Transcription
This will change the way that you draft early round running backs. On this channel, we've been talking about early round running back strategies for over a week now. We've talked about the hero RB, the zero RB, the double hero RB. Well, now it's time to decide which running backs are we actually targeting.
Aside from micro factors for each player, which I will go through next Saturday on the league winning running backs video, we're going to use historical hit rates to identify which archetypes of running backs we want to bet on. So, it's adding another layer to the running back analysis. I've done this video for about three or four years now, highlighting your targets on a macro level. Behan Gibbs, Han JT, Kairen James Cook are the green running backs in their prime. Best archetype of running back that you can go after. And it's had a pretty good success rate over that time.
But let's start with outlining why we want to hit so bad on early round running backs. Value over replacement, fellas. That's what we are looking for. How much more valuable is having Christian McCaffrey, Bejan Robinson, Jonathan Taylor, Jamir Gibbs, Achan, James Cook? Those guys are irreplaceable in fantasy football.
If you look at this graph, the value over replacement for running backs is exponential. It is not the same to say RB7 over RB8 is the same value difference as RB11 over RB12 or RB1 over RB2. It goes up a curve. There's usually five to seven running backs every year that are far and away the best ones that you can have. And if you can hit on two of them especially, you are going to have a huge advantage over your league.
If you notice in this chart, it's not even tied to where you were drafted. Ashen Genty and Saquon Barkley were really high picks and really disappointing last year. Yet Rico Dattle, Javvante, ETN, and Swift weren't high picks, and they were equally as valuable from a value over replacement standpoint, which is why the people who drafted that latter group of running backs was much happier than the guys who drafted Seaquan or Genty with one of their first picks.
Percentage of running backs drafted in each round to become league winners. This is a chart from Ryan Heath's new article on Fantasy Points. Excellent read. Go check it out. Running backs in rounds one, two, three, four, and into round five have the highest chance of becoming league winners. We know how to value running backs generally as a fantasy community. So that's why early round running backs have always been popular in fantasy football leagues. We are usually quite good at knowing what to look for at predicting who the best running backs are in the league, who are in the good offenses, who have the passcatching upside.
No league winners at the running back position from round seven through nine over the last eight NFL seasons. It's a very low hit rate after round four to five when running backs are flying off the board fast and furious. Everybody knows that they need to get their running backs early, but which running backs are they taking early is the key here.
So, we also have injury rates. And as you guys can see here, the last two seasons is the healthiest the running back position has been really in the last 10 years. We've never seen 1.4 average games missed for running backs. That is the lowest total I've seen since I've been tracking this. the yearly average for the running back position in the top 20 running backs off the board of ADP. So about the first four or five rounds is almost three games on average missed for those running backs. So 1.45 games means that we got a really healthy season out of the running back position. Keep in mind that this year the running back position could deal with more injuries than they have in the past two years combined.
So what we're going to do, and again I've done this for a couple years now, is we're going to bucket running backs into different archetypes to better separate them. aside from the usual micro player takes that we usually do. So, what I've done is I've broken down the top 20 running backs over the last 11 NFL seasons. So, dating back to the year 2015, we got a big sample of 220 running backs who were all being drafted in the first four to five rounds off the board as top 20 running backs in ADP their respective seasons. And I've bucketed them in the following categories.
Breakout candidates, year three or younger running backs without any RB1 finishes in their career. And that can happen multiple times. For example, Bucky Irving this year is a breakout candidate again after being a breakout candidate last year. Trusty veterans, guys who are in year seven plus of their NFL careers or they are 27 plus years old. So guys that have been around for a while, probably have past production. And then running backs in their prime, they're either under the age of 27 andor they have an RB1 finish already. And if they're both, they are generally a very good bet. meaning they're under age 27 and they've already finished as an RB1.
This is last year's data to give you guys an idea. Now, there's a lot going on here, so I'll try and simplify things. Highlighted in green are the running backs in their prime archetype. Highlighted in yellow are the breakout candidates. Highlighted in blue are the trusty veterans. That far right hand column that says bucket, that is how they actually finished on the season. So, the guys that returned on ADP were the ones that beat their where they were drafted, right? average draft position. They were drafted at RB9, for example, and they finished at least nine or higher. Uh, using Chase Brown as an example, he was drafted RB9. He finished RB8. Devon Achan drafted RB8, finished RB5, and so on. Injury, they missed six or more games. So, that's Bucky, Hampton, and Alvin Kamara. Boomed. This one over overlapped with returned on ADP because you obviously had to return on ADP to boom. You'll notice that Bejan, Gibbs, CMC, Achan, James Cook, and Jonathan Taylor's names are in purple text. That means they boomed. They either scored 18 plus fantasy points per game, which all of those guys did, or if they were drafted later down the board, they beat their ADP by at least 10 spots. Number four, bust. Lost 10 or more spots of ADP. Saquon Barkley, for example, you drafted him RB1, two, or three off the board, he finished RB14. That was a bust that hurt your fantasy season. And then the final category is fine. And these guys are silent killers. They didn't kill you, but they weren't, you know, monsters for fantasy either. Genty, Henry, Jacobs, those guys, if you drafted them, they weren't bad, but they lost ADP from where they were drafted. Genty was drafted RB5. He finished RB13. Again, he was startable every week, but you were mildly disappointed with the fact that you drafted him.
So, looking at this chart, this chart goes back since 2015. So, a 220 running back sample size. These are the expected hit rate labeled by archetype and in the far right hand column you can see all running backs as well. So that was last year. I did that for every season. Out of the top 20 ADP running backs on the far right hand column, 41.82% over the last NFL 11 NFL seasons have returned on ADP. 17.7% have gotten injured, missed six or more games. About one out of every four running backs has one of those boom seasons, 18 plus point per game years. 19% of those guys bust and 21.36% of those guys are just fine silent killers.
Generally, running backs in their prime have the best combination of everything. You can see there that they have the highest hit rate on returning on ADP. They get injured the least often and they are just fine the least often. Generally, they bust at times, but keep in mind that running backs in their prime applies to both guys who have finished as RB1's before and guys who haven't. So guys who are both under age 27 who have finished as RB ones before are going to have an even better uh hit rate than this and they're going to bust a lot less. A lot of the busts in this territory came from guys towards the tail end of the top 20 who hadn't finished as RB ones before. Um trusty veterans and breakout candidates both have their pros and cons. Of course trusty veterans do bust at the lowest rate but they do get injured the most and they return on ADP the least. Generally, we push up trusty veterans because we know what we have. Especially more casual fantasy fans are going to take players that they know. Breakout candidates tend to stay healthier. They tend to return on ADP almost as good as running backs in their prime, but they do bust the second most and they also boom the least because we usually elevate them up the draft board.
Now, if that graphic is a little too confusing for you, here's a simplified version of the chart above. breakout candidates, trusty veterans, running backs in their prime, and all running backs. I separated them into just three categories here. Crushed is their boom rate, hit is their return on ADP rate, and missed is their bust, injury, and fine rates combined. Hit and missed combining to equal 100%. Obviously, you can see that about 58% of all running backs are going to disappoint you in some form or facet. Rounds one to four, whether it's just being fine, injured, or an outright bust. 40% plus of those running backs, about eight or nine of them will be hits. 23% about four to five of those running backs every year will smash on any given season.
Now, the great thing about archetyping running backs and the way that we're doing it here is that it adds another layer of analysis to tie break between players, especially for those of you guys that are picking at the end of the board where James Cook, Jonathan Taylor, Genty, Hampton, Achan, Saquon, Kenneth Walker, all these guys are going off the board in the same area. So, you can only talk about their offense and their O line and their their receiving upside and all that stuff so many times. This is another element to tier break between those guys. And again, this is just m macro holistic view advice. All that other stuff is going to play a factor for a player's hit or miss rate. But using this as a baseline is how you spot Jonathan Taylor being undervalued last year because he'd been um RB1 multiple times and he was under the age of 27. It's how you spot James Cook last year who was going towards the end of the third round, early fourth round as well.
So, the obvious application for this uh information here is to take it into this year. Let's take a look at this year's ADP. Now, this is the top 30 running backs. Remember specifically that this was a study of top 20 selected running backs. So, try and focus Bucky Irving and above between these guys. But again, you can see how they're all archetyped. The running backs in their prime being Jamir Gibbs, Bejan Robinson, James Cook, Devon Achan, Chase Brown, Kenneth Walker, Bree Hall, Kairen Williams, and Javvante Williams. These guys are all under the age of 27 and have all finished as RB1s before. And in fact, actually, some of these guys have finished as multi-time RB1s. Gibbs, Bejon, Cook, Achan, and Kairen have all been RB1s before, multiple times. So really emphasize that these guys have the highest hit rates really of anybody that you're going to see. The guys in green are your best chance at smashes, at hits, at low injury, and low bust rates. Chase Brown, Walker, Bree, and Javvante have only been RB1's respectively one time each. However, they are still good bets generally speaking from a macro perspective. Again, if you don't want to draft Breeze because you don't want the Jets offense, etc., I understand that, but keep in mind that he has finished as an RB1 before on this same team. So, it is a good indicator that he has a higher hit rate than people think, a lower bust rate than people think, and so on.
Now, remember that exactly two out of every three trustee veterans will disappoint you to some regard on any given season. So, when you combine that with the fact that I'm a little bit lower on the Colts offense, I have question marks about the Ravens offense as well. That's how I get a little bit lower on guys like Jonathan Taylor and guys like Derrick Henry, um, Jacobs, ETN, all those guys are fades for me in home leagues. Jacob's going a little later on underdog, so I'm willing to take him there. But down the board into the dead zone, be wary of trusty veterans. Guys like DeAndre Swift, David Montgomery, Pard Stevenson, Hubard, and Jaylen Warren. Trusty veterans going in this area of the board. You better love their offense, their talent, their workload, their O line. All of that stuff better be in order in order for me to actually take those guys because trusty veterans, like I said, will disappoint you two out of every three times. And that's just inside the top 20 of ADP. Let alone when you're taking trusty veterans in the dead zone. It can get even worse than that.
Breakout candidates like Genty Hampton, Bucky Scataboo, and Judkins are a little bit different actually than the breakout candidates of Jeremiah Love, Trevian Henderson, Jadarian Price, and Bashel Tutin. If anybody can spot the difference, let me know in the comments. I'll give you guys a second down below. But that first group have all been running back twos in fantasy points per game. Genty, Hampton, Bucky, Scataboo, and Judkins. The other guys have never proven it. So, there is a little bit of a a minute difference between a breakout candidate who's been productive and a breakout candidate who's never played in the league like those two rookies or who has never been a a starting running back. Guys like Henderson and Tuton are very risky because they've never commanded a full workload. Whereas at least with guys like Judkins and Scataboo and Hampton and Bucky and Genty, we have sample sizes of them being pretty productive fantasy running backs. So if you're going to bet on a breakout candidate, just keep that in mind that those guys who have pass good production are better indicators of success than guys like Henderson and Tuton who haven't had that past production.
The running back strategy that I'm employing this year because generally I love a lot of the running backs going early on in drafts. Like I said, some of my biggest targets being those green running backs in their prime, but I also do like some of the breakout candidates of Genty and Hampton and Jeremiah Love and in those mid rounds of Cam Scataboo, Bucky Irving, Judkins, Henderson, Tutin, and Price. My strategy this year is called the Full House and I've talked about it before and I'm going to talk about it in the number one draft strategy video because it is going to be on the thumbnail of that video and I'm going to be talking about it left, right, and center. Generally speaking, the TLDDR version of some of the other videos we've done this year, I'm fading quarterback. I'm fading tight end in the early rounds. And the reason I'm doing that is because I want to leave the first five rounds with three running backs and two wide receivers. If you guys play poker, a full house hand in poker is three of a kind and two of a kind. So, that is why I'm calling it the full house strategy.
Here's what the first five rounds could look like for you from each area of the draft board. Let's say you're picking 101 or 102. You can run the full house like this. Jir Gibbs round one. Nico Collins, Rasheed Rice at the turn. Judkins Henderson at the four five turn. That's a full house. Three running backs, two wide receivers through the first five rounds. Let's say you're in the middle of the board. You grab Christian McCaffrey, Drake London, Kairen Williams, Bayel Tutin, Devonte Adams. Three running backs, two wide receivers through five rounds. Let's say you're at the end of the board and you get lucky with a falling running back in round three. James Cook, Amarian Hampton, Ky Williams, your three running backs. Jaylen Wadd, Romo Dun.
All of these strategies, I would continue to hammer out wide receivers later, round six through 10. I'd probably grab my tight end in that range and I would mostly fade quarterback till round 10 plus because I do think there's a lot of great quarterback options. I can punt till Jared Goff in round 11. Hell, I'd even be fine with Baker Mayfield in round 12 or 13. Unless a stacking partner falls to me at value or a rushing quarterback like Jaylen Herz starts sliding to round eight, I'm probably not taking a quarterback early and maybe I'll take a tight end round seven through 10 where Sam Laaporta, Kyle Pittz, Daltton Concaid.
But I know this video was valuable for you guys. Again, this was a macro holistic view. I'm going to talk about player takes individually, who has the best offense, who's the best player, etc. when I go through the league winning running backs video next Saturday. And again, next Sunday is when the number one draft strategy video is going to drop. I know everybody and their mother does one of those every single year on YouTube. But remember who did it first. I've been doing that video for five years now, and it is the most viewed video in the history of our channel. Three years running, four years running, I believe. And my performance the last two years in the Flock League makes me want to work harder this season. There is a 100 grand on the line in that league. And the other guys in that league are underestimating me. You know how many jokes I've heard that the FSC boys haven't made the playoffs? You know how many jokes I've heard that we're a complete Cleveland Browns, New York Jets disaster of a franchise in that league. We are coming for that 100k and we are right where we want to be. Chip on our shoulder with everybody doubting us.
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