Week 16 is about to kick off, and if you’re still alive in your respective fantasy playoffs, congratulations. To me, this is the most important week of the whole fantasy football season. Sure, getting to the playoffs is our primary task when we start drafting in August. Once we’re there, though, it’s all about the Championship. There’s nothing worse for me than having to play in the Consolation game (i.e., 3rd place game). I absolutely hate it. I mean, really hate it…with a passion!
But I’m not here for fantasy football therapy. We can do that in the offseason. I’m here to help you win a title! And in that regard, we need to talk about QBs again.
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How comfortable are you feeling after last week’s games? Specifically, how are you feeling about your QBs? Check out last week’s Top 12 fantasy producers at the QB position (1 per 25 PassYds & 1 per 10 RushYds, 6 per TD, -2 per INT):
Yikes! That’s not what we were planning for on draft day, was it? I mean, how many of you out there had Easton Stick and Jake Browning over Lamar Jackson (14th), Patrick Mahomes (17th), Josh Allen (18th), Tua Tagovailoa (20th) and Dak Prescott (32nd)? I sure didn’t.
Many factors contributed to these results, and we’d have to dissect each QB individually to cover them all. I’m not going to do that, sorry. However, there is one season-long data trend that Bobby Lamarco (@BobbyLamarco) and I have been playing with, and I want to cover it today: QB Home vs Away splits.
On our Start/Sit show last Sunday (shameless plug – see below), the “Quadfathers” discussed several situations that had us higher or lower on a particular QB. Anytime we discuss Dak Prescott, for instance, we know he (and the Cowboys, in general) tend to struggle on the road. Sure enough, that’s what we saw last week in Buffalo. That got Bobby and me even more interested in digging deeper into this trend and seeing how it affects (or not) all the current QBs. We found some interesting results.
Here is the top half of the league (“Home” FPts vs “Away” FPts). NOTE: scoring reflects fantasy points from just the passing stats, same scoring as above.
As expected, Dak Prescott heads the list. As you can see in the table, he is averaging less than half as many fantasy points on the road as compared to the friendly confines of Jerry World. No surprise here!
The only other QB to share that dubious honor is C.J. Stroud. Did that name catch you by surprise? It did for us. By all measures, Stroud has been fantasy gold for those savvy fantasy owners who drafted or picked him up early in the season. However, with road games this season versus the top 3 defenses (as of Week 15) in limiting QB points (BALT, CAR & NYJ), this isn’t nearly as surprising to see. Nevertheless, make a mental note of this potential trend next summer when the pre-season rankings are super elevated for his sophomore season.
Since we’re talking about Week 16, here are the road QBs from the table above in which you may want to temper expectations this week:
- Dak Prescott @ MIA
- Jared Goff @ MIN
- Josh Allen @ LAC
- Aidan O’Connell @ KC
- Joe Flacco @ HOU
Now, here is the bottom half of that list:
You’ll note the differences drop off quickly, and in fact, many of the QBs listed here haven’t had enough starts to make a definitive observation statistically. That said, there are a few QBs of note here with road games in Week. NOTE: Many factors go into start/sit decisions, and these tend to be magnified in the playoffs. When we can minimize or even eliminate one of these negative factors, that makes our lives just a bit easier. Here are the ones I’m tracking:
- Gardner Minshew @ ATL
- Lamar Jackson @ SF
- Geno Smith @ TN
- Kyler Murray @ CHI
- Jake Browning @ PIT
- Trevor Lawrence @ TB
Fantasy football scoring, especially for QBs, can be significantly influenced by the environment in which players are playing. QBs often benefit from the familiar surroundings and supportive crowd energy when playing at home. Conversely, distractions like travel, lodging, field conditions, and hostile crowds may all factor into their play. Whether you realize it or not, we fantasy football managers likely consider this in some of our decision-making.
Bobby and I are data geeks, as Matt Stiles (@Stiles08) likes to say, and therefore, we like to analyze the appropriate data with the goal of making more informed roster decisions. That was the goal of today – give you some data to back up “Home vs. Away” trends we see (i.e., Dak Prescott) or didn’t know to look for (i.e., C.J. Stroud).
Like our “Slot vs. Wide” and other valuable tools available on the Razzball NFL site, we will look to track this a little more next season. For now, include this in your decision matrix for Week 16 and, hopefully, Week 17, and go win a title!
Programming Note: Our normal Sunday Start/Sit show will air this week on Saturday afternoon (3:00 EDT) before the weekend kickoffs. Right up to game time, @BobbyLamarco, @SkyGuasco, @Stiles08, and I will answer all your fantasy football questions. We’ll also be back on Tuesday night to cover the important fantasy topics. Don’t miss it.
Look for my articles right here each week, and be sure to follow me on Twitter/X @Derek_Favret. I’m now on BlueSky as well (@dfavret.bsky.social).
Until next time, my friends.
