Finding 2023's Fantasy Football League-Winning Quarterbacks Through Season Simulations

We've learned in the past from Kevin Garnett that anything is possible in the world of sports.

But what's possible and what's probable aren't always the same thing.

And while we definitely want to be optimistic on some fantasy football sleepers, it never hurts to know the probability of certain players hitting certain thresholds by the end of the season.

After all, fantasy football is a volatile game. Your first-round running back might miss half the season, and your star wide receiver may have some unfortunate touchdown luck (which even happened to Justin Jefferson in 2022!).

So what are we to do? When in doubt, simulate it out.

That's what my motto is, at least.

And in case that's not also your motto, I'm going to share my findings after simulating the 2023 NFL season 10,000 times to try and help uncover the most likely "league-winning" players at each position.

I'm starting with the quarterbacks.

If you're not very interested in the math or history behind this, skip ahead to the "2023 Fantasy League-Winning Quarterback Odds" section.

Simulating the NFL Season

One big reason I started to do this in the first place is because I used to build out my own fantasy football projections.

And, boy, if you ever do that, you'll learn a few things about how tricky that is.

From an actual efficiency standpoint, there's a big difference between a quarterback with an average yards per attempt mark of 8.0 and the league-average rate of 7.0 (from 2022).

That's the difference between great (only three quarterbacks averaged at least 8.0 yards per attempt last season) and just okay (you know, being the league average).

Over a 600-attempt season, the yardage differential between those two rates would work out to, well, 600 added yards. That's 24 fantasy points in most leagues and just 1.4 per game over a full season. And that's with a true outlier mark compared to the average -- not just a solid season around 7.5 yards per attempt or so.

The point?

I just started to care more about holistic projections (a.k.a. numberFire's fantasy football projections) and what they mean for player potential to finish well in a fantasy season.

In order to make sure the simulation results resemble reality, here's how quarterbacks -- bucketed by average draft position (ADP) -- have led the league in fantasy points, finished in the top 5 and the top 12, and fell outside the top 24 since 2012.

This means that a quarterback drafted as a top-four QB has finished as the QB1 13.6% of the time over the past 11 years and was at least a top-12 performer 75.0% of the time.

To put names to this, the top drafted quartet in FanDuel's best ball fantasy football drafts (Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson) should have simulation odds somewhat similar to the Tier 1 odds in the table above as a group.

2023 Fantasy League-Winning Quarterback Odds

Here are the results of the 10,000 season simulations and each quarterback's average draft position in FanDuel's best ball fantasy football formats.

I know that a lot of these are going to look "wrong," but when we look back at history, they largely check out. They do a good job of accounting for historical injury rates, overperformance or underperformance ranges, and anything else that can make or break a fantasy season.

As expected, with regards to the top four quarterbacks, they soak up a lot of the QB1 odds, specifically the ones with elite rushing upside (Allen and Hurts).

As for Jackson, his projection at numberFire is a step behind the top trio's. Mahomes also has to buck a decade-plus trend of not repeating as the QB1.

Either way, those four are pretty elite.

The next tier of Joe Burrow (6.1%), Justin Fields (5.6%), and Justin Herbert (5.3%) give us seven total QBs projected with at least a 5.0% chance to be the QB1, and only two others -- Trevor Lawrence (3.0%) and Deshaun Watson (2.0%) -- have at least a 2.0% chance to do it.

But since 2011, more year-end overall QB1s had a top-3 ADP (six of them) than anything lower than that (five of them).

Just two eventual QB1s had ADPs outside the top 12. Those were breakout MVP seasons by Mahomes in 2018 and Jackson in 2019.

So, remember the bit about optimism from the intro? Yeah, it's good to be confident that you can get an absolute steal late in the draft, but that's not really how quarterbacks work unless -- you know -- you draft the season's MVP in the 10th round or something.

There's also just a lot of competition and a lot of good health from big-picture standpoint to vie for a top-five season, let alone the top overall season among quarterbacks.

If you want big odds of an elite fantasy performer, you'll need to invest some draft capital in the position.

You can still try to replicate high-end performance on a weekly basis by streaming quarterbacks or by targeting higher-upside QBs in your best ball drafts, but as far as top-flight seasons, it's an exception to the rule if someone outside the top 12 in ADP gets there.

What we can also learn from this is that if you miss out on the top two tiers of quarterbacks, you probably don't need to rush to find your quarterback. There's a lot of similar numbers out there after the top 10 or so.

While you wait for Week 1's daily fantasy football slates to lock, you can get in on some best-ball fantasy football drafts on FanDuel, as well. Just draft your team and watch the points pile up throughout the season.

The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.