What’s this mean for you?  Well, it means that it is kind of stupid to draft a QB in the first round in a regular-scoring league.  However, there are several benefits to such a move.

Something that can make an enormous difference is not being required to spend a roster spot on a backup QB.  If you draft Peyton Manning, that means (at least for the last five years) that you will be playing him every week.  No matter what team he’s up against.  Without fail.  You will not need a backup.  This allows you to free up a roster spot, giving you room for more viable RB options, or the space for another high-upside pick.  This is only an option if you grab one of those top-tier QBs, or if you stumble into an out-of-the-blue high-tier QB (such as 2008 Kurt Warner or 2007 Derek Anderson).  If you grab one of those Drew Brees- or Tom Brady-like QBs, you get a free spot for a potential 2008 Deangelo Williams, 2007 Earnest Graham or 2006 Marion Barber.  This concept slips by many of the self-declared experts, but that freedom really can’t be overstated, even with the drop-off between RBs.  It is an invaluable quality that can’t be found elsewhere.

Personally, the earliest I’ve ever drafted a QB in a semi-standard scoring league was in the sixth round of a ten-teamer.  That was a reach for Jon Kitna in 2007, which didn’t pan out.  Like I said, while I may be there in spirit for the jeering of somebody who takes Peyton Manning, there are benefits.  I’d never do it.  The numbers don’t really back it up.  But it’s not necessarily a horrible decision…I guess.  In 2008, though, I grabbed Warner and, for whatever reason, literally never had a backup save for the week before, and the week of, his bye (being Matt Cassel). 

If you don’t grab one of those high-tier QBs, then you should draft a pair of mid-tier guys.  This is how most fantasy teams conduct themselves, and it usually goes well.  Working matchups is easier at the QB position than anywhere else, and there is usually value at the position throughout the draft.  Something to ponder (and something for me to experiment with) is simply drafting one QB, even if he isn’t elite, and just seeing how it alters my lineup management strategies and determining its viability.  I’ll try it in several leagues and tell you how it works out.

An important footnote for ten-team, two QB leagues is that you shouldn’t go into things planning to grab one of those elite QBs just because there is going to be a shortage.  Your plans should be altered, simply to assure that you get three QBs by draft’s end (each with a different bye week, too!), but you definitely don’t need to scramble to grab Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in the first two rounds. 

As per usual, keep an eye out for the tier lists and Mega Boards to come for all your ranking needs.

You can have Peyton Manning or Tom Brady.  You can have Randy Moss or Andre Johnson.  You can have Antonio Gates or Tony Gonzalez.  And that won’t make a difference if you don’t have a decent batch of RBs.  Far and away, the most important position on your team is the running back.  And because of this, your top priority in the first few rounds is to plug up all the RB spots.  And one of your first duties after that is to start drafting depth at the position. 

Why are running backs so important?  Why would you ever draft Larry Johnson, who likes pulling Troy Polamalu’s hair over Peyton Manning, who likes licking the cream out of big black Oreos?  Well, the answer is that top tier RBs are more likely to deliver you a reasonably high number of points on a consistent basis.  “Oh, but Steven, eight of the top ten fantasy scorers in the 2008 fantasy football season were QBs!  Why should we pass up the top scorers in favor of guys who don’t even lick the cream out of big black Oreos?!”  Because you’re a stupid piece of crap, that’s why.  To reference literature from hundreds of years ago, the decay rate of RBs is exponential, while the decay rate of every other position is geometric.  Simple, right?

Since you probably don’t know what that means.  Look at that badass chart up above.  Those are the top fifteen QBs, RBs and WRs in the 2007 season.  The change of color between gray and blue shows the different tiers.  If you’ll notice, there are seven tiers in the quarterback position.  Granted, Tom Brady’s 50 TD season was just leading you on, but since 2004, there has always been a QB sitting well above all his peers (Brady was just the “most-highest” above everyone else).  The difference between each QB tier is relatively small (look at the drop-offs between tiers at each position; 13, 11, 24 and 7 for QB while RB is 44, 24 and 10) and those guys who end up on top are tough to predict. 

While the WR position is somewhat similar to the RB (similar difference in points between the #1 and #15 players, similar tier setup), there are two things that make WRs tough to take in the first round.  Firstly, year-to-year consistency is more elusive at the WR position than anywhere else in fantasy football (at least, in the skill positions).   Of those fifteen top WRs, from 2007 to 2008, Randy Moss dropped to ninth, Reggie Wayne to fourteenth.  Anquan Boldin and Calvin Johnson flew up the charts.  Antonio Bryant came out of nowhere.  Chad Johnson/Ocho Cinco, Braylon Edwards, Plaxico Burress, Wes Welker, Tory Holt, TJ Houshmandzadeh and Bobby Engram all fell out of the group. 

Let’s tie together all this “good to crap” stuff.  Using 2007’s Average Draft Positions (on average, where any individual player is taken in the draft), Peyton Manning (ADP of 11) scored 287.1 points on the season.  Matt Hasselbeck (ADP of 69) scored 258.3 points on the season (28.8 points less than Manning).  Ben Roethlisberger (111 in ADP) scored 269.7 on the season (17.4 points fewer than Manning).  Brett Favre (122 ADP) scored 258.5 (28.6 shy).  Let’s stack this up against the season total of the top six RBs, ADP-wise; Ladainian Tomlinson, Steven Jackson, Larry Johnson, Joseph Addai, Frank Gore and Shaun Alexander (213.5 points on the season, even with a year of injuries from Alexander).  RBs taken around Matt Hasselbeck included Julius Jones, Tatum Bell, Brandon Jackson and LaMont Jordan.  The four of them averaged 66.1 points on the season (a difference of 147.3).  RBs taken around Favre and Roethlisberger?  Well, how much of Reuben Droughns, Vernand Morency and Mike Bell have you seen since?  They averaged 33.3 points, by the way.  If that isn’t the statistical proof you needed…well…I don’t know what is. 

Something else to consider is the simple fact that you will see a lot more RBs played weekly.  In a normal ten team league, you will see one QB per team (so, ten total) with at least two RB slots (sometimes you’ll see three RB slots, or two and a flex, meaning you can easily see 25-30 RBs played per week).  Just look above.  Do you want to wait until round ten to fill in that RB position?

The best place to get more info will be my Massive Board and in the Breakdown! section.  We’ll pick out all those valuable RBs and give you a relative draft value for each of them.  But while all that stuff changes year to year…what doesn’t change is the fact that you need good running backs on your team.

Other Random RB Notes:

-          Every year, there will be a handful of RBs considered “elite.”  They are usually the very first players taken off the board.  Consider yourself lucky if you get seeded high enough to take one of them.

-          Almost without fail, there will be at least one rookie RB to run for 1000 yards.  Recent examples include Kevin Jones (2004), Carnell Williams (2005), Joseph Addai (2006) and Marshawn Lynch (2007).  2008 was kind of crazy, with Steve Slaton, Matt Forte and Chris Johnson all reaching this milestone.  Kevin Smith just barely missed the mark (975 yards). 

-          2006 saw the “platoon” become standard.  A “platoon” is where you have one or more RBs receiving a relevant number of carries on the same team.  In these situations, the player with more fantasy value is typically the guy who gets more of the touchdowns (this is not always the case, however).  Elite RBs usually have little to no competition in the backfield.

-          PPR leagues completely shift around the rankings of the position.  It puts a serious premium on players who are parts of West Coast Offenses and players who often get passes dumped to them.

Points Per Reception (PPR)

This is one of the most important and most common tweaks around in fantasy football leagues.  As the name suggests, players get some points for receptions (catches) they make.  This can completely shift the draft landscape and the value of any given player in a league.  Running backs who often get tossed to become more valuable than otherwise equivalent counterparts (guys like Steven Jackson (STL, RB) and Brian Westbrook (PHI, RB) have gotten a big boost in recent years).  Wide receivers who don’t get touchdowns can remain potent fantasy forces, when normal scoring would make them mediocre options, at best (Wes Welker (NE, WR) went from good to elite in 2007 and from mediocre to good in 2008 in PPR leagues).

Return Yards/Touchdowns

Very rarely do you see leagues that have return yards as a scoring category.  Mostly, you’ll see it in leagues with people who really don’t know how to play fantasy football, or leagues that are really big (sixteen or more teams) to compensate for the fact that there aren’t enough players to go around.  Not that this really matters much, as there are very few great players that get work returning kicks.  A couple notable exceptions are Wes Welker (NE, WR) and, sporadically, Steve Smith (CAR, WR). 

Returning a kickoff or punt for touchdowns…well, those can be tricky.  Almost every fantasy football provider (Yahoo!, ESPN, etc.) counts them somewhere…it’s just a matter of where.  ESPN lumps together a team’s defensive unit, and its special teams unit (and re-labels “DEF” as “D/ST”).  This makes it so that if, say, I am playing the Chicago Bears defense back in 2006, and Devin Hester (CHI, then-CB, now-WR) runs back a punt for a TD, the Chicago D/ST gets six points.  On the other hand, they may only be attributed to the actual player that gets the return TD.  So, if Wes Welker brings a punt back to the end zone, Welker will get six points notched onto his score, but the Patriots defense will not.  Some leagues have both.  And some leagues have neither.  Because return touchdowns are so rare, it’s usually not a big deal, but I know all you Bears fans were probably freaking out about this.  This is something you’ll just have to find out for your own leagues, though.  Keep in mind that you can theoretically add a TD or two to some guys.

Bonuses

Bonuses serve no real purpose…other than giving a few quick points to boost the value of a huge touchdown play (or to help ease the pain of watching your player get shoestring-tackled at the three yard line).  The idea is simple.  If a player makes a play for X yards, they get a point or two added to their total for the day (for example, one bonus point for a fifty yard pass).  These also don’t make a huge difference, because a huge play is already a huge play.  A sixty yard TD run is already worth twelve points…so having that twelve become thirteen doesn’t usually make or break a season (oops, jinxed myself).  These bonuses, though almost always arbitrary, are very common.  But don’t really consider them when you’re drafting.

Points Per Completion (PPC)

Same thing as points per reception, but it’s points for every pass completed (and therefore, basically only applies to QBs).  This is actually quite rare, but hey.  Now you know.

Various Boosts to Passing Stats

More often than the goofy PPC, people will change the way QBs are scored by just tweaking the stats they already get points for.  Be it making twenty passing yards per point (rather than twenty-five, a 20% boost) or six points per passing touchdown (rather than the normal four), these are a major boon to QBs if there are no similar boosts to the other positions.

Multiplied Points

Some leagues will multiply the points for certain stats or players.  Double points for tight ends gets floated around sometimes.  There are also certain sites that boost things like rushing yards for QBs and receiving yards for RBs.  Any sort of multiplier is rare (and some sites don’t let you do it), but if you encounter one of them, it puts a serious premium on the applicable players and can completely change the game. 

For your quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers and tight ends:

25 passing yards per point.

4 points per passing TD.

10 rushing/receiving yards per point.

6 points per rushing/receiving yard.

-1 point for an interception.

-2 points for a fumble recovered by the other team.

2 points for catching/throwing/running for a two point conversion.

For kickers:

Field Goal from 1-39 yards; 3 points.

Field Goal from 40-49 yards: 4 points.

Field Goal from 50+ yards: 5 points.

Point After Touchdown (PAT): 1 point.

For Defenses:

1 point per sack.

2 points per turnover.

2 points per safety.

2 points per blocked kick/punt.

6 points per TD off a turnover.

??? points for ??? points allowed.

You’ll note the question marks above…well, that’s for “points allowed” by a defense.  The basic gist is that there will be ranges of points (usually 0, 1-6, 7-13, 14-20, 21-27, 28+) and you will get some number of points for that value.  Depending on what site the league is on, you’ll be able to shift where the cut-offs are for fantasy points are, as well as how many points you get.  This makes a difference in the overall value of defenses…but not a huge difference in the tiers for defenses.  Usually, though, you’ll get somewhere between ten and fifteen for a shutout, then seven and eleven for keeping a team under seven and so on.

You may also be wondering where the elusive kickoff/punt return TD is…well, you’ll have to look in the Alternative Scoring section for info on that.  Keep in mind that very, very many leagues have altered scoring systems.  So…seriously…check out that Alternative Scoring section.

So how do you get points?  Well, that depends on the scoring setup, but almost every league scores skill players (that is, quarterback, running backs, wide receivers and tight ends) based on the number of passing yards, rushing yards, receiving yards, and touchdowns the individual players get in that week’s real-life game.  That’s the most important thing to remember, which can be difficult to grasp for some.  Fantasy sports are entirely dictated by the real-life player’s performance in real-life games.  Fantasy teams typically have, in addition to the skill players, a full defensive unit (though there are some “Individual Defensive Player” leagues, which let you draft single defensive players) and a kicker.  Defenses usually gain points by accumulating sacks, getting safeties, turnovers, bringing turnovers in for touchdowns, and, most importantly, by not letting their real-life opponent score too many points*.  Kickers typically get points for making field goals and not screwing up the PATs (but they are scored in the same way any other player is if they fake the field goal).  At the end of the day, the game combines the points from all your players and the guy with the higher score wins. 

That’s the basic gist of fantasy football but, obviously, there’s a lot more to it. 

*There’s some important info about defensive scoring setups in the Alternative Scoring section.  To be honest, the scoring section is probably the most important in this guide.