Running Back Report Card (Fantasy Football 2021)

Zero RB vs. Robust RB

For most of the 2020 Fantasy Football season, I had the phrase, “Zero RB Stan” proudly placed in my Twitter Bio. It gave me a sense of being contrarian to the Fantasy Football consensus. The market doubled down on the importance of getting Running Backs early, as there were only so many with legitimate bell cow opportunities; backfields all to themselves.

Maybe if I went the opposite route, I could take advantage of some discrepancies in the market that would catapult me to a Championship. We are, after all, looking for every advantage we can get.

I was happy to see my fellow Undroppable Brian O’Connell, aka @BpoFSU write up a defense of Zero RB and why the strategy actually worked. He got a lot of flak on Twitter when he first brought up the conversation, and his article defending the position further addresses the gripes of his testosterone-filled detractors.

Scarcity is why zero RB truthers are operating on a fallacy.

— Bo Knows Picante (@Bo_McBigTime) November 30, 2020

I don’t believe Brian’s article completely satisfied any of the Zero RB haters out there. Noted Friend of the Brand @Bo_McBigTime pointed out the scarcity at running back is exactly why “Robust RB” even became a thing. But just because there’s scarcity at a position does not mean we should over-invest in players that are more likely to be inefficient in their team’s offense or older backs who could easily cede work to a rising rookie.

The Running Back Report Card

With the Running Back Report Card, my goal is to take a deeper look at how running backs were ranked to start the season, how those rankings compare to end-of-season results, and what takeaways we can glean from the position to apply to 2021.

For this highly scientific analysis, I pulled together a list of ESPN’s PPR Fantasy Football Rankings for running back, (as of September 4, 2020) a list of 2020 season-end running back rankings based on Half-PPR* points per game (PPG), and their corresponding PPG.

I also made a note of how many “ceiling games” and how many “floor games” each running back had through the season to give us a better sense of how the running backs actually performed in your lineup. A ceiling game in this exercise is defined as any game where the running back scored 20 or more Half-PPR points, and a floor game is defined as any game where the running back scored less than 10 Half-PPR points in a game.

These tiers, created in part by my friend @SamHoppen, are really defined based on feel. You LOVED Jonathan Taylor any time he got you 20+ points in your lineup, and you were probably trashing him (or the Colts coaching staff) any time he got you <10. If a player in your lineup scores fewer than 10 points in a week, you’re gonna have a bad time.

*I realize the PPR pre-season rankings won’t be 100% apples to apples with the Half-PPR scoring I used for season-end, but I chose Half-PPR scoring as a way to balance out RB scoring and give a more holistic picture. I pulled the ESPN rankings simply to get a sense of the pre-season consensus on the position.

Gold Stars

These are the Grade-A running backs who, based on their 2020 performances alone, should be considered RB1 candidates in the early rounds:

This is the complete list of running backs that averaged over 15 Half-PPR points per game. You’ll notice each of them amassed at least 3 ceiling games across the season. Situation and context of their success will influence ADP positively (Taylor) or negatively (Montgomery), but this is the initial group you’re evaluating for your “Robust RB” or “Modified Zero RB” team build.

B+ Bust Candidates

Below is the grouping of running backs just after the #Elite tier that averaged between 15 and 12 HPPR PPG. If you are a Robust RB truther, you’ll be hard pressed to let some of these players pass you by on the draft board, when in reality only a few of these guys will even sniff RB1 territory. Identifying which of these players still have upside and which are 2021 landmines is vital to your draft strategy. If you miss on your top picks from this tier, don’t settle for the next best back just because you were targeting the position.

While Ezekiel Elliott is the most likely to bounce back with a healthy Dak Prescott at the helm of the Cowboys offense, I also really like D’Andre Swift’s upside for next year. Josh Jacobs will certainly be an interesting player to evaluate, as we may have to factor in a multi-game suspension for his 2021 season.

D+ … Oh My God, I PASSED!

Here’s the group of RBs that managed between 12 and 10 PPG on the season…

Some had injury concerns, others were waiver wire wonders, but Todd Gurley and James Conner fetched considerable draft capital. If you invested in either of these two, you might feel a little like Thomas “Tommy” Callahan III stuck on a sailboat. If there are any takeaways from this grouping, it’s that 1) Gurley & Conner are likely undraftable for me in 2021, and 2) Nyheim Hines and Salvon Ahmed are interesting late-round sleepers. I’ll have to check on that with my guy Paulie later in the offseason.

Press ‘F’ to Pay Respects

My biggest takeaway from this exercise was that almost every running back outside of the preseason Top 40 was nearly worthless. Not including unranked players, (aka the waiver wire wonders) five running backs from pre-season RB38 to RB56 recorded at least one ceiling game: Latavius Murray, Zack Moss, Alexander Mattison, Tony Pollard, and Nyheim Hines. These five running backs combined for eight ceiling games, the same number that Dalvin Cook logged on his own.

While part of this section is to point out my hatred for how deep Fantasy rankings go in general, it’s also worth noting most “Zero RB” targets in drafts never get the opportunity we hope they can earn, because the starter in front of them never gets injured or the backfield wasn’t as ambiguous as we assumed. Even when they do get the opportunity to be the bell cow, we often learn the backups are the backups for a reason. They are replacement-level options, not direct replacements of the top options.

This is not to say we shouldn’t take shots on running backs in the late rounds, but rather we need to make sure in a Zero RB team build that we don’t get complacent with drafting just anyone and hold onto them for too long. The waiver wire option with the quicker path to opportunity is likely the better option to take a shot on.

Concluding Thoughts

I don’t profess to be an analytical expert when it comes to Fantasy Football, but I do think taking high-level view of the landscape of each position can teach us a lot, especially if we look at both a season-long and a week-to-week perspective. Much like Ben Wyatt preaches while playing Cones of Dunshire in Parks and Recreation, we must not forget about the ESSENCE of Fantasy Football: It’s about the points.

If you enjoyed this article, please let me know on Twitter, @AndrewMackens. As the Editor-in-Chief of the site, I love hearing feedback (positive and negative) so I and everyone else at The Undroppables can get better. Thanks for stopping by!