Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Alternatives for Romo Owners

Yesterday, we pontificated on the value of Brad Johnson, and found him to be a not-so-exciting replacement for Tony Romo. So who should we pick up instead?

First, let's set some guidelines for our decision - assume that Romo will be out for 4 weeks (weeks 7 through 10), and that he will be back in time for week 11. Thus, we need a fill-in for those four weeks.

Next, throw out quarterbacks on any team that has a bye during weeks 7-10. We don't want to pick up a guy just to have to find a replacement for our replacement down the line.

From the guys that are left, throw out the Manning Brothers, Brett Favre, and Ben Roethlisberger. If any of those guys are available in your league, you don't have to read this column in order to win.

Finally, toss Matt Hasselbeck / Seneca Wallace out of the mix. Neither one of them will start in all four weeks for the Seahawks, making them both more trouble than they are worth.

That leaves us with 11 guys that we can rank according to TPV. Each has a base value for yardage and TDs, and we can use the defensive modifiers for each of their opponents in weeks 7-10. Adding up the totals for the four weeks and using standard fantasy scoring (1 point for 20 yards passing, 4 points for passing TD, -2 points for interception) gives us a method to rank these quarterbacks. Here are the results:

QB %Owned Yards TDS Ints Fan Pts
Pennington 42 850.6 4.5 1.6 57
Schaub 75 1047.3 4.0 7.0 54
Edwards 78 807.3 2.6 1.6 48
Collins 22 766.3 2.9 3.0 44
Anderson 72 694.7 3.7 4.8 40
Bulger 50 705.2 1.5 2.0 37
Cassel 58 693.5 2.1 3.2 36
Russell 45 531.0 3.1 1.6 36
Orlovsky 0 473.6 4.0 4.0 32
Flacco 14 797.0 0.7 5.6 32
Croyle 5 469.9 0.0 0.0 23

Chad Pennington isn't the most exciting QB in the league, but he is probably available in your league and after a tough week 7 matchup against Baltimore (-23% pass defense TPV), he gets more favorable starts against Buffalo (+8%), Denver (+23%), and Seattle (+10%).

Matt Schaub is the best of these QBs in terms of his base TPV, but has to play Cincinnati (-27%, because everyone runs on them), Minnesota (-7%), and Baltimore (-23%) in weeks 8-10. Plus, all his interceptions hurt.

Based on last night's performance, I would be tempted to move Derek Anderson ahead of Collins and Edwards, but he has to face Washington (-25%) and Baltimore (-23%) during the four game stretch, which makes him look a little less desirable.

Hopefully, one the top 5 guys on this list is available in your league. If not, then a Romo owner might need to start thinking about a trade...

1 comments:

zazster said...

Cleveland's defensive pass stats are less impressive when you consider that two of the opposing QB's were Flacco and Fitzgerald and the game against Pittsburgh were played in 50mph winds.