Superflex leagues and how to draft

Your friendly Neighborhood Madman loves a fantasy football format that most closely mirrors what we see on an actual football pitch. It’s why we despise PPR scoring, why we cringe at partial points, why we love scoring for first downs and why we love the idea of ​​a player in overtime to break ties.

It takes something monumental to move us from some of these ideas. A problem whose level of disparity is so great that it overshadows the football-flavored fantasy we love in our fantasy football. As catastrophic as… the devaluation of quarterbacks in nearly every fantasy format.

There is little debate that QB is the most critical position on the pitch in any given real football game. NFL teams spend high draft picks to get them, are willing to trade large amounts of draft capital to acquire them, and throw away ungodly sums of money to sign them. They do it because the big ones are so rare.

And in most fantasy formats, QBs score at a lower rate for passing yards and touchdowns than comparable rushing/receiving stats. So we’re already stepping out of our football-flavored comfort zone. But even with these point reductions, QBs generally outperform other positions on a regular basis.

The real problem lies in the size of the league. Because it just doesn’t work well for redraft leagues, or even goalie leagues with a small number of retainers, to have dozens of teams, almost all leagues are 10 or 12 teams, with a small number up to 14 and above considered rare and extreme.

And the cold, hard truth is that there are 10-14 fantastic QBs good enough to win your league – provided you have strong players in other key positions. The 14th-ranked QB isn’t going to win your league, but waiting to draft QB14 gives you additional early picks to load shallower positions.

Thus, fantasy QBs are hugely undervalued compared to their real life counterparts. So how can you solve this problem?

Sadly, the madman didn’t conjure up any solution that lives within the confines of flavor football. Instead, we prefer the Superflex size.

In case you’re unfamiliar, a Superflex roster spot (ideally added on top of a standard Flex) allows you an extra starting roster spot that you can fill with a player from any position, including QB. And if your league is a Superflex league, that means you should plan to use a QB there.

Yet unlike strict two-QB leagues, which require starting two QBs each week, a Superflex gives you the flexibility to start any position, so you don’t have to have use a QB.

So if you have a 12-team league, imagine each team wants to have two startable QBs on the roster, and most would like a backup to start. But there aren’t 36 playable QBs in the league, so Superflex solves that problem by providing flexibility that the strict two QBs don’t have.

Now that you can use two QBs every week, it dramatically increases the fantastic value of the position. Instead of waiting until the middle of the draft to even think about QB, you should immediately put them on the radar as soon as the weather starts to turn for Pick 1.

Betting on the NFL?

As we’ve seen in recent seasons with Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson, even top QBs might not live up to expectations for a variety of reasons. So you don’t have to jump on it on the first turn, although it’s fine if you do. But we are certainly looking early. You know how we talked about loving waiting to get a QB then a squad (in single QB formats) and how Derek Carr’s level is about as low as we like to go for the second?

Well now Carr is still as low as we want to go for a second QB, only now he would be a starter. And we’ll be more eager to jump on a higher option, probably no later than Round 2 or no later than Round 3. Essentially, you need to be comfortable taking two QBs in your top 4-5 picks — maybe be earlier if there is an early run.

Then when you start reaching those who are normally on or near the undrafted cut line in standard leagues – think: Trevor Lawrence, Ryan Tannehill, Matt Ryan, Jameis Winston – chances are you need to press on this trigger at least by Round 8.

No, it’s not a perfect solution to our dilemma. But it does the job quite well. And that makes the fantastic draft and the season much more interesting. If you are not yet playing in a Superflex league, hurry up, act now. You will have a great time.