By Chet Gresham – @ChetGresham
Follow @walterfootball for updates.
When drafting running backs this season, we can feel somewhat certain that many people will be scared away from drafting them early due to last year’s running back-ocalypse. Let’s take a quick look at the Top-20 ADP running backs from last season and see how they finished.
| 2015 ADP | ADP | Finish | 2015 Top-20 | ADP | Finish | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bell. Le’Veon PIT | 1 | INJ | Devonta Freeman, Atl | 29 | 1 | |
| Peterson, Adrian MIN | 2 | 2 | Adrian Peterson, Min | 1 | 2 | |
| Lacy, Eddie GBP | 3 | 27 | Doug Martin, TB | 19 | 3 | |
| Charles, Jamaal KC | 4 | INJ | DeAngelo Williams, Pit | 44 | 4 | |
| Lynch, Marshawn SEA | 5 | 54 | Todd Gurley, LA | 13 | 5 | |
| Anderson, C.J. DEN | 6 | 31 | Lamar Miller, Hou | 9 | 6 | |
| Murray, DeMarco PHI | 7 | 18 | David Johnson, Ari | 46 | 7 | |
| Forte, Matt CHI | 8 | 8 | Matt Forte, NYJ | 8 | 8 | |
| Hill, Jeremy CIN | 9 | 14 | Chris Ivory, Jax | 29 | 9 | |
| McCoy, LeSean BUF | 10 | 17 | Danny Woodhead, SD | 43 | 10 | |
| Forsett, Justin BAL | 11 | 42 | Latavius Murray, Oak | 18 | 11 | |
| Miller, Lamar MIA | 12 | 6 | Frank Gore, Ind | 14 | 12 | |
| Ingram, Mark NO | 13 | 15 | Darren McFadden, Dal | 39 | 13 | |
| Gore, Frank IND | 14 | 12 | Jeremy Hill, Cin | 9 | 14 | |
| Gordon, Melvin SD | 15 | 56 | Mark Ingram, NO | 13 | 15 | |
| Hyde, Carlos SF | 16 | 55 | Jonathan Stewart, Car | 23 | 16 | |
| Morris, Alfred WAS | 17 | 45 | LeSean McCoy, Buf | 10 | 17 | |
| Murray, Latavius OAK | 18 | 11 | DeMarco Murray, Ten | 7 | 18 | |
| Gurley, Todd STL | 19 | 5 | Ronnie Hillman, Den | 52 | 19 | |
| Randle, Joseph FA* | 20 | 57 | Rashad Jennings, NYG | 33 | 20 |
As you can see, from the first seven running back picks, only one, Adrian Peterson, was very useful in fantasy last year. Of course, Le’Veon Bell and Jamaal Charles were injured quickly, Marshawn Lynch dealt with injuries most of the year, Eddie Lacy dealt with an offense crippled by the loss of Jordy Nelson, and C.J. Anderson dealt with injuries to start the season and lost time to Ronnie Hillman. And as you go down the list, there’s a good chance a player underperformed in part due to injuries. This is the trouble with running backs: they run into things, a lot. And those things are usually 300-pound men who do their best to snap something while tackling them.
It has always been known that wide receivers hold up better than running backs, but in fantasy, running backs have usually had the highest upside due to touchdowns and all-purpose yardage. So as fantasy players, we had to decide between volatility of running backs versus the higher floor, but lower ceiling of wide receivers early in drafts. Running backs usually won out because there were a handful who we felt could win you your league, whereas receivers usually couldn’t. That has slowly changed though, as teams throw the ball more and more, meaning wide receivers can have higher upsides than running backs to go along with better health.
The question this year is: are fantasy players now correcting too much and drafting wide receivers ahead of running backs because of an unlucky 2015 or is the correction just overdue? I think it’s a mix of the two. Running backs are still more injury prone, and the thought of one scoring 25-plus touchdowns like LaDainian Tomlinson, Shaun Alexander and Priest Holmes, is probably not going to happen again anytime soon. Our running backs now just don’t have the chances they used to around the goal line. But a good one can now separate you from the pack much easier than they used to. Those with Devonta Freeman last season know that to be true. But many people picked Freeman up off the waiver wire last season, and if they had drafted Antonio Brown in the first round while being keen on the wire to get Freeman, they were likely your league winner.
So what should you do? I have a hard time going completely away from running backs early because there are a handful I think have a great chance of succeeding and I like a lot more wide receivers than I do running backs, which means I can get some top starters in the second and third rounds. But as it usually goes, your hand will be forced by the list of players you have to draft from when that little draft buzzer goes off. I think you can go with “best available” in the first round, but I would not weigh yourself down with a slew of running backs early.
First-round ADP for running backs has four backs: Le’Veon Bell (4), Todd Gurley (6), Ezekiel Elliott (7) and David Johnson (8). That leaves seven wide receivers and Rob Gronkowski filling out the rest of the spots. I like those Top-4 backs in the first round. So unlike years past, running backs aren’t going to fly off the board, which means wide receivers will, and I have had trouble this year getting third and fourth wide receivers I liked after getting a couple running backs in the earlier rounds.
So far, I’ve felt best when I’ve come out of the first three rounds with two wide receivers and one running back. That running back often has been Todd Gurley, as I’ve found myself in the bottom half of the first round and had him drop to me more often than not, but like I said, I feel fine grabbing one of those top four in Round 1.
After the first round, it all depends on value and what position I’m lacking in. But since this is a running back-centric article, I’ll take you through some players I like at their ADPs. There is a big group of second- and third-tier running backs I like, but of course they are a bit riskier than the second- and third-tier receivers. Of course, each draft is different and hopefully you can always be right where you want and grabbing players at value, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and draft a running back you aren’t in love with because I like to have at least one no-doubt starter.
My favorite backs for value have ADPs about where I have them ranked, but they have a wider range than other running backs in where they get drafted, so if I line up a group of the backs I like in my queue, there’s a decent chance one will fall enough to give me the value I’m looking for. That list loosely consists of Carlos Hyde (RB13), C.J. Anderson (RB15), Dion Lewis (RB17), Latavius Murray (RB18), Ryan Mathews (RB22), Duke Johnson (RB23), Jay Ajayi (RB24), Jonathan Stewart (RB28) and Frank Gore (RB30). If I go with two wide receivers to start my draft, I very much want to grab two of these guys in the next three rounds.
So after you get your starting running backs, there’s a good chance your wide receivers will be the stronger and more reliable group on paper. That means you can feel better about grabbing running backs who you think could win a starting job. In the end, this is usually where you get one of your best starters, like Devonta Freeman last year, because unlike a wide receiver winning a starting spot, if a running back wins a spot he didn’t already have wrapped up, he goes from a late-round pick, to a top pick because he’s been given 15-20 touches a game that he wasn’t assured of before.
Players like Kenneth Dixon (RB39), Jerick McKinnon (RB51), C.J. Prosise (RB41), Wendell Smallwood (RB59), Keith Marshall (RB64), Spencer Ware (RB68), DeAndre Washington (RB60) and Devonta Booker (RB48) are all going to litter my teams due to their upside if the cards fall in the right position for them. I’ll write more on some of these guys I’ll be grabbing late in subsequent articles, but suffice it to say, you need these lottery tickets when you build your team with a strong wide receiver base.
In the end, I believe the move to a stronger wide receiver-based team is a good one. The fact that others are doing similar things with their teams is discouraging because I’d rather zig when others are zagging, but running backs are just too risky, which means you want a lot of them. They are all lottery tickets and the more you have, the better your chances.
For more recommendations, check out WalterFootball.com’s Fantasy Football Rankings.
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