About this time every year, I like to shine a light on each position
and focus on how they fared among their peers on a weekly basis.
While I am very much a believer that fantasy football is a weekly
game and play the matchups as much as anything when it comes to
fringe starters, there is something to be said for the handful of
players who stack one top 10 or top 20 finish upon another. Among
other things, it suggests that defenses have not found an answer
to slowing him down (or that the offensive play-caller consistently
puts him in positions to succeed).
Knowing how each player ranked among his position group each
week is a handy little tool - whether you want a quick reference
guide in your redraft leagues to help set expectations for a certain
player or need an idea on the range of a player's performances
to help break a tie between two or three options in your DFS lineups.
For the sake of time and space (not to mention my sanity), not
every player that has scored a fantasy point appears below. The
first cutoff was that a player had to score at least three fantasy
points to be ranked for that week. (My reason for doing this was
to avoid punishing a player who mixed in a 110th place finish
with three top 20s, for example.) The second qualification was
that a running back had to reach the first cutoff at least five
times, which should theoretically remove non-regular players and
minimize any fluky occurrences. The third qualification was for
the running back to post an average rank of at least 36 (the worst
finish for an RB3).
Players with an asterisk by their name are likely out for the
year.
Key to the table below:
AR - Average weekly finish Max - Best weekly fantasy finish Min - Worst weekly fantasy finish RB1 - How often he finished among the top 12
at his position RB2 - How often he finished between 13th and
24th at his position RB3 - How often he finished between 25th and
36th at his position RB1% - Percentage of RB1 finishes RB2% - Percentage of RB2finishes RB3% - Percentage of RB3 finishes RB1-2% - Percentage of top 24 finishes
* It bears mentioning even though it is something most experienced
fantasy managers know intuitively; there are not 24 starting-caliber
running backs in any year. This kind of analysis highlights that.
1) Because of the competition at running back across the league
(i.e. lack of true workhorses), it is probably more realistic
to begin the discussion of RB1 viability at the average rank of
18.1. Assuming that is an acceptable bar, 12 players are clearing
it through Week 10. Now comes the bad news: D'Ernest
Johnson and Devontae
Booker will likely lose their touches (and featured roles)
as soon as this week, Derrick
Henry is likely done for the year, Kareem
Hunt is probably out through the Browns' Week 13 bye and Christian
McCaffrey just returned from a five-game absence. That leaves
us with Najee
Harris, Jonathan
Taylor, Austin
Ekeler, Alvin
Kamara, D'Andre
Swift, Ezekiel
Elliott, Joe
Mixon and Cordarrelle
Patterson as the eight true RB1s to this point.
If we can assume McCaffrey's health moving forward, he will join
the club. Nick Chubb and Dalvin Cook are just outside the 18.0
average rank cutoff as well. Saquon Barkley could easily join
the fun too. The problem is that all of them have missed multiple
games already.
2) The true value of this analysis comes from taking a closer
look at RB1 percentage. Taylor and Harris are the only backs who
performed at an RB1 level in at least 75 percent of games. The
next full-time back does not appear until we fall into the 55.6-62.5
percent range. Of that six-man group, only Ekeler and Elliott
have played every game. Every other player is at 50 percent or
lower. Depending on how important availability and consistent
high-end production is to you, a strong case can be made that
only four running backs are true RB1s right now. If we assume
- as I do - that most running backs will miss at least two games
each year, we can bump that number up to six (James Robinson and
Kamara).
3) When we think of RB1s (this goes for any position), we probably
need to adjust our thinking: can they can finish inside the top
12 in half of their games? For example, seven backs have at least
five RB1 performances (six if we keep it to available players
and eliminate Henry). It is admittedly a lot to ask for any back
to be that good that often, but it is the main reason why managers
desperately want a pick inside the top three or five in our drafts.
That handful of players make our lives easier.
4) The outlook gets slightly rosier when we turn the focus to
how consistently running backs finish inside the top 24. Twenty-seven
players have cleared that bar in at least 60 percent of the games,
although that also comes with several caveats, such as likely
Week 11 returns (Chubb, Miles
Sanders and Barkley) bumping Booker, D'Ernest
Johnson and Jordan
Howard out of consideration, Henry's absence, Rhamondre
Stevenson's uncertain role moving forward and Chris
Carson, Aaron
Jones and Hunt's current injury status.
Doug Orth has written for FF
Today since 2006 and been featured in USA Today’s Fantasy
Football Preview magazine since 2010. He hosted USA Today’s
hour-long, pre-kickoff fantasy football internet chat every Sunday
in 2012-13 and appears as a guest analyst on a number of national
sports radio shows, including Sirius XM’s “Fantasy Drive”.
Doug is also a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association.
