We spend a lot of time ranking quarterbacks, but has stacking made QB rankings largely irrelevant?

For those who don’t know, stacking is a strategy where you draft multiple players from the same NFL team.

The deeper your starting lineups and leagues, the more you must focus on scoring upside. Scoring ceilings become paramount, and floors are a secondary consideration. So if you’re in Flex 10 (three wide receivers and a flex) and Flex 11 (three WRs and two flexes, including possibly a superflex) formats, you are building teams around wide receivers. Basically, WRs have the best chance for explosive scoring, so you want as many of them who are reasonably capable of a big day as possible.

Generally, the top two wide receivers on your roster will be drafted ahead of your quarterback. I can’t recommend taking a QB before the third round — even that’s often too early for me. The top two QBs in the consensus ranks, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, aren’t especially stackable as they lack top fantasy receivers. So let’s stipulate that you’re in the fourth round, Jackson and Allen are off the board, and you have at least two top-15 WRs. Who will you draft as your quarterback?

I advise ditching the rankings and pairing a passer with one of your top two receivers so that a big day by one is likely a big day by both. And if the pairing doesn’t pop, it’s unlikely to cost you much. In fantasy sports, uniform QB touches make scoring ranges narrower at the position than others.

So, there’s a greater chance the combo doubles your pleasure than does any significant harm. You’re essentially creating another path to winning your week at zero cost.

No one will fight you for the quarterback at the bottom of the top-12 bucket, especially if they don’t roster a WR on that QB’s team. And there’s little difference between the mid-range QBs until QB20. So, you’re not trying to decide who the best quarterback is, but rather who the best quarterback is for your team. Let’s ignore the other QBs who cost premium picks — Joe Burrow, Jayden Daniels, Jalen Hurts and even Baker Mayfield. If you draft one of them, you can still stack them with WRs from their team, but I prefer a cheaper QB.

According to NFFC, the positional ADP of the QBs in my stacking range — those who can be had at a much lower cost — are:

QB9 Kyler Murray
QB10 Caleb Williams
QB11 Dak Prescott
QB 12 Jared Goff
QB 13 Justin Fields
QB 14 Brock Purdy

Based on my rankings, I would also consider:

QB9 Trevor Lawrence
QB16 Matthew Stafford
QB18 C.J. Stroud
QB 19 Justin Herbert
QB 21 Michael Penix

I do not especially care who you pick as long as you have the QB-WR battery. Murray is tough because someone may like him (for his rushing upside) more than the market. Jordan Love is not omitted by oversight — I have no idea who his alpha WR will be. If you draft Garrett Wilson in the third round and pair him with Fields (my QB8), who you can get late, that’s a win in my book. (I am about four WR slots below market on Wilson, however.)

Williams was so bad in 2024 that it’s hard to believe in him, but a pairing of Williams and Rome Odunze (market’s WR33/my WR33) is cheap. (I think Odunze has about a 35% chance of being Chicago’s alpha this year.) The manager who selects CeeDee Lamb can take Prescott just ahead of his ADP slot to lock up the stack. Do you want Stafford instead of Goff because you have Davante Adams (who will likely lead the Rams in TDs)? Fine. Go for it. That’s smart. I’m highest in the market on Lawrence (who is QB19 generally), so you can wait forever for him if you have either Brian Thomas or Travis Hunter (my WR20, market’s WR32) — or even both of them.

Stroud has passing-TD rate woes, but Nico Collins is my No. 2 fantasy WR, so why wouldn’t I want Collins’ QB? I hated Stroud’s price last year (QB5), but he’s now well into the back half of drafts. Can’t Herbert be at least an average fantasy starting QB who you can pair with my WR14 and the market’s WR11, Ladd McConkey? Absolutely. I love Drake London (WR6), so why not pair him with Penix, even if Penix is my backup? That could be game-winning, given London’s 17-game pace with Penix last year in their three starts together was … wait for it … 124-1,995-11 on 221 targets.

Purdy is probably the most stackable QB in the league. I’m definitely targeting him if I draft my No. 1 TE George Kittle or my No. 23 WR Jauan Jennings. I could easily get one of Kittle or Jennings and add my WR30 (the market’s WR42) Ricky Pearsall, capping it with Purdy as my QB. As I always say, quoting my friend and baseball scribe Gene McCaffrey, “to be very right, you have to be willing to be very wrong.” That Niners stack could be fantasy Yahtzee.

Ranking players and building a pathway to game-changing scoring upside are mostly one and the same — different ways to describe the same thing. But the road splits when drafting a fantasy quarterback. Explosive scoring upside is achieved not by drafting the highest-ranked quarterback but by drafting the QB throwing to one or more of your top receivers.

(Photo of Nico Collins and C.J. Stroud: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)