General Question

[Free Bagel]

There are 32 starting quarterbacks that don't share snaps. Every down runningbacks are declining, making them more valuable. And like the others said, runningbacks are usually more consistent.

In addition to that, despite the pool of starting QB's being larger, you have to start fewer QB's in the league.

There is a pool of 32 starting QB's for 12 starting FF positions.

There is a pool of 20ish starting RB's for 24-36 (depending on whether you start only 2 or can start 3) starting FF positions.

So, there are fewer starting RB's that don't share carries in the NFL then there are starting spots that need to be filled in FF, while there are nearly 3 times as many starting QB's in the NFL than there are starting spots that need to be filled in FF (this is all assuming a 12 team league).

That, combined with what Vhawk said about how there is generally less variation from top QB's to mid-late QB's than there is from top RB's to mid-late RB's (of course as has also been said, this year has been a bit of an outlier in this manner due to Manning's record-setting year, but generally it works out as described above).

[RubeRiot]

To put it very simply...
There are more QB available that will put up numbers so it is pretty easy to get a QB in the late rounds or off the WW late in the season and still be able to count on some points from them. It isn't that easy with RB.

[Flockers]

The strategy of -

Rd. 1 - RB
Rd. 2 - RB
Rd. 3 - WR
Rd. 4 - WR
Rd. 5 - QB

Has never failed me yet. I have yet to finish below 3rd place; this being my third year of fantasy football.

[portisfan24]

Vhawk summed it up pretty good. this is a gross stat from my league. Tds passing arre 4 points and tds rushing are 6. Culpepper has 275 points and the top running back (cant rememebr who) has 205.

[HunglikeChampions]

Ya league scoring does have something to do with it....In Yahoo standard leagues passing tds are the same as rushing tds both 6 points...if you think about it, even an avg qb gets around 24 tds a year and manning will be around 60. Only like Priest Holmes has gone ove 20 for a rb, most good rbs stay around 12-15. So when you look at that scoring, Qbs tend to be weighted a bit heavier, thats why I like leagues with passing tds around 4. But this also shows that other than the big 3 qb's who will get over 30 tds, how many qbs are there that will get between 22-26 tds for the season? I bet there are around 10 or more, thus showing the huge 2nd tier of qbs. And in a standard yahoo league those 22-25 points still get more points than a lot of first round rb's.

[LBJackal]

Why are people so obsessed with running backs? People seem to think that other people are insane if they take a quarterback early in the draft, and yet my QB gets me more fantasy points than both of my RBs combined. Could someone please explain why it is that Running backs are more inportant than quarterbacks?

This has been answered very well by everybody but I thought I'd post this link because what you wrote sounds exactly like the question this guy is answering:

http://www.footballguys.com/bryantvbd.htm

It's an old article that I'm sure more than half the people here have read, but it still applies. I remember looking at that and deciding there was no way I COULDN'T take Marshall Faulk with the #1 overall pick. This was going into the 2002 season. Needless to say it didn't work out, and neither did taking Canidate as a handcuff