Best Early-Season QB Matchups - Fantasy Football Strength of Schedule Analysis

August 16, 2024

Scott looks at 2024 fantasy football strength of schedules and the best QB matchups for the early season. Target these fantasy football QBs in 2024 drafts.

The NFL preseason is in full swing, and we are getting our first glimpses of how teams are looking and which players outside of the obvious starters are seeing the most important playing time (and not necessarily the most playing time). We operate with limited information and smaller sample sizes during the preseason, and it can be tricky trying to decipher what teams’ intentions might be once the regular season hits. But we love it nonetheless because NFL football is back.

As we sift through the fantasy football content in the coming weeks, reading into team usage data, and doing our best to not solely focus on the results, team pecking orders will become clearer. As that dust is created and then settles, one thing that won’t change is each team’s rapidly approaching regular season schedule. The preseason will play out, injuries will happen, starting spots and playing time will be earned, redraft format drafts will explode, and we will excitedly await Thursday Night Football between the Chiefs and Ravens to catapult us into the 2024 season.

Amongst this, the best kind of chaos, every fantasy manager will be seeking out whatever edges they can acquire over their league mates. Well, I am here to help in that never-ending quest. Outside of data deep dives, fantasy strength of schedule has been my main focus since I joined the fantasy community in 2021, which brings us to the second installment of my 2024 fantasy strength of schedule analysis, the QB position.

Projected Strength of Schedule (SOS) Process

In this article, I will present my projected strength of schedule for the fantasy QB position, with a focus on the early part of the season (Weeks 1-4) and the middle time frame that follows (Weeks 5-9). The first edition of this series looked at the RB position.

A player’s strength of schedule should not be the sole reason you choose to draft or not draft that player. But it should be a piece of the puzzle. It can be a good tiebreaker if you are deciding between two players. If you are on the fence about a certain player at a given draft value, a brutal opening schedule should at least be factored into your decision.

By projecting matchup difficulties now and also breaking the season down into different time frames (e.g., early, middle, late, and fantasy playoffs), it also allows you to strategize for potential trade attempts. Suppose a player has a favorable early season schedule followed by a brutal later season schedule. In that case, you might be able to reap the rewards of both the fantasy points and the subsequent value increase, then trade that player for a better later season schedule and vice versa.

You can keep your eyes on a talented player who underwhelms through a tough early season schedule and make a play for them before their schedule opens up. To that end, a new addition to this year’s article will be the inclusion of a closer look at Weeks 5-9 ("Middle Season"), rather than just being displayed in the full-season color-coded chart.

We’ll start by looking at my season-long projections including some insight into my process and what data I use to project the strength of schedule. Then we’ll look closer at early season SOS (top 10 easiest and top 10 hardest in Weeks 1-4) as well as middle season SOS (top 10 easiest and top 10 hardest in Weeks 5-9) for fantasy QBs.

Fantasy matchups are something I’ve spent a lot of time on over the last three years. During the season I compile game log data for every game to arrive at raw fantasy points allowed to each position as soon as possible each week. The goal is to have the results available before waivers so matchup strength can be factored into those decisions.

Plenty of sites provide fantasy points allowed data. I choose to do it myself so I can rearrange and reorganize in ways I think are helpful. Raw points allowed are helpful but don’t tell the full story. It’s important to dig a little deeper and look at points allowed relative to an opponent’s average.

For example, if Team A gives up 20 fantasy points to Patrick Mahomes and Team B gives up the same number of points to Gardner Minshew, raw fantasy points allowed would show Team A and B having the same matchup difficulty versus QBs. Using “Points Over Average (POA)” paints a more accurate picture.

Let’s say Mahomes has averaged 25 points per game and Minshew has averaged 14 points per game. Using POA, Team A held Mahomes five points under his average (a POA of -5) while Team B allowed Minshew to score six points above his average (a POA of +6). Through this lens, these two teams are far from an equal matchup difficulty. This turns raw fantasy points allowed to an “opponent-adjusted” fantasy points allowed.

The other angle I add once the weeks add up is recency. A team’s season-long average points allowed can look different than over a more recent stretch of games. Defenses improve or regress for a variety of reasons. Players get injured or return from injury, coaches adjust their schemes and game plans (on both sides of the ball), and, more qualitatively, players and teams “figure it out.” Neither season-long nor recent data sets are definitive, but it’s important to look at both when trying to increase the probability of making the right future decisions.

These are the two existing data sets in my process for preseason projections of fantasy strength of schedule:

1. Previous season POA rank (season-long).
2. Previous season POA over the team’s last five games (excluding Week 18).

Stopping there doesn’t account for the impact of changes made during the off-season. If we could simply use previous season results to predict what will happen the next season, fantasy football would be a lot easier (and less fun). For the future prediction piece of the process, I use Pro Football Focus (PFF) grades for team defensive lines, linebackers, and secondaries. These grades are added to the equation in the following way:

• Versus QB: Defensive line and secondary grades.
• Versus RB: Defensive line and linebacker grades.
• Versus WRs: Secondary grades.
• Versus TE: Linebacker and secondary grades.

2024 Season-Long Fantasy SOS

I generated tables showing each team’s full season schedule with each weekly opponent color-coded based on that opponent’s projected rank (1-32) versus the fantasy QB position. Lower number ranks with a red color indicate more difficult fantasy matchups. Higher number ranks with a green color represent easier matchups. Also known as schedule “heat maps,” the full season schedule for QBs is included at the end of the article.

Also included are each team’s season-long SOS, which is the average of their opponents’ ranks in Weeks 1-17.

As described above, the projected ranks are based on:

• 2023 POA season-long rank
• 2023 POA rank over the team’s last five games (Weeks 13-17)
• 2024 PFF grades for defensive lines, linebackers, and secondaries
  • In this article, for QBs, it will be defensive line and secondary grades

Softest Early Season Schedules – Process

In separating the full season into “early, middle, and late” time frames, I define each as follows:

• Early Season: Week 1-4
• Middle-Season: Weeks 5-9
• Late Season: Weeks 10-14
• Fantasy Playoffs: Weeks 15-17

In this article, I will be looking at the Early and Middle Season schedules and the teams with the Top 10 easiest fantasy matchups for QBs. I will look closer at Late Season and Fantasy Playoffs in a future article.

My process for determining the Top 10 easiest Early Season schedules for each team’s starting QB is the same as season-long. I average the opponents' ranks in Weeks 1-4 for each team, and the ten highest averages comprise the Top 10.

In the 2023 edition of my fantasy strength of schedule analysis, I introduced what I call “Top-Heavy” schedules. Some of the “easy schedules” that are initially determined by average projected rank tend to include an additional top-heavy characteristic:

1. Top-Heavy schedule: A mixture of bottom-ranked opponents with one Top 10 matchup. This could also be called “Extreme Matchups.” In this scenario, there may be one week where you are hesitant or at least need to curb expectations, but outside of that, the probability of ceiling games for your fantasy players on those teams is higher. I developed a formula for determining Top-Heavy schedules. I remove each team’s most difficult matchup from the average rank. I then averaged the remaining three ranks. From there I added the difference between 32 (easiest rank) and the new average of the team’s three easiest ranks. This is then filtered from highest to lowest to show the Top-Heavy SOS score and rank. The purpose here is to remove the impact of the one difficult matchup on the overall average while also accounting for just how easy the easier matchups are. The bigger the difference between 32 and the average of the team’s easiest three matchups, the lower the score, because that difference is being subtracted.

The reason I chose to look at this particular breakdown was to determine if there is a significant deviation from the score arrived at by simply averaging the ranks of the first four opponents. I know we cannot simply ignore difficult matchups, but I would rather take my potential lumps with one brutal matchup if it means the chances are higher that the other three opponents could be week-winning matchups. The results? The order the teams fall in using the Top-Heavy SOS score is very close to the order generated by averaging the rank of the first four opponents, with some notable exceptions.

Soft Early Season Schedules: Quarterbacks

The following chart shows the teams with the Top 10 easiest Early Season schedules for fantasy QBs according to my SOS projection process, along with the rest of the teams from 11 to 32. This is just a condensed version of the color-coded charts shown for the season-long schedule and is sorted by the SOS score in the right-hand column from highest (easier) to lowest (harder).

This lets you visualize the schedules as we move into the sub-categories.

The following chart shows each Top 10 team’s matchup rank (color-coded) in Weeks 1 through 4, followed by the average rank (First 4 SOS) and Top-Heavy score (Top-Heavy SOS).

The Steelers check in with the easiest Early Season schedule for the QB position measured by both First 4 SOS and Top-Heavy SOS. When you remove Pittsburgh’s toughest Early Season QB matchup (Colts in Week 4), their other three opponents average a rank of 28^th (fifth-easiest).

However, the Steelers don’t technically fit the Top-Heavy criteria (in a good way), as their toughest matchup is still a top-12 easiest matchup against the Colts. This is ideal for whichever QB ends up starting in Pittsburgh, to have one of the softest landings possible in his first season in the Steel City.

Justin Fields and Russell Wilson put on a show Monday.

Fields: 9/13, 123 yards
Wilson: 8/13, 118 yards

For one day, the Steelers felt like they had a real QB battle. #Steelers https://t.co/IfbBwcVLTB

— Alex Kozora (@Alex_Kozora) August 13, 2024

The Lions have the second-easiest Early Season QB schedule measured by First 4 SOS and are tied with the Steelers in Top-Heavy SOS. The Lions’ toughest early season matchup (Seahawks at home in Week 4) projects to be tougher than the Steelers’ (ranked 15^th compared to the Colts ranked 21^st), but two of the Lions’ Early Season matchups rank as top-3 easiest matchups, with a Week 1 home game against the Rams (ranked 30^th), and a Week 3 game with the projected easiest QB matchup, the Cardinals.

The first team to truly fit the Top Heavy criteria (having at least one Top 10 toughest matchup) is the Buccaneers, who rank fifth in First 4 SOS and fourth in Top Heavy SOS. If you decide on the “QB streaming” strategy in one-QB formats, Baker Mayfield is a decent late-round draft target with an ideal Week 1 matchup versus the Commanders (at home), who rank as the easiest QB matchup other than the Cardinals.

Our QB1 is Baking at Camp👨‍🍳

📷 🎥 : @Buccaneers pic.twitter.com/UWCynIVWs1

— Baker and Emily Mayfield Foundation (@bemayfieldfdn) August 6, 2024

The Bills and Chiefs are interesting as they rank ninth and tenth in First 4 SOS, but each jump up three spots in Top Heavy SOS. And it’s due to a very similar early-season opponent structure. They both have Baltimore (4^th hardest matchup) as their toughest matchup of Weeks 1-4 (although the Chiefs get the Ravens at home), and they both have two Top 7 easiest matchups outside of that, with the Bills getting the best QB matchup (Cardinals) at home to kick off the season. More on the Bills and Chiefs later, as their middle-season SOS is not quite so friendly.

What goes up must come down. Knowing the best Early Season schedules is important, but it is also important to know the worst. Here are the Top 10 toughest Early Season schedules for the fantasy QB position. I did not incorporate the Top-Heavy approach here, so the order is determined by the average rank of the first four opponents.

The following chart shows each team’s matchup rank (color-coded) in Weeks 5 through 9 (Middle Season), followed by the average rank and Top-Heavy score. Here we can start looking ahead to the second month of the NFL season.

We’ll start here with the teams who jump from the Top 10 hardest Early Season SOS list to the Top 10 easiest Middle Season list. The Ravens’, Chargers’, and Colts’ QB matchups ease significantly in the second month of the season.

The other teams to spotlight here are the teams on the Top 10 easiest QB SOS list for both the early and middle seasons. The Bears and Packers both fit that description, with the fifth and sixth easiest early Season schedules and the first and third easiest middle Season schedules, a great situation for two intriguing QBs in rookie Caleb Williams and emerging star Jordan Love.

If Jordan Love evolves into a QB you can't play single high MOF closed against, then the #Packers will be perennial Super Bowl contenders in an NFC that is lacking elite QB options (see: Bills, Chiefs, always in Divisional Round or better).
He made this look EFFORTLESS. #Packers pic.twitter.com/n8iIOvYXpj

— Dan Schneier (@DanSchneierNFL) August 11, 2024

The next chart shows the Top 10 toughest Middle Season for fantasy QBs.

This is where the Bills and Chiefs head in the wrong direction, but they aren’t the only teams whose QB schedules stiffen up in Weeks 5-9. The Steelers go from the easiest QB schedule in Weeks 1-4 to the hardest in Weeks 5-9. And the Texans go from the fourth easiest to the third hardest in that span.

Closing out the QB position, the following chart shows the difference in QB SOS between each team’s Early and Middle Season schedule, sorted from highest (schedule gets easier) to lowest (schedule gets harder).

Before I go, I will leave you with the full-season heat map schedule for the fantasy QB position. Good luck in your upcoming drafts and have a great fantasy season in 2024!

2024 Strength of Schedule vs. QB

Thank you so much for reading! I love diving deep into the fantasy strength of schedule with the hope that I can help you make the best decisions possible in the maze of fantasy football decisions. I will not be writing the weekly DST article for Rotoballer again this year, but I will still be compiling the data, and I am always available to help out. If you have any questions about this article or general questions about fantasy football, reach out to me on X (@MunderDifflinFF).

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