Identifying the right number of quarterbacks in fantasy football leagues is influenced by two major factors: the type of the league you are playing in and the size of your player roster. Although generally it may be safer to stick with three quarterbacks, sometimes the optimum number to maintain is two. Since in standard leagues you only need one QB at the start of the season, under some circumstances it may even be enough to only keep one player for this position, as we will see later on.
The most likely scenario in which you may want to leave room for three quarterbacks in your team is when you have a below-average talent pool at the other player positions and find it necessary to compensate for that. In some leagues, there may be no good RB or WR options left in the final three or four rounds of the draft, and therefore it may be useful to recruit or draft a third QB instead. In most other situations however, keeping a third quarterback in the roster isn’t justified.
When analyzing your fantasy football draft picks, focusing on one additional skilled QB to serve as backup may be sufficient. However, there is a valuable piece of fantasy football advice you need to follow here – remember not to draft a QB whose bye week coincides with the one of your starting player, as that would be pointless. Moreover, if everything goes right you will only be required to use your backup QB once a year, which eliminates the need to keep three slots occupied for the same position in your team’s roster.
In fact, this is one of the main reasons why many fantasy football team owners prefer carrying only one quarterback. When you have an effective plan for switching between players on the waiver wire and know for sure that there are several quality quarterbacks available on the free agent market, you have the freedom to select one when your starting QB has a bye week, so carrying only one QB may be all you need at times.
In fantasy football leagues that allow two starting QB’s on the roster, it is broadly recommendable to make room for one more and carry a total of three QB’s, although occasionally you should also do fine with only the starting two. To understand this a little better, check out the following fantasy football quarterback advice addressing leagues featuring more than 10 teams and requiring two starting QB’s.
Since the number of total teams in the NFL is 32, when participating in a league with a total of 10 teams in which every team owner enters the competition with two QB’s, it means a dozen quarterbacks are left out initially. If every team has one backup for this position, it means there will only be two starting quarterbacks on the waiver wire, and this is the reason why most leagues featuring 10 teams impose a maximum limit of three QB’s for each individual team. In this type of situation, you may also want to double check that your QB's don’t have the same bye week.
In conclusion, under most circumstances it may be better to draft and maintain no more than two QB’s. Although sometimes it may also be useful to make room for an extra one, favoring a three QB approach generally means you run the risk of wasting a valuable slot.
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