Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports
Total point leagues don’t care when your players score big or small just so long as they all add up to more than anyone else. But in weekly head-to-head play, there’s always a benefit when your players score more than the other starters in the league.
This is just a quick, interesting look at how players scored each week relative to the others in their position. When you start your quarterback, the more often he turns in a Top 10 performance for that week, the more you are likely to win. Below is the percentage of games for each season when a quarterback produced Top 10 fantasy points for that week. The total is the three-year average.
Percentage Top 10 games
| Quarterback | Average | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aaron Rodgers | 62% | 86% | 69% | 31% |
| Deshaun Watson | 57% | 57% | – | – |
| Andrew Luck | 55% | – | 67% | 43% |
| Tom Brady | 54% | 50% | 50% | 63% |
| Russell Wilson | 52% | 69% | 31% | 56% |
| Ben Roethlisberger | 52% | 47% | 50% | 58% |
| Cam Newton | 45% | 38% | 40% | 56% |
| Philip Rivers | 44% | 44% | 44% | 44% |
| Drew Brees | 43% | 19% | 63% | 47% |
| Matthew Stafford | 40% | 44% | 44% | 31% |
| Kirk Cousins | 40% | 38% | 44% | 38% |
| Matt Ryan | 40% | 19% | 69% | 31% |
| Jameis Winston | 39% | 54% | 38% | 25% |
| Carson Wentz | 38% | 69% | 6% | – |
| Dak Prescott | 38% | 38% | 38% | – |
| Carson Palmer | 37% | 29% | 40% | 44% |
| Marcus Mariota | 36% | 20% | 53% | 33% |
| Brian Hoyer | 35% | 20% | 50% | 36% |
| Blake Bortles | 35% | 31% | 19% | 56% |
| Derek Carr | 33% | 20% | 40% | 38% |
| Josh McCown | 32% | 38% | 20% | 38% |
| Alex Smith | 31% | 47% | 33% | 13% |
| Tyrod Taylor | 30% | 27% | 27% | 36% |
| Joe Flacco | 29% | 13% | 25% | 50% |
| Andy Dalton | 27% | 25% | 25% | 31% |
| Ryan Fitzpatrick | 26% | 33% | 0% | 44% |
| Eli Manning | 25% | 20% | 13% | 44% |
| Case Keenum | 18% | 33% | 20% | 0% |
| Jared Goff | 17% | 33% | 0% | – |
| Trevor Siemian | 16% | 27% | 21% | 0% |
| Jacoby Brissett | 13% | 25% | 0% | – |
| Jimmy Garoppolo | 11% | 33% | 0% | 0% |
This is a reminder of how good Andrew Luck is. There are no major surprises but Ben Roethlisberger and Phillip Rivers show up well. And the drop for Drew Brees is significant and just a little sad. Carson Wentz really came on strong after a slow rookie year. Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson rate the best though both were unable to finish their seasons.
Total Top 3 Games
| Quarterbacks | Total | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cam Newton | 11 | 4 | 1 | 6 |
| Russell Wilson | 10 | 6 | 1 | 3 |
| Kirk Cousins | 10 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| Aaron Rodgers | 10 | 1 | 7 | 2 |
| Tom Brady | 9 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| Drew Brees | 9 | 0 | 5 | 4 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | 8 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Matthew Stafford | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Blake Bortles | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Philip Rivers | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Matt Ryan | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| Andrew Luck | 5 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| Carson Wentz | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Alex Smith | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Eli Manning | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Carson Palmer | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Deshaun Watson | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Producing more than one game that ranks Top 3 for that week is tough enough and Russell Wilson’s monster 2017 year was significantly better than he had done in this measurement. Cam Newton, Kirk Cousins, Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson all managed at least three monster games.
Notable too is that Deshaun Watson’s three big games were also the highest scoring quarterback performances in all three weeks. Cam Newton, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger and Alex Smith were the only quarterbacks with two No. 1 games for a week. Watson only played in seven games so almost half were the highest fantasy score for that week.
