2015 Fantasy Football Recap: Quality Starts (QB)

Tom Brady was the most consistent QB in fantasy football, but fell off just in time for the playoffs

Examining quality starts in football allows an owner to determine how often their player is going to perform at a top tier level. When planning for a draft, it’s very easy for someone to look at the final statistics and use that as the biggest metric to determine overall performance; however, that can be a very skewed way to look at it. While quality over quantity is a rule of thumb, the quantity of quality is also just as important. By basing your decisions, not on “how good were you?” rather on “how many times were you good?” you will be able to get the best long-term return on investment.

Using last season as a frame of reference, Ben Roethlisberger finished with the sixth-most fantasy points for quarterbacks. With 289.2 points, 80.5 (or 27.2%) came in two games as a result of back-to-back six touchdown games in November. With only three other quality starts, including just one in the fantasy playoffs, he most likely left owners wanting more. Quality over a few volume-based performances is something to look at much more closely. Is the 45-point performance great? Yes. But if it’s coupled with three straight games of low-end point totals it makes a player less appealing.

Just like last season, we will be quantifying a quality start as a top-10 start. This analysis is much more relevant in season-long leagues, rather than DFS formats, so please keep that in mind when considering ceilings and floors for streaming and matchups.

The chart below depicts what the average QB1 did from week to week, all the way down to QB10. Last season’s QB1 was 33.8 and QB2 was 29.1, so the gap was narrowed between first and second by 1.5 points. QB10, at 19.91, showed a slight increase compared to last season’s 19.03. In fact, this season’s QB11 (19.4) was also higher than last year’s QB10.

Here’s the list below, in order by the amount of quality starts they produced. Note: this is Week 1-16. This does not take into consideration the irrelevant Week 17, when most leagues are complete. No team rested starters in Week 16.

All in all, 72 quarterbacks went under center in 2015, with 37 of them gracing the top-10 at some point between Week 1 and Week 16.

• QB1, Cam Newton, was a straight-up beast. He threw for five touchdowns on three different occasions and “only” had eight QS. Between Weeks 9 and 15 he had 25 total touchdowns and only three turnovers, finishing as QB1 four times during that span. He did come up flat during championship week, the Panthers’ only loss of the season, which is a shame.

• Playoff QB1 Kirk Cousins had three quality starts and 10 total touchdowns with just one turnover. He was behind only Newton with three trips to the top of the leaderboard as QB1.

• Blake Bortles and Tom Brady each had 10 quality starts, leading the way in 2015, but both came at very different times. Brady got all 10 of his QS during his first 12 games of the season, meaning that if you started him during your regular season you had a top-10 quarterback 83% of his games. The bad news is that you got what amassed to a QB14 and no quality starts during playoff weeks 14 through 16. Bortles, on the other hand, started off slow and finished red hot, putting up five straight quality starts between Week 12 and Week 16, including QB3, QB8 and QB2 showings during the fantasy playoffs, averaging 26.4 points per game, good enough for QB2 during the tournament weeks.

• Bortles was one of only four quarterbacks to turn in three quality starts during the fantasy playoffs. The other three were Kirk Cousins, Drew Brees, and Russell Wilson. Top 15 scorers for the 2015 season that failed to bring in a quality start during the most crucial time of the season were Alex Smith, Philip Rivers and Derek Carr, to go along with the aforementioned Brady.  Aaron Rodgers and Jameis Winston each chipped in with one, just as many as street free-agent Brandon Weeden had during this time.

• Wilson’s first nine games: QB17, 10 total touchdowns, nine turnovers, one quality start. Wilson’s last six games: QB1, 23 total touchdowns, three turnovers and six quality starts. He finished as QB3, makeing this writer look stupid for cutting him after their bye.

• For the second year in a row, Rivers, finished as the 11th highest scoring quarterback and was lights out in the beginning of the season only to fall off the face of the earth. Six of his seven quality starts came during the team’s first eight games (last season it was five of his seven in the first six games). Rivers lost his favorite target, Keenan Allen, in the middle of the season and never recovered.

• Going back to Brady, the Patriots’ quarterback looked like he was going to break every record out there after his Week 1 four touchdown performance against Pittsburgh. He never reached QB1 again and only threw four scores one more game in 2015, as injuries took their toll on the AFC East champions.

• Between Weeks 1 and 6, Andy Dalton was QB1. Posting quality starts all six games before the bye, he only broke into the top 10 one other time in Week 11. He got hurt in Week 14 and missed the remainder of the season, but from Week 7 until his injury he posted pedestrian numbers, with the one quality start and a QB25 rank in that time period.

• Ryan Tannehill was able to get only three quality starts out of his 15 games played. Miserable. More miserable was Matt Ryan, with two. How you do that with Julio Jones and Devonta Freeman each leading their position in scoring boggles my mind. Naturally, none of their QS came during playoff weeks.

• Jay Cutler gets a reprieve here; the new coaching staff reeled him in and made him a very efficient and smart game manager. He lost Brandon Marshall during the offseason and had to deal with injuries to all of his top skill position players and a makeshift offensive line. Still, one QS in 14 starts is not the ratio you want to see for anyone.

• Speaking of game managers, Alex Smith has mastered it. He threw for 300 yards once all season (and somehow had no touchdowns), threw three touchdowns only once, and went from Week 3 to Week 14 without throwing an interception. Out of his three quality starts, the last came in Week 8.

• Roethlisberger missed four games, left two games early, actually entered a game and had a quality start, benefiting no one, and had two single-digit performances during fantasy playoffs.

• Gabbert, Cassel, Weeden, Manuel, (Gino) Smith. What do they all have in common? They each threw for one quality start this season or one more each than Peyton Manning.

• Hefty price tags on 2014 QB1 Andrew Luck and QB2 Rodgers did not get a return on investment, as Rodgers finished 2.7 points per game behind his pace last year and a seventh place finish in 2015. His seven quality starts were three fewer than last years’ total. Luck, injured for most of the campaign, only garnered three quality starts, compared to the 12 he accumulated last season.

Speaking solely on playoff quality starts, the chart below breaks down the most quality starts between Weeks 14-16, and their 2015 ADP:

Subsequently, the chart below is the remainder of the top-10 drafted quarterbacks by ADP, and their total quality starts in the playoffs. Out of the three quality starts, only Stafford’s was in the championship game.

There were just three quality starts out of a possible 24 for the second batch, and nine total out of a possible 30 starts for the top 10 drafted quarterbacks (30%). This accounts for and includes Romo, Luck and Manning all missing due to injury.  As an owner who drafted them, I was banking on using them during these weeks.

The lesson from all of this is the same as last season: Don’t build your team around a quarterback, using a high draft pick on him. Just to recap, 37 quarterbacks had a quality start. On 152 different occasions, a quarterback put up 20 or more points, but only 27 times was it 30 or more.  Additionally, 22 different quarterbacks put up at least 200 fantasy points. Trust variance, trust the matchup, trust the data. No one is saying go zero-QB, rather know that this strategy doesn’t yield strong results.

Michael Vincent is a correspondent at FantasyPros. To read more from Michael, check out his archive and follow him @MVtweetshere.