EditorialsLeague formats
How much more is a quarterback worth in superflex?
In a 12-team superflex league the startable quarterback tier is worth 26.6% more than the same quarterbacks in a one-quarterback league of the same size. The effect on draft position is larger than that number suggests: the top 12 quarterbacks move an average of about 51 places up the overall board, because they are being repriced against every other position at once.
Every figure on this page is HexValue, the cross-position number HexMetrics assigns a player once it knows a league's shape. Two boards are built from the same 553-player pool for the 2026 season, identical except for the one setting under discussion, and the difference is what you see. Both are 12-team leagues. Percentages are suppressed for players below a HexValue of 5, because a ratio against a player worth almost nothing reports the size of the denominator rather than the size of the change.
The mechanism, before the measurement
The size of this effect is not a matter of taste, and it is worth deriving before looking at any output, because a number you cannot derive is a number you cannot check. A 12-team league with a single quarterback slot starts 12 quarterbacks in a given week. Introduce a superflex seat and as many as 24 start, drawn against 32 NFL starters.
What moves is replacement level, as HexMetrics prices it. The quarterback a manager can acquire for nothing shifts from roughly the 13th best available to roughly the 25th, and since a player is worth what he provides above that freely available alternative, every quarterback above the new line gains the distance the line travelled.
Nothing about the quarterbacks themselves has changed. The pool is the same pool. What changed is how far it has to be drained before somebody is forced to start a player they would rather not, and that is a property of the format rather than of any individual in it.
What it does to the top of the board
Overall rank moves further than value does, and the reason is worth stating rather than assuming: these quarterbacks are climbing past running backs and receivers who did not move at all. A position that gains a quarter of its value in a field where nobody else gained any will pass a great many players on the way up.
| Quarterback | 1QB rank | Superflex rank | Places gained | HexValue change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Allen | 48 | 11 | +37 | +27.9% |
| Lamar Jackson | 54 | 13 | +41 | +30% |
| Drake Maye | 63 | 17 | +46 | +34.4% |
| Jalen Hurts | 69 | 19 | +50 | +36.2% |
| Jayden Daniels | 75 | 21 | +54 | +37.7% |
| Joe Burrow | 79 | 25 | +54 | +37.1% |
| Patrick Mahomes | 83 | 30 | +53 | +33.9% |
| Brock Purdy | 86 | 34 | +52 | +30.2% |
| Dak Prescott | 89 | 41 | +48 | +28.6% |
| Jaxson Dart | 100 | 43 | +57 | +29.6% |
| Caleb Williams | 104 | 48 | +56 | +27.9% |
| Jordan Love | 105 | 45 | +60 | +29.1% |
How far down the position it reaches
The more consequential half of this is the part that is not about the top of the position. Were the gain concentrated in the first six quarterbacks, superflex would simply be a format in which one tier is expensive. It is not concentrated there.
| Tier | Mean HexValue change | Mean places gained |
|---|---|---|
| QB1-6 | +33.9% | +47 |
| QB7-12 | +29.9% | +54 |
| QB13-18 | +22.3% | +49 |
| QB19-24 | +19% | +52 |
Every tier through QB24 gains at least 19%, and the places gained do not taper at all: the fourth tier travels as far up the board as the first. Below QB24 the ratio grows larger still, but those quarterbacks begin from so little value in a one-quarterback league that the percentage describes the denominator rather than the change, which is why the table stops where it does.
That flat profile is the finding. It says the format does not create one scarce tier at the top, it raises the floor of an entire position, and a roster that leaves the position until late is not passing on a luxury but deferring a requirement.
What this means for a draft this season
The depth table is the part that should change a draft, and the reason sits in the column most readers pass over. The percentage gain falls steadily down the position, from 33.9% in the top six to 19% in the fourth tier, which is the result anyone would predict. The rank movement does not fall with it: 47 places, then 54, then 49, then 52. Every tier of quarterback jumps roughly the same distance past the rest of the field.
That is a statement about the shape of the board rather than about any individual player. If the position moves as a block, the question in front of a manager is not which quarterback to take but whether to hold two of them at all, and the cost of answering that late is far smaller than the cost of not answering it. A fourth-tier quarterback still moves 52 places. In a 12-team superflex league the 25th quarterback is the first one who starts nowhere, and that is where the block ends.
The cost of all this is worth stating plainly, because it is where the value comes from. Measured across the startable tier at each position, the format lifts quarterbacks 26.6% and takes 1.5% from running backs and 1.1% from receivers, while tight ends gain 1.8%. Neither loss is large on its own, and there are a great many of them. That is the shape of the trade rather than a full accounting of it: what the quarterbacks gain is paid partly out of these positions and partly out of the pool below them, which is not measured here.
That is also the limit of what a draft should take from this. My own view is that the position is chronically underpriced anywhere but a one-quarterback league, and a near-constant fifty-place jump across four tiers is what that view predicts. It still says nothing about which quarterback, only about how many.
What this does not establish
It does not establish that a quarterback should be taken first. It establishes that the distance between quarterbacks is worth more here than in a one-quarterback league, which is a claim about the shape of a position rather than about any particular pick. Whether that makes an early quarterback correct depends entirely on what the rest of the board is doing at the same moment.
Nor does it transfer to 2QB, which is a different rule wearing similar clothing. A 2QB league requires two quarterbacks in the lineup where superflex permits a second, and the difference becomes visible in exactly one situation: a manager holding one healthy quarterback. In superflex that seat takes a running back and costs points. In 2QB it cannot be filled at all.