Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: Is RB Deadzone Real?

In today's day and age of fantasy football, we too often get caught up speaking in generalities or buzz words, like "Zero RB," "Hero RB," "ceiling plays," etc. It's understandable, but I wanted to bring a bit more nuisance to some of the fantasy football draft strategies and conversations I read on the daily.

The first I wanted to examine in this Mythbusters series was the concept that a "mid-round" running back is basically a dead zone and should be avoided. But is this the best fantasy football draft strategy?

I outlined the data from the last five years in a digestible table below, showing mid-round RBs' preseason rank and where they finished the season among the position. Positional finish is based off PPR formats and age is based when they began the season.

Man, hindsight sure feels 20/20 looking at some of these results.

The first initial takeaway I had from the data was how drastically different the ADP start to finish was the last two years compared to what occurred in 2020-2022, but the closer I looked it wasn't that shocking. 

Of the 21 RBs drafted within rounds 4-6 the last two years, 52 percent finished with a similar or better final ADP market than where they were drafted in August. Compare that to 2020-2022, 54 percent of the 31 backs hit that mark. The larger sample might matter in this context, but aside from injury there was really only a handful the ADP seemingly got wrong over the five-year stretch. Those handful of situations I do think are applicable to this year, but there wasn't some collective universally decided rationale for the failure.

In 2020, Devin Singletary was coming off an impressive rookie season where he averaged 5.1 yards per carry on 151 carries, but the transformation of third-year quarterback Josh Allen into the perennial Pro Bowler we see today, coupled with a capable platoon partner in Zack Moss, punished Singletary's potential for a breakout. 

Mike Davis was positioned as the starter in Atlanta entering the 2021 season, but it wasn't like he was particularly productive earlier in his career (642 yards over 12 games as a starter for the Panthers the year prior) and the Falcons' run offense predictably ended up as one of the worst in the league with Cordarrelle Patterson eventually taking the starting role away. 

Kareem Hunt had always been the lesser side of a Cleveland platoon with a more-skilled Nick Chubb, and any semblance of a passing attack in 2022 that could have propped up Hunt's PPR value was quickly zapped by the combo of Jacoby Brissett and post-suspension Deshaun Watson.

Miles Sanders was a catastrophic free-agent signing almost immediately in 2023, and a moribund Bryce Young-led offense never had an opportunity to get its wheels up.

 Alexander Mattison might be the only example of "volume doesn't matter" as the 25-year-old ended up starting and taking the majority of the team's carries in 2023, but the Vikings finished fourth lowest in rushing yards. Point blank, Mattison just wasn't a good back. So naturally he signed with the Raiders the year after and proved it once again. 

Bad Backs in Bad Spots

If you were going to try to stretch a reason as to why the above five failed, I think you could boil it down to heavily split backfields in overall bad offenses, or at minimum one of the two. Looking at the RBs available in the fourth through sixth round this year, which you can find easily digestible across multiple sites on RotoWire's ADP page, a few candidates are worth mentioning.

Alvin Kamara immediately qualifies in at least one facet given most presume New Orleans will have a bad passing offense this year. It's also possible Devin Neal, Cam Akers or Kendre Miller earn a more complementary roll alongside the 29-year-old. That same thought process could apply in New York. New head coach Aaron Glenn went on record earlier this offseason saying the Jets have "three running backs they want to utilize as much as possible," which sounds like comical coach speak, but at this point needs to be at least considered at somewhat face value. 

The second-half Bryce Young revolution did technically come at the expense of Chuba Hubbard last year, who only had 377 rushing yards in his final five games after averaging 92.5 rushing yards Week 3-10. Aaron Jones isn't in a bad offense, but he did split significant time with a severely diminished Cam Akers last season and the Vikings then traded for Jordan Mason, promptly giving him a healthy two-year, $12 million extension this offseason.

The only one that truly seems similar to the above examples is Jones. I'm not entirely sure what to make of Mason as a player, but it's clear the Vikings wanted at minimum a better situational backup to partner with their aging veteran, and the ex-Niner is comfortably an improvement over Akers in terms of amassing between-the-tackle carries without sacrificing overall consistency. Add Jones' age and the declined situational use last season, and I think the data would most suggest a potential mine in Minnesota.

Younger Backs Break Out

If there's one thing the ADP doesn't price accordingly, it seems to be younger backs, almost exclusively in their first or second year. Second-year David Montgomery is the first on this list, but both Breece Hall and Rachaad White in 2023, coupled with rookie-year Jahmyr Gibbs, all far out exceeded their expected production.

It's probably a "no duh" moment because there's simply not enough data to presume what the best-case scenario would be for the younger backs, but it's notable that all of the listed players above were major factors in the passing game as well. Obviously PPR scoring helps create that scenario, but if we're to take anything from the aforementioned historical data, TreVeyon Henderson and RJ Harvey immediately jump out as players who stand to benefit as pass catchers  this year.

The only snag in that logic is that Montgomery, Hall and White didn't face close to the same type of competition that Henderson (sharing a backfield with Rhamondre Stevenson and Antonio Gibson) and RJ Harvey (splitting time with J.K. Dobbins) will see in 2025.

The perfect answer is probably Omarion Hampton, especially after Najee Harris suffered whatever you'd consider is a "superficial eye injury" from a July 4 fireworks incident, but the No. 22 overall pick in this  year's draft also barely meets this threshold as a fourth-round selection at the time of this writing and almost certainly will elevate above that level as training camp commences.

There was also two weird instances of a fourth-year running back breaking out in a massive way as both Tony Pollard and Josh Jacobs went nuclear in 2022. Ironically, despite the negative mention of Breece Hall earlier, I think there's some reason to believe the fourth-year back would slot into this sort of category given I believe Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis are just JAGs, but it's not up to my belief. It's, of course, up to the coaching staff, and given one of Aaron Glenn's first statements was to suggest a three-headed backfield isn't exactly a good omen. 

Kenneth Walker will also be a fourth-year running back entering this year, but his injury history is way more concerning that the 2022 case examples mentioned.

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