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Points, points, and more points are how fantasy leagues are going nowadays. I, myself still enjoy the more standard type of point system leagues. As tweaks and more innovative ways to gain points accumulates you can sometimes have individuals in leagues side one way versus other league participants. It’s going to happen and many could argue that additional points are futile to capturing a team’s true value.

To assuage owners there are certain point structures that just never go away. The category of turnovers is often overlooked when owners draft, but not on game day Sunday’s. Monster runs after high profile fantasy quarterbacks took fantasy drafts by storm last year. Only to see quarterbacks such as Cam Newton and Matthew Stafford plummet from their draft day value with inconsistency throughout the season. Making matters worse was the fact that both quarterbacks saw a rise in their turnovers. Stafford threw nearly as many touchdowns (20) as he did in interceptions (17) last season. The year prior he had an onslaught season with 41 touchdowns and just 16 interceptions.

Stafford owners that drafted him were hit with the double whammy of ineffectiveness last season. The big decline hit Newton as noted above dramatically as well. His was in a different area of expected continued production. Defenses adjusted to his open field running ability and clamped down on his number one skill-set. His drop from fourteen rushing touchdowns to just eight was a decrease of thirty six fantasy points. Not to mention that his consistent production from 2011 was not dependable, as he had some rough weeks the first eight to ten games of the season.

Fantasy owners need to dig deeper and realize that just because teams are throwing more does not mean your fantasy quarterback is going to ride the gravy train of double digit fantasy points every week. Predicting which quarterbacks are going to decline from a statistical stand point is almost impossible. I don’t care how many websites have a lineup helper or not. Turnovers are an area I would focus on.

Many of us have been in leagues where the point differential for any given week win/lose is by the slimmest of points. Quarterbacks can be the biggest detriment if they’re having a rough week by compounding your possible fantasy points with turnovers. Last year twenty six different quarterbacks threw ten or more interceptions, and fifteen had four or more fumbles. That’s a substantial amount of negative points from your fantasy quarterback on a season.

Rest assured without proper protection from your quarterback in the turnover department you will lose one to two games a season because of it.

Football is at a time where the guessing game on which teams are going to air out the football is over. The majority of teams have game plans tailored on winning their games through the air. In fantasy football you have diagnose which teams are on bad teams that will derail their performance as the season goes on with turnovers. Unlike receivers and running backs that accumulate garbage points playing from behind, quarterbacks tend to see a rise in their turnovers from more forced throws.

Here are quarterbacks I’d monitor with watchful eyes for a high amount of turnovers in 2013.

1. Matt Stafford
2. Russ Wilson
3. Philip Rivers
4. Jay Cutler
5. Eli Manning
6. Cam Newton
7. Tony Romo
8. Carson Palmer
9. Mike Vick
10. Colin Kaepernick