As we are pushing into July and further downhill towards the 2023 fantasy season, we are going to extend our top-down approach that has already examined leaguewide production at each position group and team output.
The goal is that when it is time for your drafts, we have covered all corners of the fantasy earth from a team, player, position, and game theory stance to accurately calibrate our draft strategy.
This week, we are going to dive into the stats that matter the most for weekly fantasy output and which of those stats have the largest rollover year over year.
Highlights:
- Since 2012, the top-12 weekly scorers at quarterback averaged 2.4 passing touchdowns during their weeks as a QB1 scorer while top-six scorers averaged 2.9 passing scores.
- Fantasy scoring per game in the season prior has the lowest amount of rollover for quarterbacks than it does at any of the other positions.
- Since the NFL merger in 1970, there have been 162 seasons in which a quarterback has started at least eight games and posted a touchdown rate of 6.0% or higher. Out of those 162 seasons, just 18 of them matched their touchdown rate in the following season.
Stats that Matter:
Quarterback Fantasy Related Articles:
- Quarterback Tiers
- Quarterback Rankings
- Quarterback Trends
- Red Zone Points vs Expectation: Quarterback
Highest Correlation to Weekly Fantasy Points Scored For Quarterbacks:
| CATEGORY | CORRELATION |
|---|---|
| Total TD | 0.8813 |
| PaTD | 0.6927 |
| PaTD% | 0.6523 |
| PaYds | 0.6356 |
| Completions | 0.4777 |
| PaAtt | 0.3821 |
| Y/A | 0.3241 |
| Comp% | 0.2564 |
| RuAtt | 0.1399 |
| RuYds | 0.1348 |
| RuTD | 0.1144 |
For our correlation here, we are looking at all games played since 2012.
When we are talking about the final line for fantasy output for passers, on a weekly level, it comes down to the impact of touchdown production firsthand (spoiler alert, this will be a common theme all week).
Total touchdowns (passing and rushing scores combined) have by far the highest correlation to total fantasy points, which of course makes a ton of inherent sense. If you have a lot of touchdowns, you are going to score points. If not, then you are not. Simple as that.
Chasing touchdowns overall is a tricky thing to do, which is why we see so many different quarterbacks post viable starting weeks in fantasy compared to the other positions.
Over the timeframe of this sample, the top-12 weekly scorers at quarterback averaged 2.4 passing touchdowns during their weeks as a QB1 scorer while top-six scorers averaged 2.9 passing scores.
The top scorer overall in all of the weeks in the sample has averaged 3.6 passing touchdowns per game.
Over this entire 189-week sample, just four of those QB1 overall scorers threw fewer than two touchdown passes while none of them had zero passing touchdowns. You just are not going to pace the position in scoring unless you throw at least multiple touchdown passes that given week.
While touchdowns themselves are harder to predict, we can use all of this information to our benefit to make more educated decisions on a weekly level of setting lineups and playing DFS.
We inherently know that yardage has a direct correlation with touchdown output, so using high-yardage potential outcomes based on matchups or projected game scripts can put us in place to more accurately play for touchdown upside.
When we get outside of passing touchdown-related stats, passing yards are the next influential category that carries a correlation of over 60%.
Those counting stats of touchdowns and yardage (results of a pass attempt) carry so much more of an influence on scoring than the raw volume of pass attempts, completions, or rate stats such as completion percentage and yards per pass attempt.
The passing touchdown rate is the one efficiency-based metric that matters significantly (touchdowns are good).
Overall passing volume does not have nearly as strong of a correlation to output, nor does a high completion rate or yards per pass attempt, but scoring is weighted by touchdown output.
Even though gamers will always want to chase passing volume, it is not about the raw pass attempts a passer has, it is all about what he does with them.
Something that is often lost in the sauce when chasing volume is how efficiency impacts volume from a top-down stance. If you are worse with the pass attempts (or rushing attempts and targets) you do have, you are going to need and create more of them within your offense as opposed to reducing the volume when you have successful reps.
Being the #Konami guy, do not be alarmed that rushing stats here are at the bottom.
Although quarterback rushing is at an all-time high, there are still too many non-runners per week in the field for that production to make strong correlations overall.
Even though quarterbacks accounted for their highest leaguewide rushing attempts in the history of the league, that was still just 15.8% of the total attempts.
This is why we still regularly highlight that we are not close to seeing the apex of where quarterback rushing can still go. We had five quarterbacks run the ball at least 100 times last season and another nine passers with 50-plus rushes, but that is still fewer than half of the league.
But do not be mistaken…those quarterbacks that do run matter.
Among all top-12 weekly scorers in 2022, those players averaged 4.7 rushing points per game.
Top-6 weekly scorers averaged 6.3 rushing points per game, while top-3 scorers averaged 7.7 per game.
When taking a look at the 18 players that led the position in weekly scoring last season, they averaged 8.8 rushing points per game.
Among those 18, 13 of them posted 4.0 or more (the equivalent of a passing touchdown) rushing points in that game.
Just two of those 18 quarterbacks to lead a week in scoring failed to score a full rushing point.
After looking at the stats that impact weekly games, let’s move on to the stats that are the stickiest year-over-year and impact the following season scoring the most.
Year-Over-Year Correlation Categories for Quarterbacks:
| CATEGORY | YOY R2 |
|---|---|
| RuYd/Gm | 0.6774 |
| Comp % | 0.6328 |
| RuYd/Season | 0.6135 |
| RuAtt/Season | 0.5731 |
| RuAtt/Gm | 0.5055 |
| PaYds/Gm | 0.3491 |
| PaYds/Season | 0.3287 |
| Fant. Pts/Season | 0.3242 |
| RuTD/Season | 0.2989 |
| Fant. Pts/Gm | 0.295 |
| PaTD/Gm | 0.2793 |
| PaTD/Season | 0.2793 |
| PaAtt/Season | 0.2661 |
| PaAtt/Gm | 0.2571 |
| RuTD/Gm | 0.1461 |
| Y/A | 0.1068 |
| PaTD% | 0.0927 |
This is the first post in this series this week, but I am going to spoil something right away relating to quarterbacks and the other positions.
Fantasy scoring per game in the season prior has the lowest amount of rollover for quarterbacks than it does at any of the other positions.
I hypothesize that since quarterbacks are the most reliant on touchdown production to carry overall fantasy output, that they are impacted the most by the natural variance of actual touchdown output.
You will find throughout the week that touchdown production per game and season is extremely volatile.
But we have seen this play out regularly. A quarterback massively out-kicks his expected touchdown rate, stacks a ton of passing scores, then regresses to the mean the following season.
Since the NFL merger in 1970, there have been 162 seasons in which a quarterback has started at least eight games and posted a touchdown rate of 6.0% or higher.
Out of those 162 seasons, just 18 of them matched their touchdown rate in the following season while the other passers had an average decline in touchdown rate of -2.6%.
Patrick Mahomes is an absolute demon and the best quarterback we have in the game. He led the NFL in passing touchdown rate last season for the second time in his career at 6.3%.
Even Mahomes has yet to post back-to-back seasons with a touchdown rate of 6.0%. Joining Mahomes, Tua Tagovailoa (6.3%) and Josh Allen (6.2%) were also both over 6.0% last season.
This is also what makes it extremely hard to weigh what Brock Purdy did in his short sample as a starter last season.
During his five starts to close the regular season, Purdy had a massive 8.8% touchdown rate. There is no way that is remotely sustainable.
When looking at the stats that are the stickiest for quarterbacks year-over-year, we do not end up with many reliable stats. Only five stats here have a 50% correlation to following season output in those areas.
Unfortunately, four of those are rushing-related, which is inversely related to what we discussed above on the weekly level.
While rushing output has a low correlation to weekly scores since so few quarterbacks are running the football in the overall sample, that lack of surplus rushers is also why rushing statistics have a higher correlation year-over-year.
The one efficiency-based metric here that has a high correlation yearly is completion rating.
I have long been a subscriber that accuracy is not something that is learned at the NFL level and is a red flag for prospects that struggle in that department entering the league. It is great to see that notion reinforced here, but we are also operating within a tighter perimeter of output, which makes it a stickier stat overall.
What I mean by that is we can see a passer’s touchdown rating bottom out (see Justin Herbert last season) and even approach zero percent (see Kenny Pickett), but there are limitations as to how low we can reasonably expect the completion rating to plummet or excel.
Of the 32 passers in 2022 to make eight or more starts, 31 of them had a completion rate between 60-70%.
Dipping below all of those categories, the stats that are the most stable for passers yearly are passing yardage per game and season.
Anything volume or efficiency-related can just about be thrown out the window outside of using a description for the season we just had.
Pass attempts per game and season check in with around a 25% correlation year-over-year, while yards per pass attempt and touchdown rate are hyper-volatile.
Some primary takeaways here are:
- Quarterback statistics are volatile. I will not push back on drafting options such as Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen highly based on their resume of high-end production. But through a top-down lens, quarterbacks have the lowest number of statistics that carry significant rollover year-over-year. That makes it harder to invest highly into the position in 1QB formats.
- Touchdowns (specifically passing touchdowns) matter the most for the quarterback position on a per-game level for fantasy scoring.
- Those quarterbacks that do run matter, but the league is still built on pass-first options.
- Relying on touchdowns more for scoring output plays a significant role in the number of passers that provide multiple starting-caliber weeks over the course of a season compared to the other positions. This is also why fantasy points scored per game and season have the lowest amount of year-over-year correlation compared to other positions.
- Do not overweigh efficiency spikes in rate stats. Rate stats are more descriptive than predictive.
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