Is the Fantasy Football Late-Round QB Strategy Still Viable in 2025?

July 4, 2025

Is the late-round QB strategy still viable in 2025? Should fantasy managers pick a quarterback in the early rounds of 2025 fantasy football drafts? Read Dan's breakout and expert analysis.

Now that the calendar has flipped to July, it is time to start locking in on the 2025 fantasy football season. Over the next few months, fantasy managers will pore through endless amounts of information through articles and podcasts.

Some of that information will be more focused on individual players. However, the real value lies in the different draft strategies that you can utilize during your fantasy draft. Understanding how the scoring of your league impacts different positions is crucial to strategizing during the draft.

One strategy that people will hear over the coming months is the “late-round quarterback” strategy. This strategy has been around for ages, but is it still relevant in today’s fantasy world? Read below to find out.

What is the Late-Round QB Strategy?

JJ Zachariason coined the late-round quarterback strategy with his book in 2012, which suggested that waiting to draft the quarterback position so you can load up the other spots in your lineup was an optimal strategy in fantasy football.

It's almost like quarterbacks don't matter in fantasy football and you should draft them late. https://t.co/hDqok1PxyS

— JJ Zachariason (@LateRoundQB) August 10, 2017

The general premise was that the quarterback position didn’t make a significant difference when it came to winning fantasy leagues. Back when the term was coined, quarterbacks were frequently drafted as early as the first round, which meant sacrificing premium picks at running back or wide receiver.

In this strategy, fantasy managers were waiting until the final rounds of their drafts to secure their quarterback. In the best-case scenario, they could be selecting somebody who had just as much of a chance of finishing as a top-12 scorer at the quarterback position.

In the worst-case scenario, the quarterback who was drafted could be dropped for a better quarterback on the waiver wire without losing value on a high draft pick.

There were many years when this was a viable strategy. The question is, does it still work in today’s fantasy football leagues?

10 Years of Quarterback Observations

To answer that question, I went back through the last 10 years of quarterback scoring and ADP on FantasyPros. Ultimately, the findings were mixed. Below is a chart focusing on the top-12 fantasy finishers at quarterback over the last 10 seasons. Quarterbacks who qualified had to play a minimum of 10 games.

The data in the chart is broken down into six different categories. They are the average points per game of the top-12 quarterbacks, the average ADP of the top-12 scoring quarterbacks, the average predraft rank of the quarterbacks selected, the number of quarterbacks selected after pick 120 (Round 10), the average rush yards of the top-12 quarterbacks, and the number of quarterbacks in the top 12 with 300+ rushing yards.

There are some trends evident in this chart. The late-round quarterback strategy was at its peak from the 2015 to 2017 seasons. During those three years, 14 of the 36 quarterbacks drafted were taken off the board as the QB15 or later. However, the strategy was especially viable due to the quarterbacks in the NFL at that time. There were also three quarterbacks (Ryan Tannehill (2019), Justin Herbert (2020), and Geno Smith (2022) who were in the QB1 group but weren’t drafted.

From 2015 to 2017, the NFL was starting to see a shift into a pass-heavy offensive approach with pocket-passing quarterbacks. Just 13 of the 36 quarterbacks who finished as a QB1 had over 300 rushing yards in a season. There were only three players during those three years (Cam Newton, Russell Wilson, and Tyrod Taylor) who had multiple seasons with over 400 rushing yards.

Because of that, quarterback scoring was low enough to give more quarterbacks a path to be a QB1 in fantasy football. Identifying teams with good quarterbacks and bad defenses (negative game scripts) was a viable way to attack the quarterback position in fantasy.

In 2018, the ADP of the top quarterbacks began to climb. At that point, we had a strong group of veterans who were in pass-heavy offenses (Matt Ryan, Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, and Dak Prescott), a quarterback who had previously broken fantasy with his rushing (Cam Newton), and young quarterbacks who were in exciting situations (Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, and Andrew Luck).

However, the real quarterback shift began in 2020. The average rushing yards for quarterbacks in the top 12 jumped almost 100 yards from 2019 to 2020. As a result, quarterback scoring boomed. During that season, we had a quarterback (Lamar Jackson) rush for 1,000 yards. Additionally, players like Kyler Murray (819) and Josh Allen (421 yards and eight touchdowns) are finding a way into the top 10 based on their rushing acumen.

Quarterback rushing production made another leap from 2022 to 2024. We have now had two seasons where the QB1 group in fantasy football has averaged over 450 rushing yards per season. That shift has provided more stability and certainty over who the QB1s are. It has also raised the scoring floor for fantasy quarterbacks.

From 2015 to 2019, 13 quarterbacks finished in the top-12 quarterback scorers while averaging fewer than 18.0 points per game. There was one season (2017) where three of the top-12 finishers had fewer than 16.0 points per game. Conversely, there were 14 quarterbacks during that five-year period who averaged more than 21.0 points per game.

From 2020 to 2025, there were just three quarterbacks who finished as a QB1 by scoring fewer than 18.0 points per game. Additionally, we have had 30 quarterbacks during that time score more than 21.0 points per game. It isn’t a coincidence that at least six quarterbacks have had 300 rushing yards per season in the QB1 range in that stretch.

To be a QB1 in today’s fantasy world, your quarterback almost certainly needs to have a rushing floor. The three quarterbacks who failed to hit the 300-yard mark in 2024 (Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, and Sam Darnold) averaged 578 passing attempts, a 69.7 percent completion rate, 4,622 yards, and 38 touchdowns with 11 interceptions.

Now that fantasy managers understand the importance of rushing for quarterbacks, we have also seen our ability to identify the top quarterbacks become more efficient. In 2017, the average predraft rank of the quarterbacks in the top 12 was 12.5. Since then, we have had seven straight seasons with an average rank of less than 12.0.

Does Drafting Late-Round QBs Still Work?

The ultimate question in this article is, “Does drafting late-round quarterbacks still work in fantasy football?” The data in the chart above suggests it does, but the process of identifying those quarterbacks requires fantasy managers to thread a very fine needle.

Eight of the top-12 finishers at the quarterback position were being drafted as top-12 quarterbacks in fantasy drafts. Three quarterbacks in 2024 were drafted outside of the top-15 quarterbacks in fantasy drafts and finished as the top-12 players at the position.

One of them (Baker Mayfield) had a career season, throwing for 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns while adding 378 rushing yards. Another (Bo Nix) was a rookie who many underestimated heading into his first season, and he provided rushing upside (430 yards). The final one (Sam Darnold) was a reclamation project who had a career year (4,319 yards and 35 touchdowns) in one of the most quarterback-friendly offenses in the NFL.

Baker Mayfield vs. pressure in 2024 👇

Every positive dropback vs. pressure (as measured by EPA) https://t.co/HAAiBUJBD7 pic.twitter.com/pqBfdi7ICs

— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) May 29, 2025

As it stands today, only three of the top-12 quarterbacks being drafted by ADP had fewer than 300 rushing yards in 2024. Two of them were top-12 finishers in 2024 (Joe Burrow and Jared Goff), and the other (Dak Prescott) missed most of the season and had just 54 rushing yards in eight games.

If you want to use the late-round quarterback strategy in 2025, you must shoot for one of two things. You either need to identify a young quarterback with underrated rushing upside who can provide a higher scoring floor (J.J. McCarthy, Michael Penix Jr., or Cam Ward) or find a veteran quarterback set to have a big season playing in consistently negative game scripts (Tua Tagovailoa, Matthew Stafford, or Geno Smith).

Even then, these quarterbacks will need to have exceedingly efficient passing seasons to offset the quarterbacks ahead of them who have consistent weekly rushing production. There are just too many quarterbacks with solid rushing floors across the NFL in this era.

The late-round quarterback draft strategy is still alive and well in 2025, but the safer play in today’s fantasy landscape is to secure a strong rushing floor to open up the ceiling at the quarterback position.

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