Monty Phan breaks down the recent history of Dynasty Superflex rookie drafts to help you optimize your QB strategy.
In my previous post for RotoViz, I addressed the question of whether one truly needs two solid quarterbacks in superflex by examining my own FFPC Triflex teams, specifically the success of ones that deemphasized the position. I also promised that a follow-up would look at the QB position in superflex rookie drafts. But I didn’t specify anything else. Because at the time, I didn’t have anything else.
So when it came time to actually write this, none of the angles I brainstormed seemed to work, except for one:
What if we approached superflex rookie drafts by ignoring early-round QBs altogether?
Of course, some years this is easier to do than others. This year and in 2022, the first round of superflex rookie drafts tended to have just one QB chosen. In 2021 and 2024, there were up to five first-round QBs taken in superflex rookie drafts.
So, for this exercise, let’s examine rookie superflex drafts since 2020 and pretend the point all along was to fade early-round QBs. (That is, within reason. If you had the 1.01 last year, even a devout contrarian would be hard-pressed to skip past Caleb Williams, despite that, in hindsight, others would prove more deserving of being the top pick.) The goal here isn’t to blindly adhere to a singular strategy; if, for example, you find yourself with a pick where the obvious choice is a QB, the move would be to trade back. Failing that, then if the QB is the best player available, he should be your pick.
Where it gets tricky is if the QB isn’t the best player available, but he’s the player with the most trade value – often, this is the trap dynasty managers fall into, where they opt for an extraneous QB over a non-QB who’s the better prospect, thinking that they can just hold backup QBs for ransom. Sometimes, this works. Mostly, it doesn’t.
