Depth is what separates the boys from the men when it comes to playing fantasy football. Anybody can draft the highest player available in the first few rounds, but only those of us who know what we’re doing can stock a bench full of would-be starters for the worst-case-scenario. Injuries in the NFL are inevitable, and every fantasy squad is going to be plagued by them.
Logic would dictate, then, that your bench should basically be a complete second-string team, and that every position should be accounted for. This is a fool’s errand.
Practice fast mock drafts with our free Mock Draft Simulator 
Some positions are infinitely more important to back up than others. Going into the season with just two running backs is tantamount to suicide, but you might not have such a hard time if the only tight end on your team is the one who’s starting. You’ll witness more rosters filled with five or six receivers than you’ll see players with backup defenses or kickers.
Quarterbacks aren’t nearly as vital in fantasy as they are in actual football. The average NFL QB is so consistently involved that there isn’t a whole lot of variance at the end of the day when their stats translate to fantasy. That’s not to mention the amount of protections provided to the modern day quarterback, which has made major injuries to QBs a thing of the past outside of one or two cases a year. Of starting QBs who lost time due to injury, Ryan Tannehill got the worst of it, missing a mere three starts (this, of course, isn’t including Teddy Bridgewater, who hurt himself before anyone should have been drafting). Colin Kaepernick and Case Keenum missed more, but their absences were performance-related.
Furthermore, standard leagues have players starting one QB, which equates to one bye week for a potential backup to fill in. Contrast this with the running back position, of which there are typically two starting spots. Assuming RB1 and RB2 don’t share the same bye week, RB3 will have at least two opportunities to fill in, even if there are no injuries to the whole team all season. The more starting spots there are for any position, the more important backups become as the player is forced to reach into the bench time and again for bye week fill-ins.
If we’re grading the necessity of backing up a position, and bye weeks are the floor and potential for injury is the ceiling, then QB has both a low floor and low ceiling. Wasting a roster spot on a player that will more likely than not play one game for you is madness. Backing up the QB position is more akin to drafting a second kicker or defense than it is filling your bench with WRs and RBs.
On the downside, your league-mates’ tendency to draft backup QBs is something of a prisoner’s dilemma. If nobody drafts a second QB, then whoever finds themselves needing a bye-week fill-in or injury replacement will be choosing from a formidable group of players on the waiver wire. Conversely, if everyone in your league drafts a backup QB but you, then you’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel for replacements if and when the situation presents itself.
Luckily, and most important for this entire argument, the difference between QB 11 and QB 20 isn’t all that substantial. Looking at 2016’s quarterbacks sorted by fantasy points per game, Matthew Stafford was 11th in the league with 17.5. The 20th ranked QB in FPPG was Jameis Winston… with 16. In other words, even if nine out of 10 players in a league hold on to backup QBs, that 10th person is only losing out on one or two fantasy points on average, and probably only for the one week their starting QB has his bye.
Drafting Ben Roethlisberger or Jameis Winston as backups might sound nice in theory, but to get those guys you’re forgoing proven talent like Kyle Rudolph and Eric Decker at comparable ADP. Even if the draft is nearly over, and you’re completely satisfied with your bench, by that point you’re better off taking the defense or kicker of your choice than you are drafting Eli Manning as your backup. At least that defense or kicker is going to start every week.
Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | SoundCloud | Google Play | TuneIn | RSS
Shane McCormack is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Shane, check out his archive and follow him @ShaneMcCormack_.
