The Return of the Bad Quarterback League
Prefer your fantasy leagues to be structured around terrible QB play rather than on-field success? Look no further than the Bad Quarterback League, which will be returning on ‘The Ringer Fantasy Football Show’ this fall.
Rooting for other people’s success is nice, but rooting for other people’s failure can be even more fun. That is why we are reviving Grantland’s Bad Quarterback League for this NFL season and will be covering it weekly on The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. We wanted to bring back a place where Daniel Jones is elite and Patrick Mahomes is awful. Where touchdowns, completions, and yardage take a back seat to interceptions and lost fumbles.
The goal is to put together the worst group of six quarterbacks possible. And if you think you know bad quarterbacking better than we do, you can play along with us every week by clicking here or entering the league at fanduel.com/badqb.
The Bad Quarterback League (BQBL) rules are simple. There are six tiers of quarterbacks, separated by quality. (Tier 1 has the best bad quarterbacks, like Andy Dalton, while Tier 6 has the guys who are far too efficient to be helpful in this exercise, like Aaron Rodgers.) The tiers will be updated each week by FanDuel and are based on how that quarterback is expected to perform that week. There are only two rules to play:
- You must pick one quarterback from each tier.
- You cannot pick two quarterbacks from the same tier. (No doubling up on Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick this week, because they are both in Tier 2).
That’s it! There’s a new contest every week, so you can join at any point in the season. Here are the tiers for Week 1:
Tier 1:
Daniel Jones, NYG (vs. Denver)
Andy Dalton, CHI (@ LAR)
Jared Goff, DET (vs. SF)
Teddy Bridgewater, DEN (@ NYG)
Mac Jones, NE (vs. MIA)
Tier 2:
Sam Darnold, CAR (vs. NYJ)
Tyrod Taylor, HOU (vs. JAX)
Carson Wentz, IND (vs. SEA)
Tua Tagovailoa, MIA (@ NE)
Zach Wilson, NYJ (@ CAR)
Tier 3:
Jameis Winston, NO (vs. GB)
Jimmy Garoppolo, SF (@ DET)
Ryan Fitzpatrick, WAS (vs. LAC)
Baker Mayfield, CLE (@ KC)
Kirk Cousins, MIN (@ CIN)
Tier 4:
Matthew Stafford, LAR (vs. CHI)
Matt Ryan, ATL (vs. PHI)
Ben Roethlisberger, PIT (@ Buf)
Joe Burrow, CIN (vs. Min)
Trevor Lawrence, JAC (@ HOU)
Tier 5:
Jalen Hurts, PHI (@ ATL)
Russell Wilson, SEA (@ IND)
Justin Herbert, LAC (@ WAS)
Ryan Tannehill, TEN (vs. ARI)
Tier 6:
Kyler Murray, ARI (@ TEN)
Josh Allen, BUF (@ PITT)
Patrick Mahomes, KC (vs. CLE)
Aaron Rodgers, GB (@ NO)
And in case you’re wondering, here is how the scoring works.
Positive Scoring
Interceptions = 10 points
Fumbles lost = 7 points
Negative Scoring
Passing touchdowns = -4
Passing yard = -0.04
Rushing touchdowns = -6
Rushing yards = -0.1
We at The Ringer Fantasy Football Show will be making picks and keeping track of the Bad Quarterback League every Friday on the podcast. You can listen along to see how we’re doing, or play with us by entering the contest each week on FanDuel. It costs $3 to enter, and you can win up to $5,000. This is my lineup for Week 1:
If you think you can put together a worse group of quarterbacks, try us.
