As the adage goes, “you can’t win your draft in the first several rounds, but you can lose it.” Well, maybe it’s not an adage, but I have seen it, or variations of it, over the past couple of decades of playing fantasy football. There is likely some truth in this, but it goes beyond a surface-level proverbial statement and is rooted in various levels of both objective and subjective information.
Throughout the fantasy football draft season, fantasy managers are inundated with advice from all directions about the “best picks in each round of your draft,” or the “safest picks,” or “riskiest picks.” Depending on who you trust, you may embrace this information and allow it to help guide your decisions, or you may choose to go against the grain and blaze your own trail.
When looking at the first several rounds of your draft, you are faced with some important decisions that will influence how your team is constructed. Whether you go “anchor RB,” “heavy RB,” “heavy WR,” or go with an unconventional strategy and draft an elite tight end and/or quarterback in the first couple of rounds, these early picks send you down a path that will likely determine the fate of your team.
But which path is the right one? Ask any fantasy manager, and they will tell you that any strategy can work if you choose the right players. Simple in principle, but more difficult in practice.
The advice provided by fantasy analysts has elements of their subjective experiences (that one time they drafted a running back in the first round who played five games all year), and objective data that provides historical information about what has happened in the past (and therefore, what may likely happen in the future).
Today, we will explore the objective side of the discussion. Using average draft position (ADP) data from FantasyMojo going back to 2016, we will take a look at the first four rounds of drafts and compare the positional ADP of players taken in those rounds to how they ranked at their position at the end of the season. In addition, we will look at how the delta between the two compares across positions, as well as the fantasy points lost (or gained) based on where they were taken in drafts versus where they finished.
When we are done, you should have a better idea of how each position has performed historically relative to each other in the same areas of the draft, hopefully providing you with the data you need to make more informed decisions in the early part of your draft strategy. I’ll start by explaining where the data comes from and the methodology used.
Data and Methodology
FantasyMojo sources its ADP from FFPC drafts, which are single quarterback, tight end premium (TEP) leagues, with a point per reception (PPR) for all other positions. Therefore, you may see some tight end ADPs that differ from standard point PPR leagues, but the information is valuable regardless.
To keep it simple, I pulled just a few data fields from my model. Granted, there are a lot of ways to dissect this topic, but I wanted to make it as clean and digestible as possible. Here are the fields that I used when analyzing the data:
Round
ADP
Positional ADP Rank
Positional Fantasy Points Rank
Delta Between Positional ADP and Fpts Rank
Fantasy Points Scored
Fantasy Points Delta Between Actual and Points From Positional ADP Rank
* In other words, if a running back was drafted as RB1 and finished as RB15, this is looking at the number of points they scored and comparing it to the number of points from the actual RB1 on the season
# of Games Missed
Looking at the first four rounds, here is a breakdown of the number of positions drafted in each round for players who recorded statistics during the season:
Number of Positions Drafted By Round
Right off the bat, you will notice a few things that do not add up. Rounds one, three, and four do not total the 108 players that they should (9 seasons x 12 picks). As I reveal the players and the reasons for not being included in the table, the narratives will already start to gather steam:
2018:
1st Round: Le’Veon Bell (Contract Hold-Out)
3rd Round: Jerick McKinnon (ACL Tear Preseason)
4th Round: Derrius Guice (ACL Tear Preseason)
2021:
3rd Round: J.K. Dobbins (ACL Tear Preseason)
Okay, end of article, everyone. Just don’t draft running backs early! Thanks for reading!
Well, that is certainly part of the argument for Zero-RB approaches to drafting. The running back position is just so volatile, why sink an early-round pick into one? Just go with the safer options at wide receiver (or even tight end).
In a previous article of mine, I touched on positional hit rates by round and how often the top producers at each position came from each round since 2016. In this analysis, we not only looked at the total number of top producers at each position and the percentage chance of hitting in those rounds, but we also incorporated a risk/reward score that factored in points per game, week-winning games, and games missed.
That analysis showed that taking a running back in the first two rounds still presented a better risk/reward opportunity than drafting a wide receiver. With the data I just presented, and what we are about to dive into, we can look at this from another angle, giving fantasy managers yet another datapoint to help guide their draft-day decisions.
To make sure I made this analysis as fair as possible in terms of evaluating the ranking deltas and points lost deltas, I included the four players above in the aggregate data, and I will add context regarding their impact as we examine each metric. That said, the number of running backs in this sample ends up being 171 instead of the 167 shown in the table above.
Understanding Positional Opportunity Cost
Opportunity cost in fantasy drafts isn't just about a player underperforming - it's about what you gave up by selecting one position over another in that draft slot. When you draft RB1 in the first round instead of WR1, your opportunity cost is the difference between how your RB1 performed versus how that WR1 performed.
This analysis examines the positional opportunity cost of taking certain positions in the early rounds of your draft, factoring in the risk presented based on historical performance, general volatility, and injury rates.
Positional ADP vs Season Rank Difference
One thing I wanted to see was what the average differential was between where players were drafted in terms of their positional ADP and what their seasonal fantasy point ranking was at their position. Keep in mind, there is very little upward mobility for most of these players (especially those drafted in round one), so all of these numbers will be negative (on average, they finished worse than their positional ADP).
Positional ADP vs Season Rank Difference
The table above indicates that running backs drafted in round one, on average, finish about 17 spots below where they were drafted, whereas wide receivers are closer to 12 spots lower. Adding context to this, given the Bell contract hold-out (as fantasy managers knew there was the possibility of the hold-out, they could have chosen not to draft him), if you remove his data, the differential drops to just under 15, still worse than wide receivers.
Early-round tight ends finish a little more than half a positional tier worse on average, whereas early-round quarterbacks finish a little less than half a positional tier worse on average. What’s interesting is comparing rounds two and three throughout the positions. Round two appears to be a brutal round for wide receivers, where, on average, they finish over 22 spots worse than their positional ADP.
On the other hand, quarterbacks and running backs are better bets to return closer to positional value in round two, but have horrible returns in round three. Though the situations with McKinnon and Dobbins isn’t the same as Bell, as theirs are injury related during the preseason whereas with Bell it was a known possibility for him to hold out, if we remove both McKinnon and Dobbins from the round three data, the average positional loss for running backs in round three drops to about 14 spots.
We can also look at the total number of players within each position that finished better, worse, or the same as they were drafted.
Number of Players Finishing Better, Same, or Worse than Positional ADP
Here, you can see the actual numbers of players and percentage of players within each position that finished better, worse, or the same as their positional ADP. Quarterbacks and tight ends have the worst chance of finishing at or better than their positional ADP, with quarterbacks doing so about 29% of the time and tight ends at 27% of the time.
Meanwhile, wide receivers meet or exceed their positional ADP over 40% of the time, and running backs do so nearly 37% of the time. So in the first four rounds, the data suggests that you have over a 3% better chance at breaking even or returning positional value at wide receiver than at running back. Not a huge edge, but an edge nonetheless.
So far, we have seen that wide receivers drafted in the first four rounds are the better bet to finish closer to their positional ADP. In the article I referred to earlier, the data showed that running backs have the edge when it comes to average points per game and percentage of week-winning performances in the first two rounds. Let’s see how that corresponds to seasonal fantasy points “lost” by position.
Actual Fantasy Points vs Possible Fantasy Points
The next thing I wanted to look at was what the potential fantasy point loss was due to a player finishing lower than their positional ADP. Adding to the methodology I described above, I assumed that if a player was drafted RB1 but finished as RB15, his opportunity would have been to score the same points as the actual RB1 that season. Therefore, I subtracted his actual points from the points scored by the RB1 to arrive at a lost points assumption.
Also, with the NFL season shifting from 16 to 17 games mid-way through our sample data, I am going to use an assumption of 16 games played when evaluating points per game (PPG).
Average Points Lost By Position By Round
Above, you see that running backs taken in the first round have an average seasonal loss of nearly 73 points. Assuming 16 games played, that is about 4.5ppg. This makes sense considering the top-heavy nature of the elite running backs.
Once again, if we remove Bell from this data, the average shortfall drops to 67 points, about 4.2ppg.
First-round wide receivers only lose about 49 points over the season, a little over 3ppg, about 1.5ppg less than running backs. Tight ends fall in between, losing 53 total points and 3.3ppg on average.
The script flips when you enter the second round, as the running back becomes the star of the show. Running backs drafted in the second round only lose about 15 points over the entire season compared to their potential, less than a 1ppg difference. Meanwhile, wide receivers remain surprisingly consistent in round two.
Fantasy managers drafted only three quarterbacks in round two during this period, and the results were on par with wide receivers. Lastly, tight ends continue to underwhelm here with 80% of them failing to return value and doing so at an average seasonal point deficit of 65 points, about 4ppg.
Looking a bit closer at this and trying to explain the dramatic shift between the nearly 73-point deficit by round one running backs to an incredibly low 15-point deficit in round two, we can look at a couple of things.
First, referring back to the chart showing how many players returned better, same, or worse results, 20 running backs drafted in the second round returned profit at their positional ADP, about 43% of all round 2 running backs.
The only position-round combination better than this is fourth-round wide receivers, who exceeded positional ADP 56% of the time. Referring back to our previous article, looking at the risk/reward scores by position and round, it agrees that wide receivers have a decided advantage in the fourth round.
The next thing we can do is compare the difference in returns when players perform better than their positional ADP versus when they perform worse. This is very similar to what our risk/reward score in the previous article was evaluating.
Players Finishing Better than Positional ADP
When running backs drafted in the first round perform better than their positional ADP (12 out of 57, 21%), they return about 66 more points over the season, over 4ppg. Kind of staggering when you think about it, since the most running backs drafted in the first round since 2016 is seven.
Conversely, looking at first-round wide receivers, the ones that performed better than their positional ADP (nine out of 44, 20%), did so at just over 49 points during the season, about 3ppg. Not only did first-round wide receivers have a slightly worse percentage of outperforming their positional ADP compared to running backs, but when they did, it was about 1ppg less than their backfield counterparts.
This illustrates the benefit of hitting on a top-six running back, as the payoff can be greater than doing the same at wide receiver. In fact, the data shows that the average PPG differential between the RB1 and the RB7 is 8.33ppg, whereas the differential between WR1 and WR7 is 5.9ppg.
Once again, referring to my previous article, it showed that over 30% of all RB1s and about 27% of all WR1s came from the first round of drafts. With the first round of most drafts being made up of six to seven of each of these positions, this is a prime example of where risk intersects with opportunity.
You see similar numbers throughout the other rounds as well, with running backs who outperform their positional ADP exceeding the seasonal points gained compared to wide receivers in the same round. Quarterback and tight end are mixed within this, though third-round quarterbacks and fourth-round tight ends have very nice reward profiles.
But as evidenced by the original table showing the average for all players, the risk is considerable as well.
Players Finishing Worse than Positional ADP
And therein lies the problem, folks. Yes, early-round running backs can return HUGE rewards when exceeding their draft position, but when they don’t, it is ugly. A 123 average point loss over the season, nearly 8ppg, is a lot. Wide receivers are better, but still nearly a 5.5ppg difference. Removing Bell from this, the points differential is still about 113 points over the season for running backs, so while 10 points fewer, it is still the worst differential across all rounds and positions.
Of course, factoring into all of this is the number of games missed. Injuries cause most players to fall short of their draft-day expectations, though not exclusively. I already mentioned several of the most extreme examples previously in Bell, McKinnon, Dobbins, and Guice, but let’s take a broader look at missed games within the entire sample.
Average Games Missed
Average Games Missed By Position By Round
Zero-RB bros rejoice, as this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Running backs miss more games. Early-round running backs miss more games on average than any other position; 10% more than tight ends, over 52% more than wide receivers. Secound-round wide receivers start creeping into running back territory, but beyond that, it’s not particularly close. Not groundbreaking news, but it adds clarity to the puzzle.
What is interesting is when you compare the average games missed of the top-four round running backs compared to the running backs in the next six rounds in drafts (rounds five through 10). On average, running backs drafted in rounds 5-10 missed 3.57 games per season, more than their rounds 1-4 counterparts. Running backs drafted in rounds 11-20 missed 4.81 games on average.
While running backs miss games for a variety of reasons, later-round running backs notably miss more games than early-round running backs. This isn’t unique to running backs; the same holds for most positions. Regardless, it highlights that later-round running backs can be volatile as well, maybe even more volatile, though the opportunity cost to draft them is less the later you get in your drafts.
Okay, great, so now what?
I gave you all the answer earlier in the article; any strategy can work if you choose the right players. So just choose the running backs in the first couple of rounds that won’t miss games, right? Just know which ones you can grab later in the draft that will carve out roles or fill in for the starter during the season. Easier said than done, so when drafting, you must choose the path that works for you.
Balancing Risk, Reward, and Opportunity Cost
As we discussed earlier and in previous articles, this is a risk/reward equation, and your drafting preferences and convictions on players and positions in this area of the draft factor greatly into how you make your decisions. These early rounds are what tend to dictate your team build.
If you are dialed into the mid to late round running back landscape, feel free to plant your flags there. Feeling more risk-seeking and want to target the huge upside from getting your first round running back selection correct? Then by all means, swing away.
If you’d rather play it safer, the data suggests you have less to lose with early-round wide receivers. On average, they will likely finish closer to their positional ADP, and if they fail to meet expectations, your seasonal and points per game shortfall will be less than if the same were to happen to your early-round running back.
Quarterbacks and tight ends are a little different as there are fewer drafted in this range (and fewer drafted overall), though if you aren’t liking your options at the other positions, you can use this data to help guide you in which of these two positions might suit your team best in these early rounds.
In the end, this is a fake game measuring real players dealing with real-life situations. They are out there getting hurt for a living as we sit back in the comfort of our multi-screen game-day viewing rooms, overanalyzing every carry, reception, and missed snap. Have fun with it. Go into your drafts and take the players you like, while also embracing data that can help you avoid making that risky early-round mistake your team may not be able to overcome.