Most fantasy leagues allow owners to start just one QB, and most fantasy owners simply try to
draft the best two QB’s available throughout the draft. Very few look ahead to the future at
weekly matchups throughout the year. This is a huge mistake!
A QB with a top-tier favorable matchup versus a bottom-tier is ~6 fantasy points. These points add up throughout the season and
can make the difference between winning or losing a championship.
In 2020, a great QB combo was Joe Burrow (#16 ADP) and Ben Roethlisberger (#17 ADP). To demonstrate the value of a solid QB combo, we first must rate
each of their matchups throughout the year. We will use the following scale to rate the
quality of a QB’s weekly matchup. (10 = playing easy defense; 0 = playing hard defense/bye week)
Now let’s look at the combination of Joe Burrow and Ben Roethlisberger for each week of the season.
Notice how the QB’s complement eachother throughout the year? Week-by-week, you
can see that when one QB is stuck with a bad matchup (red), the other has a good
matchup (green)! For example, in week 2 Ben Roethlisberger has a poor matchup (DEN) while Joe Burrow has
a great matchup (CLE). In week 3, it flips. Ben Roethlisberger has a great matchup (HOU) while Joe Burrow has
a poor matchup (PHI)
Check out the far right column, “Avg”. Individually these QB’s get a matchup scores of ~5.8, but when combined these QB’s get a matchup score of 7.6.
This is the equivalent of playing an 8th-ranked or worse defense every week instead of a 15th-ranked defense every week!