Every season, it is critical to evaluate players’ performances from the prior season while including your fantasy football platform’s average draft position (ADP). One of the most valuable skills to have in redraft fantasy football leagues is being able to identify undervalued players and target them accordingly in your drafts when given the opportunity. Similarly, part of succeeding in fantasy football is avoiding overvalued players, whether they have inflated name recognition but underwhelming results or, perhaps, they have inconsistently performed. Identifying these players, both the undervalued and overvalued is key to effectively building the foundation of your team.
As such, this Measuring Consistency series helps set the building blocks in understanding which players may have skewed results, those who performed well over the course of the entire season but relied on a few outlier games. To do this, this series highlights the top-performing players across the four major fantasy football positions (i.e., QB, RB, WR, and TE) in terms of total points scored and their production volatility.
This initial article in the series examines the top 18 QBs in terms of fantasy production in 2021. Every season, Ravens superstar QB Lamar Jackson presents elite upside due to his unprecedented rushing ability, but he relatively underwhelmed in 2021 with extreme volatility. Without looking into the data, many fantasy managers may overlook this potential liability and overdraft Jackson. But what about the other QBs? How did they fare in 2021?
The below data visualization is the result of clustering and indexing the top-performing QBs against each other. After reviewing these QBs through this article, identifying whom to target and avoid will hopefully come easier when your drafts finally start. Additionally, considering none of these players were particularly awful since they were primary startable players at their positions, this article spotlights stellar and middling performances depending on their average production and volatility, measured by their points per game (PPG) and coefficient of variation (CV).
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Analysis and Recommendations
Examining the QB landscape presented a unique takeaway: most QB1s (i.e., the top 12 QBs) produced well with limited volatility. However, certain elite QBs, like Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, and Dak Prescott, lacked the weekly consistency that fantasy managers would want out of their starters.
Stellar Performers:
- Josh Allen (leading scorer; 22.8 PPG; 0.39 CV)
- Justin Herbert (third-highest scorer; 21.5 PPG; 0.36 CV)
Middling Performers:
- Russell Wilson (16th highest scorer; 16.3 PPG; 0.52 CV)
- Dak Prescott (seventh-highest scorer; 19.8 PPG; 0.45 CV)
Overall, these data suggest that in leagues where you are only required to start a single QB (i.e., not two QBs or Superflex leagues), you should wait on QBs and take someone who is ranked in the offseason as a low-end option, as there is a high likelihood that he will produce similarly to elite, but a more expensive player. As such, using FantasyPros’ consensus QB draft rankings, players to target in 2022 are Trey Lance (currently ranked as the QB12), Aaron Rodgers (QB13), or even the aforementioned Russell Wilson (QB9) since they should not require a high draft capital but can easily perform as well as those selected ahead of them. Players to avoid, however, are Patrick Mahomes (QB3), Joe Burrow (QB7), and Dak Prescott (QB10) since they are relatively highly ranked players that offer little rushing upside and will cost a lot to acquire.
As always, however, be sure to leverage FantasyPros’ Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator to gain the necessary practice for your real drafts.
If you want to dive deeper into fantasy football, be sure to check out our award-winning slate of Fantasy Football Tools as you navigate your season. From our Start/Sit Assistant – which provides your optimal lineup based on accurate consensus projections – to our Trade Analyzer – which allows you to instantly find out if a trade offer benefits you or your opponent – we’ve got you covered this fantasy football season.
