Zero RB is a Bad Strategy, but Zero QB?
Since we’re about to get into the heart of draft season soon, my first few articles this year will focus on draft strategies. One strategy that has gained popularity over the last couple years in the expert community is the idea of zero RB. There are a couple of variations on this theory, but the general idea is to not draft a running back in the first four rounds of a draft. The thinking behind this is that running backs are generally the most volatile position, and therefore harder to project. The last thing you want to do is draft two duds with your first two picks, thereby tanking your team. Instead, go the safer route and forego running backs for easier to project wide receivers. The two variations on zero RB say to either only draft WR with your first four picks or to draft any of QB-RB-TE with your first four picks.
Before we get into an analysis of why I believe zero RB is such a bad strategy, let’s just dismiss the first version outright. I’m not going to discuss it. In the vast majority of leagues, you start two WR and one FLEX that can be used as a WR. By drafting four WR, you are spending one of your top four picks on a bench spot, while you have an entire roster to fill. It’s such a bad idea, I can’t even comprehend how people get paid to talk about it. Don’t draft bench spots when you need EVERYTHING ELSE, ok? So now we’re left with the idea of drafting QB-WR-TE in the first four rounds and ignoring running backs. In theory, this doesn’t sound too bad, but let’s take a position by position look at what this would do to your team in terms of draft value.
We’ll start out with tight end. Last year, there were three TEs to average over 10 points per game. These were: Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham and Julius Thomas. Antonio Gates averaged 9.6, so that’s close enough to 10. The three averaging over 10 points per game all were drafted in the first three rounds in 12 team leagues, while Gates could be had after the 10th round. After Gronk, Jordan Cameron and Vernon Davis both went in the fifth round on average. Those two finished 20th and 56th among TE respectively at their positions. The rest of the top 12 in per game scoring average either went in the seventh round or later, with a lot being undrafted. So outside of the top three tight ends, if you spent one of your first four picks on a TE, you lost a ton of draft position value. This year, I can see the case for spending big on Gronk or Graham, but that’s it. Last year’s 12th best TE in per game scoring (Jason Witten), averaged 6.3 points per game. There were 10 TEs to average between 6.3 and 5.3 points per game. You could basically throw a dart each week and get a TE to be at the bottom of the starter level in a 12 team league.
Next we’ll take a look at QB. Last year, there were five QB taken on average in the first four rounds of drafts: Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Andrew Luck and Matthew Stafford. On a per average scoring basis, this group actually did pretty well. All but Stafford finished in the top four per in per game scoring average. Stafford finished 20th. The fifth highest scoring QB, Russell Wilson, was the 13th QB off the board on average. The sixth highest QB in per game scoring, Ben Roethlisberger, was taken 17th among QB on average. The top seven QBs averaged between 26.6 points per game and 23 points per game. The top seven include the six previously mentioned and Matt Ryan (a sixth round pick on average last year, had 21.7 points per game) rounding out the group. After the top seven, there were 12 QBs to average between 21.5 and 19.5 points per game. You could’ve grabbed a Ryan Tannehill (20.93 PPG, 19thQB taken), Eli Manning (21.09 PPG, 22nd QB taken). Heck, you could have gone with a tandem of Kirk Cousins (19.75 PPG, undrafted) and then Mark Sanchez (20.07 PPG, undrafted) after he took over. So far, we have two of the positions suggested to snap up early under the zero RB strategy that you can really wait on and not get hurt all that much.
Now we’re left to take a look at WR, the easiest group to predict according to zero RB folks. To make it easier to see, I’ll include a table for the top 12 WR in terms of ADP last year and how they fared on a points per game basis. To figure what round each player was taken, just divide the pick by 12. Dez was a 2nd rounder, Alshon a third, so on.
Player
|
2014 Average Pick
|
2014 Points per game (WR Rank)
|
Calvin Johnson
|
6.47
|
11.97 (12th)
|
Demaryius Thomas
|
9.87
|
14.24 (5th)
|
Dez Bryant
|
13.03
|
14.25 (4th)
|
A.J. Green
|
13.5
|
12.75 (8th)
|
Julio Jones
|
16.57
|
13.03 (6th)
|
Brandon Marshall
|
17.15
|
9.25 (25th)
|
Jordy Nelson
|
23.11
|
14.37 (3rd)
|
Antonio Brown
|
23.99
|
15.88 (2nd)
|
Alshon Jeffery
|
25.02
|
11.03 (14th)
|
Randall Cobb
|
28.88
|
12.78 (7th)
|
Keenan Allen
|
35.26
|
7.31 (45th)
|
Pierre Garcon
|
42.13
|
5.82 (68th)
|
That’s actually not too bad in terms of value for your buck. There were a couple flame outs, but that’s to be expected. Calvin Johnson can be termed a disappointment as well since he was the first WR drafted, and barely made it to a WR1 status. Overall, 8 of 12, or 67% of the guys drafted to perform as a WR1 acted that way. So there were four disappointments - Johnson, Marshall, Allen and Garcon.
So those are the guys drafted to be WR1s by their owners. Since we start two WR, let’s take a look at how the next 12 in terms of ADP fared.
Player
|
2014 Average Pick
|
2014 Points per game (WR Rank)
|
Vincent Jackson
|
42.77
|
7.01 (48)
|
Victor Cruz
|
42.92
|
6.62 (53)
|
Andre Johnson
|
43.12
|
7.44 (42)
|
Larry Fitzgerald
|
43.9
|
6.46 (58)
|
Cordarrelle Patterson
|
46.15
|
4.44 (96)
|
Roddy White
|
49.53
|
9.58 (23)
|
Percy Harvin
|
51.41
|
6.19 (56)
|
Michael Crabtree
|
51.45
|
5.89 (67)
|
DeSean Jackson
|
55.37
|
10.24 (16)
|
Michael Floyd
|
56.26
|
8.59 (29)
|
TY Hilton
|
58.65
|
12.75 (9)
|
Julian Edelman
|
64.11
|
9.33 (24)
|
What we’re seeing is that this group is much more difficult to project it would seem. Out of this group, only 3 of the 12 (25%) were starter (top 24) worthy. Michael Floyd came close at 29. So starting with the 10th WR chosen, we can see that there is really no guarantee on how a lot of those highly drafted WRs will perform. 13 of the 24 WR chosen to be starting WR on teams actually made it into the top 24. A little over half. All of these players were taken in the in the first six rounds, with everyone up to Patterson taken in the first four. So following the zero RB logic, 17 of these WR would’ve been drafted in the first four rounds, but only 9 of 17 (slightly over half) were starter worthy week in and week out.
On the flip side, out of the top 24 WR in per game scoring last year, these guys were drafted outside the first four rounds:
Player
|
2014 Average Pick
|
2014 Points per game (WR Rank)
|
Odell Beckham Jr
|
164.61
|
17.17 (1)
|
Emmanuel Sanders
|
71.33
|
12.42 (10)
|
Jeremy Maclin
|
70.87
|
12.05 (11)
|
Mike Evans
|
100.99
|
11.80 (13)
|
Martavis Bryant
|
Undrafted
|
10.41 (15)
|
Torrey Smith
|
66.56
|
10.19 (17)
|
Golden Tate
|
90.93
|
10.00 (18)
|
Brandon LaFell
|
Undrafted
|
9.90 (19)
|
Mike Wallace
|
80.64
|
9.85 (20)
|
DeAndre Hopkins
|
110.56
|
9.81 (21)
|
Kelvin Benjamin
|
104.88
|
9.67 (22)
|
That’s a pretty wide spread of draft outcomes. A few players like Sanders, Maclin and Smith were all drafted in the first six rounds, so that’s pretty close. The rest of the top 24 could be had very late in drafts or even the waiver wire.
So what does all this mean for RBs? Let’s do the same analysis for running backs that we did for wide receivers. Same rules apply as to the WR group. The 2014 top 12 RB ADP and per game performance look like this:
Player
|
2014 Average Pick
|
2014 Points per game (RB Rank)
|
LeSean McCoy
|
2.77
|
11.09 (16)
|
Jamaal Charles
|
3.55
|
14.47 (7)
|
Adrian Peterson
|
4.92
|
0 (Way down there)
|
Matt Forte
|
7.10
|
15.29 (5)
|
Eddie Lacy
|
9.00
|
14.66 (6)
|
Marshawn Lynch
|
15.33
|
16.83 (4)
|
Montee Ball
|
18.19
|
7.35 (39)
|
DeMarco Murray
|
18.9
|
19.01 (1)
|
Giovani Bernard
|
21.43
|
11.15 (15)
|
Doug Martin
|
25.96
|
6.16 (54)
|
Arian Foster
|
26.48
|
18.43 (2)
|
LeVeon Bell
|
27.63
|
17.97 (3)
|
What does this chart tell us? Out of the 12 guys drafted to be RB1, 8 of the 12 performed that way. There were four disappointments – McCoy, Peterson, Bernard and Martin. Three of those – Peterson, Ball and Martin – were complete flameouts. Overall, 8 of 12, or 67% of the guys drafted to perform as a RB1 acted that way. If that last sentence sounds familiar, it’s because I literally copied and pasted from the WR section above. WR is more predictable?
Now, let’s take a look at the guys drafted to be RB2
Player
|
2014 Average Pick
|
2014 Points per game (RB Rank)
|
Alfred Morris
|
33.81
|
10.68 (18)
|
Zac Stacy
|
34.69
|
5.59 (60)
|
Andre Ellington
|
34.83
|
11.29 (14)
|
Reggie Bush
|
39.02
|
6.09 (57)
|
CJ Spiller
|
44.47
|
5.38 (64)
|
Shane Vereen
|
51.22
|
7.11 (44)
|
Ryan Mathews
|
54.34
|
9.62 (23)
|
Toby Gerhart
|
58.16
|
4.51 (72)
|
Rashad Jennings
|
62.32
|
10.05 (21)
|
Frank Gore
|
63.61
|
9.46 (26)
|
Ray Rice
|
63.92
|
0 (Yikes)
|
Ben Tate
|
65.13
|
7.90 (34)
|
This is where the higher drafted RBs start to fall off. Of the 12 drafted to be RB2, only 4 performed that way. Frank Gore came close at #26. However, if you remember, only 3 of the WR drafted to be WR2 performed that way. Of the 24 RBs taken to be a starting caliber RB, 13 of 24 achieved this. Sound familiar? Out of the RBs taken through the first four rounds (up through Spiller), 10 of 17 were starting caliber. Remember, 9 of 17 WR chosen in the first four rounds remained starter worthy. The flip side of the zero RB theory is that you can get starting RBs after the first four rounds, no problem. As we’ve seen, this simply isn’t true. You would only be able to get half of the starting caliber RBs after round 6. A couple of the top performing RB, like CJ Anderson and Justin Forsett were likely waiver wire pickups.
Which leads me to my next point about zero RB – you’re left to fight for the most in demand position in fantasy football with the rest of the league. The point here is you still need an RB in the first two rounds or you are seriously at a disadvantage at the position. Look at guys like CJ Anderson and Tre Mason. When did they get the start? For Anderson it was week 10 and for Mason it was week 6. Even Forsett was a surprise in week 1. So now we’re saying that you’ll be fine playing the waivers with the hardest position to get on waivers for 10 weeks while you stare at 3 high draft pick WR on your bench who you can’t start because of lineup restrictions? You can’t just make a trade or pick up the next hot thing on waivers. These things don’t exist in a vacuum. There are other people in your league I’m guessing.
One more thing I want to take a look at is how many points WR and RB score per game on average. The top 12 per game scoring WR scored an average of 13.64 points per week. The next 12 per game scoring WR scored an average of 10.15 points per week. The top 12 scoring RBs scored an average of 14.96 points per week, while the next 12 scoring RBs scored 10.27. In both cases the RB number is higher than the WR number.
In conclusion, what we’ve found is that not only are RBs at least as predictable as WRs, but they also outscore WRs on average. That doesn’t go very far to support the fact that you can ignore RBs and you’ll be fine. What you need to do is get one WR and one RB in the first two rounds. After that, I would grab at least one more RB in the third and the fourth round grab the best WR or RB available. It’s important to have balance at these positions to have a well balanced team. Otherwise you’re staring at an uphill battle at one of the game’s most important positions.
Next, we’ll take a look at the zero QB part of this study. Thanks for reading!
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