Jacoby Brissett gave me 32.40 points while Lamar Jackson was out. I lost. Two weeks later, Geno Smith gave me 33.17. I lost that one, too.
If you’d offered me either score before kickoff, I would’ve said yes and hung up before you changed your mind. Yet I kept looking at my lineup, thinking, “Just wait until I get Lamar back.”
Maybe you’ve said something similar about your own team. One player returns, the lineup looks right again, and everything will be fine. Except those two losses were telling me something I hadn’t paid enough attention to: quarterback wasn’t the only problem.
Welcome to The Learning Curve. I don’t have all the answers…and that’s kind of the point.
I Found a Quarterback. For Sunday.
Brissett and Geno each solved a problem for one Sunday. Neither performance meant I could stop evaluating the position. That’s streaming. You look at the matchup, the player’s opportunities, and your alternatives, then do it again the following week. Thirty points can make you forget that. Suddenly, you’re handing out a full-time job after one good shift.
With Lamar, I normally don’t have that decision. When he returned in Week 8, I started him. There were reasonable questions about how he’d move after the ankle injury, but the thumb injury he suffered on Baltimore’s first offensive snap was a different problem entirely. I hope he recovers. For my lineup, though, I was back at square zero, and square zero didn’t come with an edit button.
Carrying another quarterback wouldn’t have saved that Sunday. Once Lamar’s slot was locked, a quarterback on my bench was just another guy watching. Only the players I’d already started could make up those points.
Meanwhile, DeVonta Smith was missing games, and Jadarian Price and Kyle Monangai had been unavailable. I’d gotten two excellent replacement quarterback performances and still came up short. Lamar’s return could strengthen one position. It couldn’t fill every other hole.
Sunday Didn’t Let Me Forget It
In Week 9, I started Malik Willis and got 2.40 points in that league’s scoring. So much for putting quarterback on autopilot.
That same lineup got 32.50 from CeeDee Lamb. His production didn’t erase the quarterback score, but it showed why I needed to look at the whole lineup rather than treating one position as the entire rescue plan.
Streaming had given me both extremes: more than 30 points from a replacement and barely two. I still had to make the best quarterback decision I could each week. But collecting more quarterbacks wouldn’t automatically help. At some point, I’d be running a quarterback convention instead of a fantasy team.
The more useful question was where my next move could improve the lineup most.
Fix the Lineup, Not the Memory
I wrote in an earlier Learning Curve about turning to Ollie Gordon II after losing De’Von Achane. You can find that story on my author page below. Gordon gave me a running back I could use. Once I had that, my next move didn’t automatically need to be another running back.
Imagine I can acquire a running back I expect to score two more points than Gordon, or use similar trade pieces to improve my flex by six. Assuming I’m not creating another hole in the deal, the flex upgrade does more for my lineup. The running back move might feel more satisfying because that’s where I lost Achane, but nobody awards extra points for repairing the position that hurt my feelings.
That’s the comparison worth making: the player you could acquire against the player he would actually replace. Comparing every option with the star you lost mostly tells you how much you miss that star.
It also gives each bench spot a clearer purpose. Behind a healthy quarterback you start every week in a one QB league, an extra passer may offer less than a running back or receiver who could earn a place in your lineup. If quarterbacks are scarce, that calculation can change. The goal isn’t to follow a blanket rule. It’s to understand what you’re protecting and what you’re passing up.
The Learning Curve Challenge
If you inherited your roster today and didn’t know where anyone was drafted, what would you fix first?
Set your next two lineups without assuming anyone returns. Then name the starter your next waiver claim or trade would replace. Is that your biggest available upgrade, or just the position you’ve been worrying about most?
I still want my injured players back. But my team needs a manager this week, too.
Trust your process. Have some fun. And remember, we’re all somewhere on the curve.
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