People like to complicate things -- myself included.

And one of the most confounded, bebothered, and confusticated aspects of our lives -- fantasy football -- comes down to two things: player selection and strategy. They aren't mutually exclusive, but they are different.

If you can peg guys such as Melkor, but that's for a different study.)

Clear enough? I hope. It gets more fun now.

Quarterbacks

Quarterback is an overvalued position in fantasy football -- but to say it's not important is lying.

I'm actually quite lucky with how the data ended up. There's a great example of how this information can be of use that just glared me in the face when I finished.

Sitting here now -- sometime after the 2014 season has ended -- which quarterback would you have preferred to roll out every single week this year: a podcast dedicated to that kind of thing.

Only nine guys had a floor in the double-digits. So, that means that guy who drafted Peyton Manning in the first round this year and said, "Hey, he's a lock for 20 points a game!," was wrong. But if he happened to say, "Rationally, over the course of the season, he's going to average 20.29 points and also have one of the best chances to put up a 30-point game of any quarterback," well, then he was right.

But what about later choices in the draft? Or during the season? Would playing Matthew Stafford over Alex Smith all season be more advantageous by season's end? Yes. Stafford outscored Smith per game (15.32 to 14.66), but with such a minute difference per game and considering his lower floor (and much higher draft cost), you don't need to be stuck to Stafford week after week when guys such as Smith, who have similar realistic ceilings, are in good matchups.

So, 20 quarterbacks can hit 20 points without too much of a double take. Since only four quarterbacks averaged at least 20 points per game, you can make up that gap with a properly streamed quarterback who performs at a higher level (a standard deviation above his average) -- especially if you are playing an opponent who is clung to a player like Stafford.

If you're playing against Peyton, Peyton drops 31 (his season high), and you're using Eli, you likely aren't going to compete with that. But Peyton didn't score 31 each week, and Eli scored at least 20 in six games. The right call at quarterback can, according to the numbers, help limit the edge that the quarterbacks who have the highest ceilings offer.

Daily Fantasy Applications

While I opt for streaming in traditional leagues, I'm less inclined to save salary cap when playing cash games in daily fantasy football. Why? Well, the floor.

The players with the highest floors (in the table above) are, generally, the most expensive quarterbacks for a reason. They're consistent, and they also offer a high ceiling, too. But in cash games -- head-to-head games or 50/50s -- trying to secure that floor is helpful in racking up a safe score.

Why do I like safety in the quarterback in daily head-to-head but not traditional? The cost isn't the same at all. Allotting more of my salary to the position to secure Aaron Rodgers isn't the same as passing on a running back in the second round of a draft to get him. In, say, Week 8, I know which cheap running back will have a workload for a single game. I don't know that in August, and I know that I can typically rely on a streaming quarterback to narrow the gap.

But the value of running backs is something we'll discuss in the next iteration of this series (it's where I think things get most interesting).

How can the higher ceilings apply to daily fantasy? Well, those are nice for tournaments. For example, Eli's ceiling (24.86) wasn't far off from Brees' (25.41). The discount on a player such as Manning -- or in more extreme examples, of course -- who offer similar ceilings can be crucial in creating a high-scoring lineup.

What It Means for the Position

For a series on consistency, I realize that this was less about consistency and more about realistic floors at ceilings -- not exactly the same topic, but close.

That's because the numbers suggest that treating quarterback as a season-long commitment isn't worthwhile. There are too few guys worth holding onto for an entire year because considering waiver wire options have nearly the same realistic outputs, allowing you to play quarterbacks in friendlier matchups. That is to say that you don't need to worry much about week-to-week consistency because, if you're in most normal-sized (10-, 12-, or 14-team leagues), you can find viable options each week.

Also, the lack of high floors from even the elite guys -- only Andrew Luck had a floor of 14.00 points or higher -- means that you really aren't getting guaranteed points each and every week if you go with an early quarterback, though I'm not trying to say that having Aaron Rodgers on your team is a bad thing.

The other three positions will be more telling in terms of actual, weekly consistency, but taking a guy like Peyton or Brees for his "guaranteed production" isn't necessarily true or worth it.

That's especially true if you miss out on running backs, which is the focus of the next article in the series.