Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday. The year was 2018. Sears and Toys R’ Us had just closed their last doors. Jon Gruden had just signed a $100 million dollar contract bringing hope to the then Oakland Raiders franchise.
Meanwhile, heads were spinning all across Kansas City. Word spread quickly that the Chiefs were beyond impressed with their new quarterback’s training camp performance, and the hype cycle began to whip into a frenzy.
Not everyone at the time bought it of course. But after Patrick Mahomes debuted to a tune of 5,097 yards and 50 touchdowns, the rest was history.
It became cemented that not only was Mahomes going to be great, he was destined. Reports poured in of teams who claimed after the fact that they too knew Mahomes was going to be great and made their own attempts to trade up for him.
Of course, if these teams were so sure, it would stand to reason that they would’ve offered more than the Chiefs’ late first-round pick, third, and a future first.
No, unfortunately, by the time training camp hype is in abundant supply, the chips have already fallen where they are. And it’s not like you can use a tape measure to judge hype anyway.
So if you’re in the market for a quarterback, you’re going to need to know what to look for before the breakout. Let’s go over the most important metrics when selecting the highest impact position in dynasty football.
Key Quarterback Metrics
Scramble Rate
Rushing ability being prioritized at the quarterback position should come as no surprise at this point.
With Mahomes having a down year as a passer and failing to find paydirt as a rusher for the first time in his career as a starter, we saw rushing quarterbacks take over the leaderboards.
In standard formats, three of the top four fantasy quarterbacks in 2023 were Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts (also in a down year) and Lamar Jackson, who sat out week 18. Similarly, these three quarterbacks were also three of the top four
Scramble rate is the stickiest rushing-related stat when making the transition from college to the pros. Sure, you could measure Josh Allen’s strength or Lamar Jackson’s elusiveness to try to understand what maximizes these rush attempts.
Ultimately, if you possess either the strength or speed to offer more expected value from running rather than passing, your rate of attempts will naturally rise.
Clean Pocket Passing Metrics
A common refrain across the league emphasizes winning the battle in the trenches. In spite of this fan-favorite sentiment, a wide majority of teams pay their skill-position players more than the big uglies paving the way.
Maintaining consistent pass blocking is a difficult proposition for teams with limited resources. More players can get injured when you start five linemen which makes continuity rare.
Similarly unstable is how quarterbacks perform under pressure from year to year. While quarterbacks are to a degree responsible for sacks and pressure generated against them, which is why Time to Throw (how long it takes the quarterback from receiving the snap to releasing the pass) is a good stat to look at to contextualize your data, how well protected they are is outside of their control.
Eliminate the noise
This is why clean pocket passing metrics, i.e. measuring how a quarterback performs when there is no pass pressure, can tell us a lot about a quarterback’s ability when their environment is stable.
It’s a sticky stat that follows most quarterbacks year to year. It can also represent progress in a skillset, as rare as it is for quarterbacks to improve after their first several years in the league.
Consider few had Matt Ryan pegged for an MVP campaign in 2016, providing a top-two finish as a fantasy football QB.
Yes, Kyle Shanahan played a big role in creating opportunities. Still, Ryan’s clean pocket passing grade from PFF was always consistent prior to the campaign and continued after. Ryan simply needed the right environment.
While there are other metrics to consider that consider production from a clean pocket, PFF’s clean pocket passing grade does a fair bit to minimize noise that can come into other stats like passer rating.
Per Play Production vs. Raw Production
Before introducing the last key quarterback metric, it’s worth reminding you that all leagues are different. Some offer more reward for passing touchdowns, others reward yardage. Some grant an extra point for netting a first down. This gives value to players who are often tasked with moving the chains.
Keeping this in mind, one should always consider the simple approach of measuring strict fantasy production. After all, that’s what we’re here to collect right?
While that may seem overly reductive and offer little strategic advantage, consider that most fantasy football managers don’t consider rates.
It’s much more exciting to talk about players crossing plateaus. Whether it’s 5,000 yards or 30 TDs, they’re exciting ways to prop up a player’s value. It’s less fun to consider volume in the equation and talk about 8 yards per passing attempt vs. 6 yards per passing attempt.
Don’t worry about injury risk
However, as we’ve covered in the past, the injury-prone player is a bit of a myth. All players carry significant injury risk, history or not, and you should bake this in accordingly.
You don’t have to have the best quarterback in order to get the best production out of the spot. If there are players who are consistently fantastic but happen to have missed a lot of games, you can piece them together cheaper to get top-tier results.
Anthony Richardson for example led the league in points per dropback in his limited play. If those were indications of his potential, he should be a good target on your board. Especially so if your league considers his injury profile as toxic.