The fashionable NFL sport is dominated by quarterbacks. The previous 12 regular-season MVPs and 14 of the previous 19 Tremendous Bowl MVPs have been quarterbacks. 9 of the previous 11 gamers taken first total within the NFL draft have been quarterbacks. The one-season passing landing file has been damaged 3 times previously 21 seasons. And three of essentially the most completed quarterbacks in historical past — Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning — achieved their greatest statistical campaigns inside the previous 18 seasons.
Past the awards and gaudy statistics accrued by those that play the place, fashionable quarterbacks proceed to captivate us with their athleticism. Cell QBs have revolutionized the sport, with gamers comparable to Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson capturing headlines and dominating the fantasy soccer panorama.
Allen has the file for many seasons with a minimum of 375 fantasy factors (doing so in every of the previous 5 seasons) and is the league’s reigning MVP. Jackson set the single-season scoring file for fantasy factors by a quarterback in 2024, giving him two of the highest 4 years on that checklist (2019).
These are performances to be celebrated and etched into our brains. The fantasy soccer expertise reaches its apex once we amplify these recollections. And that pleasure is why I might implore you to make one easy change to your league this 12 months: Begin two quarterbacks as an alternative of 1.
This is the way you do it: Add a superflex slot to your league’s lineup.
What’s a superflex, you ask? Listed as an “OP” (offensive participant) in ESPN leagues, the superflex slot may be stuffed by a QB, RB, WR or TE.
When you may merely add a second beginning QB slot, including a superflex as an alternative is the really useful method, notably in case your league has greater than 10 groups in it.
Superflex leagues are successfully 2QB leagues — the numbers bear out {that a} quarterback must be prioritized in that lineup slot — however this feature offers the flexibleness of utilizing a RB, WR or TE as an alternative, within the occasion you run brief on QBs in a given week attributable to byes or accidents.
NOTE: So as to add an OP slot to the beginning lineup in your ESPN customized league, click on on “LM Instruments” after which “Edit Roster Settings.” Alter the dropdown menu accordingly and also you’re all set.
There are different rationales for the change to start out two quarterbacks as properly.
It means a better concentrate on QBs early in your draft
If we’re to emulate the NFL sport, should not we be drafting prime quarterbacks practically as early as the sport’s greatest operating backs and large receivers?
Among the many dozen or so fantasy soccer leagues wherein I play, two of my favorites are superflex/2QB setups, one in every of which I’ve performed for practically 30 years. The shift in draft technique demanded by such a format is a welcome problem.
In a superflex format, it’s completely reputable to treat Allen or Jackson because the No. 1 total choose (I personally rank Jackson first). In truth, it is not a troublesome case to make that each of them, plus Jayden Daniels and Jalen Hurts, warrant consideration among the many first 5 total picks.
Naturally, extra QBs develop into fantasy-relevant
It isn’t solely about trumpeting the Allens and Jacksons of the league. It is also about elevating the lesser-known quarterbacks who aren’t at all times worthy sufficient to crack a standard fantasy lineup.
For instance, over the ultimate eight weeks of final season, Jared Goff was the highest-scoring fantasy quarterback within the league — sure, Jared Goff! — but not as soon as throughout that point was he began in additional than half of ESPN leagues.
In the meantime, Sam Darnold authored one of many place’s most surprising breakthrough tales in latest reminiscence, ending prime 10 on the place for the week eight instances and ninth in scoring for the season. But, solely seven instances was he began in better than one-third of ESPN leagues, most of them throughout the fantasy playoffs.
In superflex leagues, nevertheless, each QBs have been lineup mainstays for the near-entirety of the season.
Fantasy managers in superflex codecs should embrace the problem of scouting a wider scope of the place’s participant pool, together with doubtlessly foreseeing breakthroughs like Goff’s or Darnold’s. In spite of everything, Darnold was a recognized Week 1 starter (following J.J. McCarthy’s season-ending harm) who led an offense with probably the most potent units of receivers. Those that took an opportunity on him may have been those exclaiming, “Sam Darnold’s 35-point Week 14 propelled me into my league’s playoffs!”
Darnold wasn’t the one such latest instance. The previous two seasons additionally introduced us comparable success tales like Jordan Love in 2023 and Baker Mayfield and Bo Nix final 12 months, quarterbacks who have been frivolously drafted in commonplace fantasy leagues however made compelling circumstances for a better examination.
Now flash ahead on the place, to 2025: How will Justin Fields fare in his return to a beginning function with the New York Jets? To what diploma may C.J. Stroud rebound from a disappointing sophomore marketing campaign? What can we anticipate from McCarthy in his return from a number of knee surgical procedures?
In commonplace leagues, these solutions are largely irrelevant come draft day, as a result of not one of the three makes a compelling sufficient case to be in a fantasy lineup in September. In these single-QB codecs, we’re higher off saving the time we might spend scouting these quarterbacks, and reinvesting it into painstakingly analyzing Bhayshul Tuten’s path to prominence within the Jacksonville Jaguars’ backfield, or Marvin Mims Jr.’s probability of lastly breaking by way of within the Denver Broncos’ receiver pecking order, as a result of these and comparable solutions from different groups’ operating again and large receiver depth charts present extra invaluable perception into our late-round, bench and sleeper picks.
The likes of Fields, Stroud, McCarthy, and so on. ought to have a extra distinguished place in my fantasy evaluation. And in a superflex league, it is crucial to look at all 32 groups’ quarterback footage, proper there alongside analyzing each workforce’s third-string operating again and No. 3 and/or slot large receiver.
It means extra factors scored by your lineup
All of us love extra fantasy factors, proper? Final season, quarterbacks amassed 163 complete video games value a minimum of 20 fantasy factors, a mean of greater than 9 per week and greater than the operating again place scored as an entire.
In a 10-team league with one beginning QB for every workforce, lots of these 20-point performances go by the wayside. However with two starters, the overwhelming majority of these video games wind up counting towards some workforce’s fantasy rating.
Utilizing ESPN’s most-started percentages from 2024 to assemble the 20 most possible starters in a superflex/2QB league, 83% of these 20-point efforts would’ve made the lineup reduce, as an alternative of the 49% that truly did in commonplace, single-QB play.
Let’s all give quarterbacks their due, and have extra enjoyable enjoying fantasy within the course of. This 12 months, add a second starter to your lineup and make them the centerpieces of your roster.
