Are Losing Quarterbacks Good Fantasy Football Options?

“Well, go ahead and pick up RG3. He’ll be losing the game so he’ll be throwing the ball more; more opportunity for points.”

If you tend to go look online for fantasy football advice (I have it on pretty good authority that you do), you’ve probably seen a comment like this. People accept this as a reasonable statement because it sounds reasonable. Hell, I’m sure I’ve followed advice like this in years past.

But is it true? If not, it’s worth correcting people from this assumption.

I really don’t think it can possibly be true. Simply put, quarterbacks who score more fantasy points are more likely to win the game.

HOW MUCH MORE DO QUARTERBACKS THROW THE BALL WHEN LOSING?

We can probably accept that quarterbacks do throw the ball more when losing a game – that’s basic gameplay. How much more do quarterbacks tend to throw the ball when losing, though?

On average, a quarterback who won a game in 2013 attempted over 32 passes, while a quarterback who lost a game attempted just under 38 passes. That’s almost a 20% difference in passes attempted – a reasonably sizable gap, but not gigantic.

Interestingly, winning and losing quarterbacks averaged almost the same number of completed passes. Yes, a losing QB throws the ball significantly more than a winning QB, but doesn’t actually complete any more passes.

Therefore, we should expect that a winning quarterback scores more, and probably significantly more, fantasy points than a losing quarterback. If they complete the same number of passes, both QBs have had the same number of attempts to gain fantasy points, and the losing QB (by definition) ended up losing the game regardless.

DO LOSING QUARTERBACKS SCORE MORE FANTASY POINTS THAN WINNING QUARTERBACKS?

We know now that we expect this answer to be no, since winning QBs average the same number of completed passes as a losing QB. Let’s look at the data:

Average weekly points for winning quarterbacks: 17.8.

Average weekly points for losing quarterbacks: 12.8.

That’s a gap of almost 5 points, a larger gap than the plot hole in Signs (seriously, most of the planet is covered in their greatest weakness, not to mention water vapor and rain…). Clearly, the data supports the conclusion that “you want to pick up a QB who is likely to lose” is wrong.

DO QUARTERBACKS WHO ATTEMPT MORE PASSES NONETHELESS SCORE MORE POINTS?

Here’s where it gets confusing. So, losing QBs generally attempt more passes than winning QBs. Losing QBs also score fewer fantasy points. However, more fantasy points is correlated with lots of attempted passes.

In the average game last year, a QB threw 35.3 attempted passes.

Average fantasy points when attempting more than 35 passes: 17.1.

Average fantasy points when attempting 35 or fewer passes: 13.7.

The extremes of the data are Flacco’s 62 attempted passes in Week 1 (18 fantasy points) and Kaepernick’s 15 passes in Week 5 against the Texans, of which only 6 were completed (9 fantasy points).

CONCLUSION

You do want a QB who is throwing a lot, but you want one who will ultimately win the game while throwing a lot. The basic rationale that “throwing more means more QB points” makes sense, and is supported by the data. The next logical step that people take – that losing QBs throw more – is also true. However, all increases in attempted passes are not equal – if a QB loses, the increased attempted passes aren’t scoring many points.

Therefore, you do not want a QB who loses the game on your fantasy team, though the rest of the underlying logic is valid.

It should come as no surprise that you’d generally rather have a winning QB than a losing QB on your fantasy team, all else being equal. When you see someone claim that they’d rather have a losing QB than a winning QB, do them a favor and show them this analysis.  

If you have questions that you’d like me to address in a future post, don’t hesitate to comment, email strictscrutiny0@gmail.com, or tweet @strictscrutiny0!

Thanks to pro-football-reference.com for having excellent and easily-accessible stats.

-The Strictest Scrutiny, where everything is analyzed except for whether Jamaal Charles is more man than machine.

"Why should we switch from a snake draft to an auction?"

We’ll start this off with a topic that’s fairly simple and straightforward, especially for more experienced readers: auction or snake drafting. This is intended to help you convince others in your league that auction drafting is the superior format most of the time – just link your league to this post.
Around this time, people are scheduling their draft dates and nailing down any disputed rules for the year. One question is the style of draft that you do. There are two styles of drafting: snake and auction.
I get it - a snake draft is the most familiar. It's safe. People might feel like they will suddenly botch their entire draft and fantasy football season if they step outside of their safe circle. There would be something to say for that if an auction weren't fairly intuitive, but at the end of the day, an auction is, in my opinion, the best format for fantasy football leagues generally, especially when the players are a bit experienced.

RULES
A snake draft is the most familiar. Teams take turns picking who they want for their team. In the second round (and all even rounds), the teams select players in reverse order from the first round. (e.g., the first team in a 10-team league to select in the draft would have the first pick, then the 20th at the end of round 2, then the 21st at the beginning of round 3).
An auction draft is a bit different. Everyone has a “budget” (by default, $200 on ESPN leagues). An owner nominates a player for at least $1. Anyone can bid on that player until no one will outbid, then the player goes to the highest bidder. Repeat until rosters are full.

PROS AND CONS
A snake draft has a number of advantages over an auction draft that are definitely worth considering:

• It’s very easy to understand.
• Teams who have to autodraft aren’t completely screwed…mostly.
• It’s a bit faster, generally.

Auction drafts, in comparison, have several advantages over snake drafts:

• Order doesn’t really matter.
• Everybody has an equal shot at every player. (More on the first two bullets below)
• It’s more strategically deep – you have a bit more flexibility in how much weight you want to give certain positions when drafting.
• You aren’t subject to runs on a position. (More on this below)
• It’s more exciting – everyone is engaged in the heat of the moment as long as they have money to spend.

Order and equal shot: Oh, random ordering says you pick 8th in a snake draft? Guess you have zero chance at Jamaal Charles, AD, Shady, etc. Purely random chance. In an auction, you have the same opportunity to get these players as anyone else, regardless of what random order you started in. Think they are worth over 1/3 of your team? You are free to bid 70 (if you’re a crazy person, that is) on them. Whatever you think they are worth, you can value them at that level, and so can everyone else. This is the selling point for me.
Runs on a position: So, you draft 1st. You take Jamaal Charles. The next 18 picks include 6 QBs. Do you take Brady/Ryan/Romo so you’re not stuck with someone horrible (the answer to this is generally no, but we don’t need to go into the particulars for this post). It’s annoying at best – and it can’t happen in an auction. If you value the QB position and want to avoid a run, you’re free to spend whatever you think a player is worth.

I very rarely hear someone prefer a snake draft who has experienced both kinds of drafts. It’s a fairer format, as long as no one is autodrafting (do. not. let. anyone. autodraft. in an auction. ever. Their team will be barely functional at best). If people are brand-new to fantasy football, it’s worth considering doing a snake draft for simplicity’s sake, but auctions aren’t really that much more complicated. That said, anyone who hasn’t done an auction draft before should do a mock draft before the real thing so they understand the format and get a feel for their budget.

Best of luck, and hopefully there are a few more auction converts this year. Cheers for draft fairness!

Welcome to The Strictest Scrutiny!

Welcome to the fantasy football blog with just the right mix of in-depth statistical analysis and subjective considerations. You have to have both – numbers without looking at subjective considerations could easily miss predicting whether a sudden point spike is a fluke due to bad coverage or a predictor of future success because a WR finally learned how to set a hard plant and run a route successfully. Looking at subjective considerations without statistical data is equally unhelpful since intangibles don’t score fantasy football points.

To that end, the analysis here can help you in your league. It should be one source, and not your only source, for fantasy football information. Anyone who says "I'm the only source you need" doesn't actually care whether you do well, they only want your pageviews.

A couple of things about me: I am an attorney, so I am required to consider and allow for all possible situations and adapt accordingly. I err on the side of completeness – I’d much rather consider 10 possibilities and discard them all than to ignore a possibility that later materializes (like Foles’ incredible point surge last year). That's where the legal reference in the title of the blog comes from.

I’m also a poker player. I tend to be risk-neutral, to the greatest extent I can be. If there’s a 50/50 shot at either getting 20 points in a week or zero points, or a 100% shot at 9 points, I’d generally take the 50/50 shot (since expected payoff is 10). In these situations, just like any risk-reward play, you should contextualize it based on the team you’re hitting on that given week. For example, if you’re against a team with no one on bye who has consistently outscored your team by 20 points, then take the risk-reward play. Easy enough.

Just to round out the mix, I have an economics background, so digging through statistics, looking at data displays, and thinking about issues like relative positional scarcity are things I actually find fun. So, I'll do the work for you on that front.

Thank you for reading this. I hope this is as useful to you as it is fun for me to write. Best of luck in your leagues!

You can follow me on Twitter @StrictScrutiny0, or come say hi to me on reddit under the username StrictScrutiny.