0:00There's basically one simple trick to
0:01winning the quarterback position in
0:03fantasy football every single year, and
0:05I'm going to give it to you guys free of
0:06charge. What we have here is the 2026
0:09quarterback rankings over on Flock
0:11Fantasy, and we are going to explore the
0:12concept that is going to allow us to
0:14make the winning choices at this
0:17position every single year. And it is
0:18called the quarterback window, and it is
0:21as simple as it sounds. You do not have
0:23to pay for an elite quarterback. Doesn't
0:25mean you would never take Josh Allen,
0:27Lamar Jackson, Drake Maye. There are
0:28certainly situations where those guys
0:30can be winning picks. But the data that
0:32has been provided over the years by our
0:33friends over at Rotoviz says that the
0:35quarterback nine through the quarterback
0:3818, kind of in that round seven to round
0:4012 range, is just where you find
0:42league-winning quarterbacks every single
0:44year. The key difference with this
0:46strategy versus a lot of what we do in
0:48redraft seasonal fantasy football is
0:51there is a good opportunity to take two
0:54of them, and I think there are great
0:55opportunities in 2026 to take two of
0:58them. But this is also going to be true
0:59in 2027, 2028 until the league evolves
1:02into a much different way. Looking at
1:04the target zone here, we see generally
1:07speaking, right about the quarterback
1:09seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, that is
1:12where we find winning selections at
1:14these positions. There's a strong,
1:17strong, strong correlation between
1:19rushing attempts and next year
1:21quarterback points. Generally speaking,
1:23it is the number one predictor. We find
1:25quarterbacks who run, those guys are
1:27going to supply a surplus of fantasy
1:29points.
1:31Looking at the 2026 season, there are a
1:33load of guys in this range that bear
1:35that out. The best season of Mahomes'
1:37career came with rushing. The best
1:39season of Trevor Lawrence's career came
1:41with rushing. Jackson Dart averaged over
1:4321 fantasy points per game. Why? Because
1:46of rushing. Brock Purdy had that
1:47legendary week 17 game. Why did he have
1:50such a great game against the Bears?
1:51Because he ran. Bo Nix, why is he an
1:54awesome fantasy football quarterback?
1:55Because he adds a little bit of
1:57scrambling in there. Kyler Murray, why
1:58would we be drafting Kyler Murray who
2:00got cut by the Arizona Cardinals because
2:03he runs. These guys who are running core
2:05I mean, Tyler Shuck as well in there.
2:07These guys who add the rushing, these
2:09who we want to be targeting heavily in
2:12the window. You get roughly 4.8 fantasy
2:15points per game for rushing quarterbacks
2:17versus pocket passers. That was in 2025.
2:20Again, the data here is from our friends
2:22over at Rotoviz. The weekly gap in 2025
2:25from quarterback one to quarterback 12
2:27was 14.3
2:29fantasy points per game. That is far
2:31tighter than you're going to find at
2:32running back or wide receiver. All these
2:34scores get compressed and we're also
2:36seeing that with ADP this upcoming
2:38season in 2026.
2:40The average draft position between
2:42someone like Drake May at the
2:43quarterback five and someone like Bo Nix
2:46or Kyler Murray, someone sitting there,
2:48that has been compressed which leads us
2:50to want to wait or take two far more
2:53often. Uh in the most recent seasons, we
2:56have got seven of the eight most recent
2:58seasons, we have had a top five
3:01quarterback season come from someone
3:03outside the top five quarterbacks
3:05drafted. And I think there are some
3:07pretty clear explanations for why the
3:09window works. The first one is is that
3:11this idea that scarcity exists at the
3:14quarterback position. I would actually
3:16think a lot of you guys would probably
3:18have a handle on this which is that if
3:20you have a guy who's good enough, your
3:22fantasy football roster is going to be a
3:24good enough. Again, I mean, look at this
3:25list. Who is the last guy on this list
3:28where you'd be like, well, there's no
3:29chance I'm going to win my fantasy
3:30football match up this week if he is
3:32starting? I mean, certainly if you have
3:34Stafford who is not a running
3:35quarterback, I mean, he definitely
3:37elevated his results. He definitely
3:39scored more than his fantasy points over
3:41expectation last season.
3:44But you feel fine with Stafford. You
3:45feel fine with Goff. You feel fine with
3:47Mayfield, another guy who adds a little
3:48bit of scrambling ability. I would say
3:50probably on this list here on Flock
3:53Fantasy, I would say Willis at
3:55quarterback 21 would be the last one.
3:57Stroud, Darnold, Ward, and Daniel Jones,
3:59they could all be fine. They all have
4:01some upside, but I wouldn't want to go
4:03into the season being like, "Yeah, the
4:04only quarterback that I have in my
4:0612-team league is Daniel Jones."
4:09Quarterbacks who run five or more times
4:11in a given game hit 20 plus points in
4:1343% of their starts in 2025. A
4:16non-rusher usually needs 35 passing
4:19touch downs to reach that. I mean, which
4:21again is historically true. If we look
4:23at Matthew Stafford's game logs from
4:26last season, he still had some quite bad
4:28games in there, you know, 13 points
4:29against Philly, nine points against
4:31Baltimore, 13 points against Seattle.
4:33And then you look at one of these
4:35quarterbacks who generate some rushing.
4:36I mean, Mahomes is actually a great
4:37example because his passing production
4:40in 2025 was so poor,
4:43he made up for it with his rushing. He
4:45had a much safer floor in 2025. You
4:48know, look at all these rushing touch
4:49downs that he was able to generate. And
4:51guess what? His bad games, his games
4:53against Buffalo, his games against
4:55Denver, his games against Houston, he
4:56was not able to add any rushing
4:58production in those games. Potentially
5:00the most important part of this, and
5:02it's really hard for us to drill down
5:04on, is that touchdowns are random.
5:06According to the research over at
5:07Rotoviz, touchdowns drive about 93% of
5:10the quarterback scoring variance and are
5:12nearly impossible to predict year to
5:14year. This is actually great. My friend
5:16JJ Zachariason really nailed down on
5:18this in terms of the touchdown
5:20percentage that a quarterback has, and
5:22it's really easy to think about this
5:24because it's just total percentage of
5:26his passes that end up being touchdowns.
5:29And I think one of the best examples of
5:30this is the Peyton Manning seasons when
5:32he got to Denver. He had the 37
5:35touchdown season, then he had a 55
5:37touchdown season, then a 39 touchdown
5:40season. Obviously, 39 passing touchdowns
5:42is still phenomenal, but the touchdown
5:44rates were completely insane. 6.3%, then
5:48all the way up to 8.3% then to 6.5%
5:51Russell Wilson another quarterback who
5:53we saw this touchdown percentage thing
5:55tend to really impact.
5:57Another key thing is that the window I
6:00mean it's just going to give you a hit
6:01every single year a list of guys here.
6:03Mahomes in 2018 Lamar in 2019 Gino
6:06Fields love Baker Goff and then Stafford
6:08actually. Stafford and Goff would be the
6:10two from this list that were able to do
6:12it with no rushing but I would bet my
6:14bottom dollar seriously. I would I would
6:16bet my absolute last dollar that someone
6:19from this list right here. You know
6:20Mahomes Murray Mayfield Purdy Nix Malik
6:24Willis Jordan Love one of these guys if
6:27not multiple of them they're going to
6:28outscore Jalen Hurts. They're going to
6:30outscore Caleb Williams Drake Maye Joe
6:32Burrow Jayden Daniels and I think
6:33relatively easily. Honestly like I think
6:35that we're going to get to the third
6:37week of the season and we're like wow. I
6:39can't believe that I drafted Joe Burrow
6:42in the fifth round of my draft and I'm
6:44just getting easily stomped on by my
6:46dumb friend who took Baker Mayfield and
6:49Jackson Dart and is just choosing the
6:50right one to start every single week.
6:52And that is you know a relatively
6:54annoying part of this strategy right is
6:56that if you are going to take two of
6:58them like let's say you take Dart and
6:59Nix or Purdy and Mayfield. You are going
7:02to have to choose the right one in the
7:03given week. Obviously we have lots of
7:05information that we can use in the given
7:07week though to make those decisions. We
7:08get to look at the Vegas line for a
7:10game. We get to look at their
7:12projections. We get to you know go over
7:13to flockfantasy.com and check the
7:15rankings from yours truly if you sign up
7:17over there using code Davis. Malik
7:19Willis a great example obviously of a
7:20guy if we see week one Malik Willis runs
7:2311 times guess what he's just a top 10
7:25fantasy football quarterback until he
7:27gets benched. And then the key part of
7:29all of this is the opportunity cost.
7:32When you take Josh Allen when you take
7:34Lamar Jackson even when you take Drake
7:36Maye or Jayden Daniels in drafts this
7:38year you are skipping on guys who would
7:40rank as starters at their position. You
7:42were skipping on the wide receiver 35,
7:44which is a starter in a three wide
7:45receiver or two wide receiver plus flex
7:47league. When you're taking Josh Allen,
7:50you might be taking him over your like
7:51legitimate running back one. And again,
7:53it's not to say I've had a couple of
7:55these situations in drafts this year
7:57where like, "Oh, Lamar Jackson got to
7:59the eighth pick of the sixth round." Or
8:02we're sitting on the clock in the eighth
8:03round and the best possible running back
8:06is, you know, like Kenneth Gainwell. And
8:09then we look and we have, "Okay, well,
8:10the best possible quarterback is Drake
8:11May. We should probably take Drake May."
8:14And I don't want you guys to lock in too
8:16much on 26 on 2026 because this is
8:18something that just works all the time.
8:21And this is basically it. The redraft
8:23playbook using the quarterback window.
8:25You wait a quarterback and then you take
8:28two of them. And the two of them is the
8:29thing that I see a lot of people kind of
8:31mess up on the strategy, but you want to
8:33give yourself two bites at the apple.
8:35The second one is that you absolutely
8:37have to prioritize rushing. If two
8:39quarterbacks are similar, take the ones
8:41you run. Design runs and scrambles are
8:43basically the most stable and
8:45projectable source of a weekly ceiling.
8:47The floor also stays quite high. This is
8:49a point that my friend Rich Reebar has
8:51made many times, which is that a lot of
8:52these running quarterbacks, someone like
8:54Justin Fields for example,
8:56they might not have the truly insane
8:58ceiling because it's hard for them to
9:00have a five or six touchdown game
9:02because they just are not effective
9:03enough throwing the ball, but the floor
9:05stays quite high. This is something that
9:07I really like about Malik Willis. I
9:08think the Dolphins passing game is going
9:10to be truly horrendous. The They don't
9:13have any NFL capable wide receivers on
9:15the entire team, but I do think that
9:17he's going to run. And then obviously,
9:19you do have to apply a little bit of
9:20intelligence, which is that you have to
9:22know the exceptions. If there is a true
9:24dual threat, you know, that Josh Allen,
9:26that Lamar Jackson, if it falls to a
9:28legitimate value price, one elite rusher
9:30can carry you because you can just take
9:33one quarterback. And I think there are
9:34multiple examples of this. I think
9:35probably the best one would be Lamar
9:39Jackson's 2024 season where he scored 25
9:42fantasy points per game. In 2019, Lamar
9:44scored 27. 27 fantasy points per game.
9:48That's very, very hard to pass up on and
9:51is a legitimate usage of your resources.
9:53And then we can also take a look at some
9:55of the guys who are my favorite targets
9:57in this window in 2026. I think
9:59obviously Mahomes is a great bet just
10:02because he's underpriced just for his
10:04passing production. I think Brock Purdy
10:06is also a completely phenomenal target
10:09here. I think that we are misremembering
10:12how good he has been. He also adds in a
10:14little bit of scrambling. They've kind
10:16of reinvigorated the offense there. But
10:18if we look at his 2024 game logs, he
10:20added some legitimate rushing, which I
10:23don't think that people like to know
10:25that in 2024 he had five rushing
10:27touchdowns, I think would surprise a lot
10:30of people cuz
10:31no one conceives of like, "Oh, Brock
10:33Purdy went to Iowa State, last pick in
10:34the draft. He can't possibly be
10:36running." But adding in five rushing
10:38touchdowns a year is kind of similar to
10:39how Aaron Rodgers used to exist back in
10:41the day. Like four under rushing yards
10:43and four rushing touchdowns can add
10:45quite a bit to both your floor and your
10:48ceiling. I would highlight those two. I
10:50would also certainly highlight Kyler
10:52Murray, who has been a great running
10:55quarterback even on bad Arizona
10:58Cardinals teams. 572 rushing yards, five
11:01rushing touchdowns in 2024, 819 rushing
11:04yards and 11 rushing touchdowns in 2020.
11:07If KOC kind of gets him back in his bag,
11:10I think that Kyler Murray's going to be
11:11one of the biggest winning picks in
11:13fantasy football in 2026. And of course
11:16I've got to highlight my guy Malik
11:18Willis, who is going to be a great
11:20runner. If the Dolphins can get anything
11:22going, I mean I'm telling you if the
11:24Dolphins finish as the 27th best offense
11:27in football instead of the 32nd best
11:29offense in football, Malik Willis is
11:31going to be one of the easiest winning
11:33picks in fantasy football. He would also
11:35be someone that I would heavily target
11:37in superflex, but I think the
11:38quarterback window is one of the
11:40strategies that if you are playing
11:42fantasy football for the first time or
11:44getting frustrated with your inability
11:45to win your fantasy football league, I
11:47think the quarterback window is a
11:48concept that you really have to
11:51integrate into your strategy.
11:53You can also get away with just taking
11:55one
11:56as long as it is in the window, but you
11:57need to be thinking about round eight,
12:00round nine, round 10 as that window
12:03where I'm going to prioritize getting a
12:04quarterback who can add some rushing
12:06floor. Obviously, if you want to ask me
12:08any questions, if you want to get access
12:10to my rankings, you can head on over to
12:12flockfantasy.com. The season pass is
12:14only 34 bucks annually. You can check
12:16that out. Link to flock fantasy is in
12:19the description and down in the
12:20comments, and I will see you guys back
12:22tomorrow.
