Streaming QB Strategy (and Week 1 choices) (1 Viewer)

[Gravity]

Intro:

I have decided to use the "Streaming QB" strategy this year. This is not exactly QBBC - you are not juggling between 2 specific QB's planned in advance. Instead, it works just like Streaming Defense. You play the waiver wire each week looking for the best QB matchup for the QB's available and pick them up.

What initially caused me to try this strategy was an epiphany I had while browsing some fantasy mag. I was looking at PPG for QB's in 2013 and what I noticed was amazing. It basically showed that the PPG separating between QB 4 and QB 17 was insignificant. I don't remember the exact numbers but the difference was miniscule between the waiver wire QB's and those drafted in the mid rounds.

I did further research and uncovered the following:

- There is a tiny PPG difference between all but the top 2 or 3 QB's & QB 12

- Bottom-tier QB's will score almost IDENTICAL numbers to even elite QB's when they go against bad defenses! This is a huge point.

- Streaming QB does not rely on per-determined yearly projections that are invariably always wrong (except for maybe some elite QB's). In other words, most will draft a QB based on what they project in advance. Those projections are often wrong. Streaming QB relies instead on current season success and current defensive rankings. So you are not "locked-in" to bad projections.

Tied in with this last point is that once someone drafts a QB in the mid-rounds they almost never replace that QB. They ride that QB year-round. If someone drafted Luck in the 6th round they will almost never replace him with a waiver wire QB. They just ride him. This is anecdotal but I'm willing to bet this is almost universally true. Unless the QB taken has completely self-destructed they will just set-and-go their drafted QB.

- We are always looking for strategies to separate us from the pack. As we all lament, everyone and his sister can show up to the draft with an ESPN cheat sheet and draft just as strongly as someone who spent months preparing. However, not many are prepared to go streaming QB as that takes not only extra research but also some cojones to rely on the waiver wire instead of their brand-name QB. How many guys are really prepared to start Jake Locker when the match up seems right.

- Utilize the 9th man. What I mean is that roster space is valuable. By streaming, we are basically including into our bench all QB's on the wire. It effectively expands our bench. This works with QB's more than other positions (save Defense) because there are so many QB's on the wire that are startable. Remember the original points. A low-tier QB going against a bad D can score close to elite level QB's. We also can focus all our early and mid round draft picks on WR & RB which are more difficult to find on the wire.

For more info on the above read:

http://www.lateroundqb.com/why-you-should-draft-your-quarterback-late-every-single-year/

https://www.numberfire.com/nfl/news/2638/using-firefactor-to-dominate-your-fantasy-league-quarterback-edition

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2013/04/09/roster-maximization-the-case-for-quarterback-streaming/

http://www.lateroundqb.com/quarterback-streaming-position-predictability/

 

[Gravity]

So with that all said - I am putting my money where my keyboard is.

I drafted Carson Palmer in the 3rd to last round targeting his game vs the chargers.

Other good options week 1: Shaun Hill vs Minny, Fitz vs Wash

I am eyeing Jake Locker next week versus Dallas.

 

[ImTheScientist]

If you are in a 12 team league or higher this isn't a viable option. Assuming it is..... Whats the upside to this? Assuming a 20 round draft why not spend a 13th round pick on a guy like Rivers or Romo? Please do post your starter every week prior to the week being played and then the results. I would be interested to see.

 

[Grahamburn]

Don't most people play in leagues where waiver moves cost $$$? I can't imagine being in a league where any jabroni can just pick up the flavor of the week QB, D/ST, etc for free.

 

[Gravity]

If you are in a 12 team league or higher this isn't a viable option. Assuming it is..... Whats the upside to this? Assuming a 20 round draft why not spend a 13th round pick on a guy like Rivers or Romo? Please do post your starter every week prior to the week being played and then the results. I would be interested to see.

Rivers and Romo are not available in the 13th round.

My goal is to post my results weekly. Who I started and how I did against my opponent.

 

[Craig_MiamiFL]

Best of luck with this

Really don't think this is viable with a 12 team format. Just took a peak at a league of mine. 21 starting NFL QB's (outside my team) are currently rostered. Best of luck picking from a limited selection of bad QB's. (And with waivers -- and bye weeks -- you're assuming no one else makes a successful claim on one of them. And limiting your choice(s) even that much more.

12 team league: Streaming defenses and/or kickers work because normally only 10-11 of them are rostered at a time.

 

[shadyridr]

Geno smith vs oak

 

[Ted Lange as your Bartender]

You really have to know your league tendencies for this to work. In my 12 team league, once injuries strike and sleeper RBs/WRs don't pan out, even marginal QBs start getting hoarded by around week 6.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-passing-yards-per-game

2013 stats if this helps any

 

[Boomer1]

I'm somewhat forced into this position unfortunately. Drafting number 1, I was constantly chasing QB's in the draft and missed out on all my targets and ultimately drafting Palmer, McCown and Locker.. Our league is notorious for sucking up QB's off the WW, thus blocking teams from going QBBC so I was forced to draft the 3 hoping to find a serviceable option...

FYI - I have a waiver claim for Carr :(

 

[Hoot McGoot]

I am in this same boat on a 10team keeper. I had Palmer originally but I am seriously considering playing Geno v Oakland. I may be looking too

hard into this tho as SD v ARI is likely to be a shootout.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

If you are in a 12 team league or higher this isn't a viable option. Assuming it is..... Whats the upside to this? Assuming a 20 round draft why not spend a 13th round pick on a guy like Rivers or Romo? Please do post your starter every week prior to the week being played and then the results. I would be interested to see.

Rivers and Romo are not available in the 13th round.

My goal is to post my results weekly. Who I started and how I did against my opponent.

Please definitely keep reporting on this. I am interested.

 

[Ilov80s]

Geno smith vs oak

That's my move and Locker next week. Shaun Hill in week 3.

 

[One More Rep]

I think Geno is a good play at home against the Raiders

 

[Long Ball Larry]

http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-passing-yards-per-game

2013 stats if this helps any

I took the rankings from here and matched them up to every QB game line last year in which a QB attempted 10 or more passes.

I also identified 19 QBs as "rostered", meaning that I didn't see them being available in 10-team leagues.

I looked at the fantasy points scored by the non-rostered QBs playing against the worst-ranked defense from each week. I got a total of 291.6 fantasy points (using PFRs default points, 4 pt TD pass).

That would be 291.6 points, good for 5th on the year, or 18.22 ppg, good for 6th. It would be less than,5 ppg behind Newton and Luck at number 4 and 5. So assuming you could get the the QB playing against the worst D each week, you basically would be in the same boat as anyone who did not draft one of the big 3.

If anyone cares, you can suggest any parameter tweaks and I'd be happy to adjust. Among the group of QBs playing the worst Ds, I have Eli 4 times and Flacco once. Those are the only ones that I think anyone might quibble with, though. The rest were Henne, Hoyer, Pryor, Glennon, Tannehill, Tolzien, Flynn, Josh McCown, Cousins, Cassel, Orton

 

[Gravity]

http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-passing-yards-per-game

2013 stats if this helps any

I took the rankings from here and matched them up to every QB game line last year in which a QB attempted 10 or more passes.

I also identified 19 QBs as "rostered", meaning that I didn't see them being available in 10-team leagues.

I looked at the fantasy points scored by the non-rostered QBs playing against the worst-ranked defense from each week. I got a total of 291.6 fantasy points (using PFRs default points, 4 pt TD pass).

That would be 291.6 points, good for 5th on the year, or 18.22 ppg, good for 6th. It would be less than,5 ppg behind Newton and Luck at number 4 and 5. So assuming you could get the the QB playing against the worst D each week, you basically would be in the same boat as anyone who did not draft one of the big 3.

If anyone cares, you can suggest any parameter tweaks and I'd be happy to adjust. Among the group of QBs playing the worst Ds, I have Eli 4 times and Flacco once. Those are the only ones that I think anyone might quibble with, though. The rest were Henne, Hoyer, Pryor, Glennon, Tannehill, Tolzien, Flynn, Josh McCown, Cousins, Cassel, Orton

Great job!

That is exactly what I read this off-season. Starting the waiver wire QB with the lowest rated D-against would give you close to elite QB points. I am putting my money where my mouth is and trying something like that this year.

 

[We Tigers]

Very cool experiment. I don't play in any leagues, though, where more than 6-8 starters are available on the wire; I'd think you need a very QB-averse league, maybe no bigger than 10 teams, to have enough of a pool to work from here. Looking forward to seeing how it works for you!

 

[Ilov80s]

Very cool experiment. I don't play in any leagues, though, where more than 6-8 starters are available on the wire; I'd think you need a very QB-averse league, maybe no bigger than 10 teams, to have enough of a pool to work from here. Looking forward to seeing how it works for you!

I think he is accounting for that. Look at the QBs he listed, I'm in a 12 team 6 point TD league and those guys were not rostered most weeks of the year.

 

[Ilov80s]

http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-passing-yards-per-game

2013 stats if this helps any

I took the rankings from here and matched them up to every QB game line last year in which a QB attempted 10 or more passes.

I also identified 19 QBs as "rostered", meaning that I didn't see them being available in 10-team leagues.

I looked at the fantasy points scored by the non-rostered QBs playing against the worst-ranked defense from each week. I got a total of 291.6 fantasy points (using PFRs default points, 4 pt TD pass).

That would be 291.6 points, good for 5th on the year, or 18.22 ppg, good for 6th. It would be less than,5 ppg behind Newton and Luck at number 4 and 5. So assuming you could get the the QB playing against the worst D each week, you basically would be in the same boat as anyone who did not draft one of the big 3.

If anyone cares, you can suggest any parameter tweaks and I'd be happy to adjust. Among the group of QBs playing the worst Ds, I have Eli 4 times and Flacco once. Those are the only ones that I think anyone might quibble with, though. The rest were Henne, Hoyer, Pryor, Glennon, Tannehill, Tolzien, Flynn, Josh McCown, Cousins, Cassel, Orton

Great job!

That is exactly what I read this off-season. Starting the waiver wire QB with the lowest rated D-against would give you close to elite QB points. I am putting my money where my mouth is and trying something like that this year.

I'm all in on this. I didn't plan to, but I I kept seeing RB value and kept just missing my QB targets. I ended up taking Bradford since he had such a good early schedule and he went down. Now I am committed to streaming. We should use this thread all year to nominate and discuss the weekly plays. I'm rolling Geno. Anyone else going a different direction?

 

[Long Ball Larry]

For me, it would be between Henne and Hill vs. the number 31 and 32 defenses from last year. The Eagles' secondary only has one different member than last year, an upgrade, but not necessarily a difference maker, in Malcolm Jenkins.

Munnerlyn should be an upgrade for the Vikings.

I am a little skeptical of the ability to make the right matchup calls every single week. It is easy to look back in retrospect and see who played against the ultimate worst defenses. It will not be as easy to figure out as the season is going along.

I will be very interested though and will probably nominate my own pick each week in order to track what the results would have been.

I will also note that last year was probably a down year for individual QBs. Ryan and Brady were way down. Kaep and RGIII arguably down as well. And I also missed 1 that the streaming QB would have behind in Nick Foles, as I messed up the denominator for the average.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-passing-yards-per-game

2013 stats if this helps any

I took the rankings from here and matched them up to every QB game line last year in which a QB attempted 10 or more passes.

I also identified 19 QBs as "rostered", meaning that I didn't see them being available in 10-team leagues.

I looked at the fantasy points scored by the non-rostered QBs playing against the worst-ranked defense from each week. I got a total of 291.6 fantasy points (using PFRs default points, 4 pt TD pass).

That would be 291.6 points, good for 5th on the year, or 18.22 ppg, good for 6th. It would be less than,5 ppg behind Newton and Luck at number 4 and 5. So assuming you could get the the QB playing against the worst D each week, you basically would be in the same boat as anyone who did not draft one of the big 3.

If anyone cares, you can suggest any parameter tweaks and I'd be happy to adjust. Among the group of QBs playing the worst Ds, I have Eli 4 times and Flacco once. Those are the only ones that I think anyone might quibble with, though. The rest were Henne, Hoyer, Pryor, Glennon, Tannehill, Tolzien, Flynn, Josh McCown, Cousins, Cassel, Orton

I just did the same thing for the 2012 numbers. Using this strategy would have given you the number 12 QB.

 

[jvdesigns2002]

Interesting strategy and interesting data. However--with that being said--I still don't quite understand the motivation to do this. The Op said in his original post that there was basically a nominal to marginal difference between qb4 and qb17 in fantasy football last year. I think Larry crunched some numbers and figured out if this strategy was implemented last season-- the end result would have been in the qb5-qb6 range--and in 2012--qb12. If the assumption is that there is only a marginal difference between qb4 and qb17--why not just be the last team to draft a qb? If you play in a 10-12 team league---and wait--guys like peyton, brees, rodgers, stafford, ryan, brady, cam, romo, cutler, luck, foles, and wilson are all fine candidates. As you can see--that's 12 names right there--I'd rather take my chances on any of those guys and not have the headache of having to search for waiver wire gold at the qb position every week. Even if you waited longer--you could still end up with a guy like dalton, rivers, Big Ben..etc--so I still don't see any reason to not draft one of these guys--but maybe I'm missing something. I guess this would probably be a far more motivating strategy in 16 or 18 team leagues.

 

[Gravity]

So Week 1 was a smashing success! Palmer ranked about the 5th best QB this week.

Week 2: Either stay with Palmer against NYG or go Locker against Dallas. Embarrassment of riches week 2.

(Other options: Fitz vs Oakland, Henne vs Wash)

 

[Long Ball Larry]

I would put Hoyer in the mix, too. I know Ryan is good, but the Saints got lit up.

 

[Hipple II]

nice thread.

 

[Gvindy]

I'm debating starting Dalton over Stafford this week #2. I just think the Bengals are going to have to throw a ton and it should be a shootout. Stafford on the road against Carolina scares me a little even though he looked good week 1. Even Brees has struggled against Carolina in the past.