The letter q in fantasy football stands for questionable. This is a designation that is given to football player who may or not play in the coming game.
A q is placed beside each player on your fantasy team that may not be able to play. This way fantasy managers can determine which players need to be removed from the starting lineup.
What does questionable mean in football?
Questionable in football means a player may or may not play in the coming game. To get a better understanding of this term you need to understand what doubtful and out mean.
In football, there are three designations that can be put on the injury report. Questionable is the least severe of the three and means a player has less than a 100% chance of playing the game.
If there is any chance a player may miss the coming game he will be given a q beside his name.
The next injury designation is doubtful. Doubtful is more cause for concern for fantasy football managers as this means there is serious doubt a player is going to play in his next game.
This may be the time when you should start to check the waiver wire for handcuffs to backup your injured player..
The rough guideline for NFL teams determining whether a player is doubtful is when there is a 75% chance they will not play. Once a player has a 75% or more likelihood of not playing he will be assigned doubtful.
After doubtful, there is only one more injury designation and that is out. When a player is out they will have an “o” placed beside their name on your fantasy roster.
When a player is declared out that means they have already determined they will not be playing in the next game. When you see a player with an o in your fantasy lineup you want to be sure to switch them out.
Questionable vs probable in fantasy football
If you have been playing fantasy football for a while you likely remember seeing a p besides your fantasy player’s names from time to time.
This is because the NFL used to have an injury designation referred to as probable.
Teams were getting quite lenient with the probable designation and started to list many players that were sure to play the game.
After a while, the NFL realized this probable designation wasn’t doing much good as almost all the players with this tag played in the following weak.
In fact, the NFL found that roughly 95% of probable players played their next game.
For this reason, the NFL got rid of the probable designation in 2016. When they did this they also changed the definitions of questionable and doubtful to what they are today.
If a player has any chance of missing the game they are considered questionable. And if they are more likely to miss the game than play in it they are considered doubtful.
This system is quite easy to understand and made injury reports easier to read for fans.
What percent of questionable players end up playing?
The other reason you may be reading this article is to find out whether your questionable player is going to suit up in his next game.
The good news for you is questionable players are more likely to play than not.
In the 2018 NFL season, sixty-eight percent of NFL players listed as questionable ended up playing the game.
That being said there are several more factors you should be aware of when putting a questionable player in your fantasy team.
First off not all coaching staffs designate injuries the same. As we stated earlier 68% of these players play but on some teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers, only 29% of their questionable players played.
Coaches and general managers change so these statistics from the 2017 season won’t always be accurate but they are worth looking at.
Additionally, you want to take into account how the injury that led to the questionable tag will affect a player’s performance.
Are they only going to be on the field for a few snaps? Will their speed be affected by the injury they are carrying?
These sorts of questions should be asked in order for you to determine which player is best in your fantasy lineup.
