2024 Decision Disasters - Make Sure I Don't Do Anything Stupid: QB Version
Which QBs are fantasy GMs botching thru 6 weeks of the season? Are they getting any right?
I like calling fantasy managers “GMs”. Makes playing fantasy football seem more legit than what it really is - a fantasy. Same reason at work I call a simple excel formula an “algorithm” or a vlookup “AI”. Makes it seem like a work at NASA when in reality I work at a fledgling fantasy football company.
One thing I struggle with is who are the “must starts” in fantasy. That is the most common wisdom thrown out in fantasy football. “Start your studs”. Well who TF is that?!? If I am new to the game how do I know who that is so I don’t look stupid in front of Troy, that douche bag from accounts receivable? Is there a list somewhere? Who maintains it? How often is it updated?
A couple of names on my personal must start list:
Julio Jones (top of my list - always will be)
MJD - I think he’s an analyst now
Todd Gurley
CMC (never owned him though)
100% not on my must start list 6 weeks ago:
Jayden Daniels
I lock in a player with a label and that’s it. Point being, I suck ass at re-labeling players once circumstances change. And that happens in fantasy - shit changes. I wanted to see which players fantasy managers GMs so far this year are, like me, struggling to figure out.
We dove into the first six weeks for over 120,000 teams on our Fantasy Genius platform, calculating the optimal lineup for every team each week. We can then see a QBs actual start percentage and compare it to how often they *should* have been started.
Couple housekeeping items before we dive in:
We only limited to players with a decent floor of starts. It’s propeirtary and way too complex for you to understand. Just know players like Bo Nix got nixed from this analysis for brevity sake.
Players can be in 3 main categories with this analysis:
Disrespected - we don’t start them enough
Over Respected - we start them too much
Medium respected AKA the Beatrix Bourbon cluster
Here is a chart deep statistical analysis comparing QBs actual fantasy start percentage (x-axis - the one on the bottom) with their ideal start percentage (y-axis - the one on the left). Any player above the line has been “disrespected” on the whole by fantasy GMs. Below the line are QBs we are paying too much respect to in 2024. This shows a couple outliers. Baker & Geno getting disrespected. Richardson & Mahomes are over-respected to this point.
Before you go losing your shit on me for saying Lamar is over-respected. I am not saying that. Lamar is my favorite NFL player (fantasy aside). Love watching him play. And obviously if you have Lamar, QB1 this year, you start him. That doesn’t mean that occasionally he can’t have a down game (16 points in week 2) and fantasy GMs have someone on the bench that outperformed him that week.
Disrespected
Here are all the QBs currently getting disrespected by all of us.
I think at this point enough people have come around on Jayden so I expect his start % to be sky high the rest of the year.
Some others idk. Danny Dimes & Carr have pretty shit PPG so people should be fine continuing the disrespect.
Rodgers also has a similar PPG but I am NOT saying anything bad about that man. I’m sure he’ll come across this analysis and I want the record to show I am not saying anything bad about him. I want to keep my job. Good luck this year, bro!
You are probably asking - should I really be starting Baker Mayfield in 2024??
We asked Baker for comment on this story and he declined.* But he probably would have responded with the following poem:
Over Respected
Here are all the QBs being over-respected. These guys are like melted chocolate on a new mother’s finger. You just CANNOT go in willy-nilly with the lick anymore. You can’t trust it. <Chappelle Tupac voice> “It might be DOO DOO”
If you saw Josh Allen on this list and were inclined to react with:
Fair criticism. Sort of. He’s QB #5 in 2024 but he laid two DOO DOO games this year. 9.8 points in week 2 and 7.3 in week 4. This analysis just shows that ~28% of the time this year GMs have had better QB numbers on the bench. His PPG is still very good. I have him and starting him every week! He’s led me to 2-4. Can’t turn my back on him now.
Deshaun Watson is not good anymore. He used to be a must start, right? So when did he move off the list? Was there some sort of event maybe that triggered him to get nixed from the “must start” list? Did the owner of this list send out an email to the listserv when he got removed as a “must start”?
Caleb Williams is getting HOT. 23.5 and 28.6 the last 2 games.
I STRUGGLE when players have elite NFL talent but are not the best fantasy players. Mahomes obviously sits atop this throne. When are people going to cut bait? Should you cut bait? Hell if I know.
Beatrix Bourbon Cluster - Most Medium Suspect Respect
The people we most medium suspect. Or rather they are respected just the right amount. Lamar with top billing on respect.
Want to see this for other positions? Throw a like on this post. If it gets more than 5 likes we’ll do RBs!
Comment below with any thoughts or questions — any big surprises on this list? Did you already know all of this? Tell us how much we pissed you off by wasting your time!
This data was gathered from leagues synced with Fantasy Genius, which provides automated weekly recaps, previews, and other unnecessarily detailed stats tailored specifically to your league. We support ESPN & Sleeper right now.
Appendix:
For those of you on desktop and are curious about our algoirhtm, enjoy our FULL raw data!
