The QB/WR "hookup" (1 Viewer)

[Sack-Religious]

I'm not advocating basing your entire draft off a hookup, or taking a garbage QB and WR from a weak passing team, but if you've got QB's and WR's in the same tier and need a deciding factor, why not go for the hookup?

The QB and WR are just as likely to score the same amount as the other players in their tier, but getting double points for every TD they score, seems to tilt the balance a little, even when you run the risk of that same duo not scoring a TD on any given week.

Every year, you can find middle-to-late round QB's/WR's you can pair up.

I've been able to use the hookup in my re-drafts with a fair amount of success over the years and I'm wondering if others have had the same sort of success or found the hookup to be worthless to them.

 

[Mystery Achiever]

The QB and WR are just as likely to score the same amount as the other players in their tier, but getting double points for every TD they score, seems to tilt the balance a little, even when you run the risk of that same duo not scoring a TD on any given week.

And when they don't hook up, i.e. have a down game, you get nothing from either. I personally think it is irrelevant.

 

[Sack-Religious]

The QB and WR are just as likely to score the same amount as the other players in their tier, but getting double points for every TD they score, seems to tilt the balance a little, even when you run the risk of that same duo not scoring a TD on any given week.

And when they don't hook up, i.e. have a down game, you get nothing from either. I personally think it is irrelevant.

Yes, you run the risk of your QB/WR tandem playing a really tough defence. It's not often though, especially in PPR that a QB and WR both don't produce starter-quality numbers even versus a top-flight defence. So even if the QB has a statistically down game, the WR (in PPR) should still be able to get 10+ points. On the flip-side, should your QB/WR duo go off against a weaker defence and the WR gets 2 TD's in that game, you get 24 total points for those 2 scores, rather than the regular 12. Again, with the statistical analysis (that quite frankly I'm too lazy to do), do those big games balance, or counteract the down games and make the hookup any more valuable? Again, I'm not advocating basing your entire draft strategy off a hookup, but if you have a few players in the same tier, projected to score roughly the same amount of points, why not swing for the fences? Should the projections you're using hold true, over the course of the season the players will score roughly the same amount of points, and you might get some really big weeks out of it. Do those big weeks counteract the down games? There's the rub.The evidence I've seen on both sides seems pretty anecdotal, so that's why I'm wondering.

 

[Mystery Achiever]

It's not often though, especially in PPR that a QB and WR both don't produce starter-quality numbers even versus a top-flight defence. So even if the QB has a statistically down game, the WR (in PPR) should still be able to get 10+ points. On the flip-side, should your QB/WR duo go off against a weaker defence and the WR gets 2 TD's in that game, you get 24 total points for those 2 scores, rather than the regular 12. Again, with the statistical analysis (that quite frankly I'm too lazy to do), do those big games balance, or counteract the down games and make the hookup any more valuable?

I'm certainly open to seeing numbers, but I'm not seeing the extra value potential. I don't see why, for example, your WR in the combo is any more likely to put up good numbers on a given week than a WR getting the ball from a QB not on your roster. One could argue that, if your WR received passes from a better QB than yours, you could have an advantage AVOIDING a combo.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

It doesn't matter.

 

[Bankerguy]

I like to target the WR's of QB's owned by the teams in my Division. It's not a hard and fast rule I follow, but I have had a lot of success with this approach.

 

[Unlucky]

It doesn't matter. Get the best QB and best WRs you can.

Funny story from a draft last year: during the draft, guy trades Brady for Palmer because he has TJ and Chad already and wants "double" points. Oops. More like 1/2 points.

 

[Chunky Soup]

Probably adds more standard deviation to your team scoring, fwiw. Not much else.

 

[live54]

The reason I avoid the QB/WR "hookup" is because you now have more risk if an injury occurs, lets just say your QB gets hurt, youve just lost the "hookup" and the backup QB probably isnt going to be as good so you WR production goes down. In essence a QB injustry in the "hookup" scenario can quickly end your playoff hopes. Also as stated earlier, you will have great games and terrible games. The key to FF is consistentlty fielding a good team that always has a chance to win, remeber whether you win by 1 point or 50 points it's still a win.

On the flip side I like the QB/RB hookup on the same team, especially a high scoring team. I think it makes your weekly points more consistent, if a QB has an off night, the TD's go to the RB and vice versa, and if you happen to lose one to injury, normaly the other picks up a good chunk of the slack. This year I think Romo/Barber and Campbell/Portis would be good examples. Plus you get a few of those QB to RB TD's throughout the season, which are nice.

 

[GregR_2]

I'm not advocating basing your entire draft off a hookup, or taking a garbage QB and WR from a weak passing team, but if you've got QB's and WR's in the same tier and need a deciding factor, why not go for the hookup?

The QB and WR are just as likely to score the same amount as the other players in their tier, but getting double points for every TD they score, seems to tilt the balance a little, even when you run the risk of that same duo not scoring a TD on any given week.

Every year, you can find middle-to-late round QB's/WR's you can pair up.

I've been able to use the hookup in my re-drafts with a fair amount of success over the years and I'm wondering if others have had the same sort of success or found the hookup to be worthless to them.

Drinen did an article on this about 10 years ago, and came up with theoretical results and then tested them against reality.Summary (of his summary): In theory, if you're a top team, avoid the hookup between your own QB and WR because it creates inconsistent results (boom or bust), and inconsistency is a bad thing for the favorite. If both you and the worse team you play are consistent and score your averages, you win since you are the higher scoring team. If you are the favorite, but inconsistent, a boom week doesn't make a win more valuable a win in your record column... but a bust week can change that win to a loss. Of course your opponent isn't completely consistent either, but when you average things over the long haul (as Doug did), you'd expect the better team to be hurt more by the hookup.

And, again in theory, if you're a bad team, your own QB and WR hookup should be a good thing because if you and your better opponent both are consistent and do your average scores, you lose since he has the better average. If you are inconsistent or boom and bust, that loss you'd have gotten with an average score is no more harmful a loss if you bust that week... but a boom may turn it around into a win.

But that's in theory. Just because it should be that way doesn't mean it will be that way to a degree that makes it worth making a decision off of. What Doug found was that in practice, the effect is probably so small as to be irrelevent.

Worth also noting, the opposite expectations in theory exist for the anti-hookup of starting the QB or WR from the same team as your opponent's player. It would tend, in theory, to make the two teams zig and zag more in unison as they boom and bust, and that would favor the better team. Though Doug said he didn't feel his study of the reality for that case was conclusive because of other biases he wasn't able to remove.

 

[DoubleG]

Other than the fact that, if they are both top-tiered you lose two good players on that team's bye week, I can't see how this is realistically relevant.

As has been noted, the only thing it will likely effect is deviation from the norm on occasion (i.e. a tough passing defense, bad weather game, or a weak pass defense on the plus side, etc.) - the whole "double points" thing is irrelevant - just because Manning throws 2 TD's to Wayne doesn't mean that T.O. (who could likely have been drafted in the same spot as Wayne) isn't going to catch 2 TD's in his game.

BTW, in the playoffs, I played against a team that had Brady and Moss - luckily I faced them in the snow storm game. That didn't end well for him. *CHAMPIONSHIP*