Quarterback Moves to Make This Month

Photo: Troy Taormina, USA Today Sports

In a Superflex dynasty league, the best time you can spend time in March is upgrading quarterbacks. Until you have two top 5 quarterbacks, you should focus on continuing to upgrade your quarterback position. Taking a bad quarterback to a top 5 option at the position can change the reality of your dynasty team and improve your team by more than a win per year.

Trade: Kenny Pickett, 1.05, and 1.09 for Justin Herbert

Not every quarterback trade can be made easily or right away. Sometimes, playing the long game is necessary to get the deal done.

This is an example of a great quarterback trade.

First, young quarterbacks have a high miss rate. Kenny Pickett, the 20th pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, performed adequately as a rookie, but the odds of success from this range of the position are low.

One way to assess Pickett’s odds of success is to apply a base rate. Base rates are the odds a similarly situated player in the past succeeded and can be a useful starting point for player evaluation.

Below is a graph of the base rate of first-round quarterbacks, divided into top-10 and non-top-10 picks.

Entering the NFL, 67.9% of quarterbacks selected in the top 10 picks of the NFL draft hit for a top 12 seasonal finish in their career. After missing during their rookie season, the hit rate of those quarterbacks drops to 62.5%.

This compares very favorably to the 35% odds a non-top-10 pick hits for a top-12 seasonal finish in his career. Notably, the base rate of non-top-10 picks stays at 35% for these quarterbacks in the second year of their career, a sign that none of them have hit in their rookie season.

From a base rates perspective, Pickett is a risky bet with little long-term security or dependability.

Conversely, Justin Herbert has hit a top-12 seasonal finish in his first three seasons. Since 2008, only Josh Allen, Deshaun Watson, and Justin Herbert have started three-for-three in top-12 seasonal finishes.

Some easy rules of the quarterback position apply to this situation. First, quarterbacks who have hit for a prior top 12 seasonal finish are substantially more likely to hit for a future top 12 seasonal finish than those without a prior hit. Second, quarterbacks with a top-six seasonal finish are substantially more likely to do so again.

Once quarterbacks hit for a top 12 seasonal finish, they turn from a base rate to a density track. While base rates tell the odds of a future hit, once a player hits, the question becomes how deep the hit will become.

Below is a graph showing the odds of a top-12 seasonal finish for first-round quarterbacks, considering their outcomes.

Historically, first-round quarterbacks who hit once for a top-12 seasonal finish have a 69% chance of hitting again, while those quarterbacks who have hit twice have a 67% chance of hitting again. Upon the third hit, the odds jump substantially up to 92%, where quarterbacks hit the long-term franchise quarterback arc of the position.