Last year Josh Allen led all NFL quarterbacks with 374.5 fantasy points and 22 fantasy points per game. He mainly did it with the help of what has become a sustained edge in rushing touchdowns: He scored 14, and has now put together 41 rushing touchdowns over the last three seasons.
But he didn’t lead quarterbacks by much. Three other quarterbacks (Drake Maye, Matthew Stafford, Patrick Mahomes) scored 21.1 fantasy points per game or higher. Allen is the gold standard of the position still, and he has more of a clear path to continue his production than the other three. Stafford probably won’t throw 46 touchdowns again in 2026, Mahomes probably won’t run as much as he did in 2025 and Maye has never had a season that good before, thus he is a regression candidate by default even if nothing he did looked easy to to pick at as a problem. Still, the difference between the lines is less than you’d think.
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Week 1’s QB2 was Daniel Jones and its QB3 was Justin Fields. This was hardly a wild result — just about every quarterback in the league in 2026 was capable of a top-10 weekly finish. Here are some other names that had a top-10 result in a week: Russell Wilson (really), Bryce Young, Mac Jones, Geno Smith, Marcus Mariota, Tyrod Taylor, Carson Wentz, C.J. Stroud, Tua Tagovailoa, Joe Flacco. I stopped at Week 7 but I bet we could have gone on and found 10 or more names that would surprise you.
With NFL defenses currently holding the power of the schematic pendulum and shifting more and more of the league to two-high safety sets, most quarterbacks have been relegated to needing help to put up big numbers. That help can come in the form of “having superstar receivers” like Flacco (and Joe Burrow), it can come in the form of Allen’s rushing production keeping his more-ordinary passing stats from sinking his fantasy profile, and in any given week it can come in the form of “playing the (really bad defense but I’ll use the obvious example of) Jets.” (Maye gets to play a lot of those games.)
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What it means for superflex leagues
A few years ago, in 2023, Allen scored 393 fantasy points, Jalen Hurts scored 357 and only two other quarterbacks cleared 300 fantasy points. In 2025, the number of quarterbacks who cleared 300 fantasy points was nine-deep, and that’s with Justin Herbert at 299.8 and Patrick Mahomes at 295.7 despite only playing 14 games. Lamar Jackson scored 221.8 points in 13 games despite being very injured.
I know it doesn’t feel this way when you watch the game, but from a pure numbers perspective, the depth of acceptable quarterback play has never been as high. And at the same time, the ceiling cases are becoming rarer as defenses clamp down on obscene passing numbers. (And an aside: Allen and Jackson aren’t spring chickens anymore, making it harder for them to hit their ceilings as athleticism starts to decline.) What it all means is: the best quarterbacks are still worthwhile early superflex picks, but you’re not going to create some sort of insurmountable edge at the position.
Allen is going off the board in the third round in most standard leagues; in superflex leagues, what he offers is worth more, and he goes off the board as the third overall player. But there isn’t really a sustained tier of quarterbacks that must go in the first round. Jackson often will on account of his ceiling. Maye probably should. After that, well, everyone is good but nobody is seen as a dominant force.
This, courtesy of 4for4.com’s ADP tool, gives you a good indication of how things are different in superflex. In a standard league, you might see four quarterbacks gone by the end of the first six rounds. In superflex, most of the reliable quarterbacks in the league will go off the board in the first four rounds. But there’s a lot of disagreement about who the best quarterbacks within the tiers are after the top three. (Personally? I’d put Caleb Williams ahead of Joe Burrow. But it wouldn’t necessarily be surprising if Burrow is better this season.)
Where the major gap falls
There’s a chasm between QB16 and QB17. In a world where most quarterbacks are within a few ticks of ADP of each other from the first to the 50th pick, there’s 10 whole slots difference between Matthew Stafford at QB16 and Jordan Love at QB17. I think that’s fairly representative of how these players are seen.
However, I think there are definite upside scenarios out there for players like Love, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Tyler Shough, and Malik Willis. The Packers clearly want to run the ball a lot as an ethos under Matt LaFleur, but we’re not sure what kind of availability to expect from Josh Jacobs entering the season and they don’t exactly have a stable of established backs behind him. Murray is working with his best offensive mind ever. Mayfield was clearly limited last year as he played through major injuries that were mostly unreported on in-season. Willis is a dynamic running quarterback and I would tell you is a good bet to finish as a QB1 on the season if I had any belief he’d be healthy for 17 games. Shough was wildly underrated last year and should have a better offense around him in 2026.
This is mostly just about the answer to the question “What is a reliable offense?” The quarterbacks that go early? They’re either with good offenses and good offensive minds or have such a track record running the ball when healthy that we have no choice but to bet on the talent. (The Jayden Daniels–Jaxson Dart conundrum, they’re calling it.)
I think most good superflex teams will have one pillar quarterback from those first four rounds to mitigate risk, then a second pick that makes or breaks the season.
The other shoe
If you’re going to be drafting a quarterback early, it stands to reason that your “normal” fantasy football positions are going to feel weaker. In other words, you might be starting someone who would be depth in most leagues. When your WR5 in a standard league is in the starting lineup in superflex, that’s just scarcity doing the job it was intended to do.
It will be harder and harder to make builds with the sort of starts you might see in a regular draft. And anyone who does is zigging and hoping that the quarterback board comes to them in rounds four and five. So, you know, approach the draft with that in mind. Leaving with someone like Romeo Doubs or Rashid Shaheed as a starting wideout doesn’t necessarily mean you did anything wrong. It is part of the format.