Fantasy football traditionally doesn't prioritize elite QBs. Here's when it should

New York Times

a day ago

One of the best scenes in the movie 'Moneyball' is when Billy Beane and Peter Brand go to the parking garage to discuss Brand's work for the Cleveland front office.
Eventually, Brand goes on a tangent about his team-building philosophy. He said teams are going about it all wrong; they think about buying players when they should think about buying wins.
I've seen that movie many times, but after the most recent viewing, I had a thought. What if we used that same team-building approach for fantasy football? It was an epiphany that led to the development of my fantasy football 'win shares' system.
It starts with the idea that fantasy managers think about acquiring players. So, how do they change this approach and focus on acquiring wins instead? This shift in focus is crucial because through the lens of win shares we see there might be more value in elite performers at traditionally marginalized positions, particularly at quarterback.
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Would you believe me if I said that an elite quarterback selected in the second or third round can bring you more wins than the average third-round RB2, WR2, or TE1? If you're skeptical, let me convince you.
To establish the framework, we must first ask a simple question: What is a fantasy football win? Simply, it's a weekly point total that would give a fantasy manager a victory based on historical weekly scoring averages.
First, I looked at the scoring totals for every player over the past 10 seasons via Stathead (excluding the final week of the regular season, when fantasy seasons are usually finished) and found the median score at each position. We can then combine those median positional scores with a roster and scoring system (e.g., point-per-reception, half-point-per-reception, standard, etc.) to generate a median team score. For example, the median score for a team throughout the 17-game 2024 fantasy season was 166.8 points in an 8-team PPR league with 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 FLEX, 1 D/ST and 1 K.
On average, teams scoring more than 166.8 points per week in this league format should win, while those below that mark should lose.
This would be similar to Brand's formula for calculating the win percentage that, if reached, should net the Athletics a postseason berth. Once the win target is established, we can determine each player's contributions (or shares) to those victories. Using that scoring data over the past 10 seasons, that's what the win shares formula does.
To illustrate this further, the chart below shows the top-15 players with the most win shares in 2024 (a 12-team PPR standard roster for 14 games — the typical length of a fantasy football regular season).
As you can see, Lamar Jackson was worth 2.27 wins for fantasy teams using this format. As might be expected, quarterbacks have the highest win share totals because they tend to score the most points.
You might also notice that win shares don't look too different than the final 2024 fantasy points rankings. The key difference though, comes when you analyze player value across position groups. And it's here where we can see there should be more emphasis on quarterbacks, particularly in larger, non-PPR leagues.
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To maximize the use of this system, we need to observe the ranges of win shares for each starting player position. These numbers change notably depending on league size and scoring format, among league size and scoring types, so we'll stick to the format we've been using. Here is how each position fares in the win shares system:
The upper tier illustrates how many win shares the top third of each tier will likely generate. For instance, the upper tier of quarterbacks in this format will tend to generate 2.0 to 2.3 win shares over the course of a 14-game schedule. The middle tier is for the middle third of each position, and the lower tier is for the bottom third. From here we can see relative positional value and apply it to draft planning.
A very common question from fantasy managers illustrates the value of win shares over more traditional point-projection models: Should I draft a quarterback in the early rounds or wait?
As noted in my top-25 quarterback rankings, 2024 marked the fourth season in the past five that 10 or more quarterbacks scored 282 or more points. This depth of quality has made many fantasy managers consider waiting until later rounds to draft a starting quarterback. Win shares tells us that might be a costly mistake.
Let's begin with a reminder that PPR leagues were created in part because of the scoring disparity between quarterbacks and other positions. And this balance was achieved by awarding a point (or half point) for a reception.
This process has worked after the recent increase in high-scoring quarterbacks. For example, according to this win shares study, a WR1 is worth roughly 4.5 percent more than a QB1 in a PPR format. It's nearly the same compared to an RB1 (roughly 3.3 percent less than QB1s in a PPR format).
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That leveling makes it understandable for PPR fantasy managers to wait longer to take a starting quarterback. However, that thinking is still being applied by managers in non-PPR leagues. That's a big mistake because in non-PPR leagues there is still a huge scoring disparity for the top quarterbacks.
The win shares study shows that QB1s are worth 24.5 percent more than WR1s in a non-PPR format and 17.4 percent more than a RB1. That kind of positional advantage should result in a huge disparity in QB1 ADPs between non-PPR and PPR formats, but that isn't the case.
Here's the current overall ADP for the top five QBs in PPR (per Fantasy Pros).
Now look at their ADPs in non-PPR.
These non-PPR QBs should be going much earlier and yet they are being selected an average of 2.2 draft slots later.
This is partially the result of the rankings groupthink, and also because fantasy managers feel they need to shore up the RB position due to the lack of PPR scoring. In reality they should be thinking about how that lack of PPR scoring drives the relative value of QBs. QB1 should be at least a second-round consideration under the current ADP levels.
Long story short, if you want to win your non-PPR, don't be bashful about spending an early-round pick on a top-tier QB.
(Photo of Lamar Jackson: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
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