbeck	210	J Plummer	213
14	K Collins	205	J Plummer	202	Q Carter	206	D Carr	206	M Brunell	200
15	J Plummer	205	Pennington	200	J Delhomme	185	K Collins	198	A Brooks	194
16	B Griese	197	J Kitna	195	T Maddox	184	V Testaverde	198	S McNair	191
17	D Flutie	196	D Brees	190	B Leftwich	169	J Harrington	184	G Frerotte	178
18	B Johnson	196	B Johnson	188	J Harrington	169	B Leftwich	182	D Carr	173
19	C Weinke	188	Hasselbeck	185	K Collins	165	D Bledsoe	173	B Roethlisberger	169
20	T Couch	174	B Griese	178	J Plummer	161	C Palmer	171	D McNabb	158
21	J Kitna	170	T Maddox	175	D Bledsoe	152	B Roethlisberger	165	B Leftwich	144
22	E Grbac	166	M Brunell	172	J Blake	148	C Pennington	163	K Warner	143
23	T Brady	164	T Couch	168	C Pennington	137	B Volek	159	M Bulger	133
24	C Chandler	162	D Carr	165	J Fiedler	137	B Griese	158	T Dilfer	127
The Following season:			Remained Top 6		Became 7-12		Became 13-24		Not in next Top 24

Top 6 became	Avg.	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Top 6	2	2	2	2	3	1
7 to 12	2	3	3	1	1	2
13 - 24	1	1	0	1	1	2
Duds	1	0	1	2	1	1
7 to 12 became	Avg.	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Top 6	2	1	2	2	1	2
7 to 12	2	0	2	3	2	2
13 - 24	1	2	0	1	0	1
Duds	2	3	2	0	3	1
Top 6 was	Avg.	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Top 6	2	2	2	2	3	1
7 to 12	2	1	2	2	1	2
13 - 24	1	2	0	1	1	2
24+	1	1	2	1	1	1

The Top 6 each year always had two returnees but last year injuries really shook up the top with Culpepper, McNabb and bulger all missing time. The top tier fell to only one repeater - Peyton Manning. The tumble downward by other quarterbacks were mostly from missing time while injured rather than by bad play.

Thanks to those injuries, the top ten had three players who were there for the first time - Palmer, Brady and Eli Manning. And Bledsoe had not been there for many years. That massive turnover leads to uncertainty this year and as a result the quarterbacks have been falling deeper than ever in most fantasy drafts.

Every season, there is one and possibly two players in the 7 to 12 range that rise up into the top 6. Conventional wisdom loves Hasselbeck as the most likely to advance to the top tier this season. Since two players almost always rise, Hasselbeck appears almost as a lock to be one of them.

	Repeat Reliability	2002	2003	2004	2005
1	P Manning	4	2	2	4
2	T Green	10	4	4	11
3	T Brady	8	12	11	2
4	D Culpepper	1	1	1	31
5	A Brooks	6	8	6	15
6	M Vick	3	21	10	3
7	B Favre	12	10	7	10
8	C Palmer			20	1
9	M Hasselbeck	19	3	14	8
10	J Delhomme		15	8	12
11	D McNabb	11	13	3	20
12	M Bulger		5	9	23
13	D Bledsoe	5	21	19	6
14	J Plummer	14	20	5	13
15	S McNair	7	6	32	16
16	D Brees	17	25	12	7
17	B Leftwich		17	18	21
18	B Roethlisberger			21	19
19	D Carr	24	31	13	18
20	C Pennington	15	23	22	50
21	K Warner	41	47	30	22

The table to the right shows the year end ranking for each of the listed players and is sorted in a manner to suggest the most reliable "repeaters" in fantasy drafts over the last five years. It's obvious that Manning is in a class of his own now that Culpepper tanked last year and was injured and now goes to a new team still without Randy Moss or OC Scott Linehan. With Palmer, McNabb, Culpepper and Bulger returning from injury, there has never been more risk at the top than ever before and with that the rare consistency of Manning propels him into being considered as the main star of the position.

Top 12
Quarterback Repeatability
66% - 0%

Over the last five seasons, the chance that a quarterback was in the Top 12 the previous season and returned to the Top 12 the next year was 6 of 12 on average. Since you only start one quarterback in virtually every league, this is an important characteristic to remember when deciding when to take your starter. As the yearly results show - there is not a lot of difference between the 7th and 12th best player either. Other than Manning and Brady, no other quarterbacks have historic consistency and yet return to a similar situation this year. Rest assured that overall fantasy points by quarterbacks this year will be similar to those of prior seasons. Getting that player right will be a challenge and beyond Uber-Manning, there are other positions that make more sense to select in the initial rounds of fantasy drafts.