NFL Draft Study: Running Backs

mikereardon

Editor’s Note: Mike Reardon is one of the newest writers here at DLF. We welcome Mike to the official writing team and look forward to seeing his work in the future.

nfl: indianapolis colts at san francisco 49ersIt may be unwise for a newly minted DLF staff writer to admit this, but I do not follow college football that closely. There just isn’t enough time in my sports life for it. Every off-season, I happily tackle the task of getting familiar with the incoming rookie class by absorbing as much information as possible via articles, podcasts, forums and Twitter. I’ve come to trust certain websites and experts over the years, but there is always room for improvement, always something new to learn or another angle to take.

It was with that thought in mind that I decided to put together a bit of a research project with the aim of identifying some useful trends around the fantasy impact that different NFL rookies have. Specifically, I was curious about what correlation existed between a player’s NFL draft position and his fantasy value. We all know that first round picks can bust and late round players can surprise, but how likely is each of those thing to happen? How much deference should be given to a player based solely fact the NFL deemed them worthy of a first round pick? How hard should we try to retain a roster spot for a fifth round wide receiver?

These are some of the questions I set out to explore, knowing full well ahead of time finding clear and complete answers was probably too much to ask. Still, after having digested the data I put together, I believe this kind of enquiry can provide some valuable historical context that would be good to keep in mind when deciding how to spend your rookie picks.

First, a brief outline of my methodology:

1)   I pulled NFL Draft information for all quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers and tight ends drafted in the years 2004-2011.
2)   I pulled redraft average draft position data (ADP) from MyFantasyLeague for the years 2004-2013.
3)   I merged those two lists to create a list of every player drafted over this time period along with their ADP from years one, two and three of his career.

Since I’m trying to determine a player’s value rather than just looking at his production, I felt ADP was the best measurement available. The problem with using production as an indicator of value is it is a one-dimensional measurement not necessarily reflective of a player’s value in dynasty leagues. After all, according to the 2013 total point figures, Julio Jones is not a very valuable asset. Based on PPG, Christine Michael shouldn’t be on a single roster.

ADP data, on the other hand, is an expression of how a pool of drafters felt about a player prior to the start of a season and thus is not distorted by injuries, playing time issues or other factors that might suppress a player’s production, but not necessarily his dynasty value.

The use of redraft data is largely for pragmatic reasons as I do not think I would be able to find large samples of dynasty ADP from a decade ago. I would have liked to have been able to use dynasty data, but as I am comparing the value of players based on the NFL Draft round they were taken in, the format of the leagues I’m taking ADP data from is not entirely relevant as long as the same measuring stick is being used for all players. That said, when I get to the section discussing specific ADP values, just keep in mind that these numbers are on a redraft “curve.”

Lastly, a three year window was chosen somewhat arbitrarily by me as I felt like this was a reasonable dividing line between when you should expect a return on your rookie pick investment. In my opinion, if a player  hasn’t returned some value to you in the first three years of his career, he was probably not a successful draft pick.

So, with that out of the way, let’s jump into the data. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to discuss the findings for running backs only. The rest of the positions will follow in a second article that will have the benefit of not requiring another long, explanatory preamble.

First, a quick look at the data set I had to work with:

Running Backs Drafted By Round (2004-2011)

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This table shows the breakdown of how many running backs were drafted in each round over this period. The third column, “Draft Years,” is simply the number of running backs multiplied by three. This is because each of the first three years of each player’s career was treated as an entirely separate ADP data point.

So just as an example, there were 24 running backs drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft between 2004 and 2011. Taking the first three years of each of those players’ careers, that means there are going to be 72 different opportunities for these players to register an ADP value, all of which will be used to put together a profile of the value of first round running backs as a whole.

The first question I wanted to know the answer to was how often running backs from each NFL Draft round were drafted in fantasy leagues in general. The table below shows the frequency with which running backs from each round registered an ADP in the top 240 in at least 5% of the sampled MFL leagues:

chart2

The data behaves how you would expect it to, with a steady decline as you get into later NFL Draft rounds. I certainly expected first round running backs to be drafted the most, but I was a little surprised they were taken 100% of the time. Again, this means that every running back selected in the first round of the NFL Draft was taken in fantasy drafts in each of his first three years in the league.  Given the number of busts that occur across all positions in the NFL, I found this a little surprising. Remember, we’re talking overall drafts, not just rookie versions.

Overall, this information is not particularly useful on its own, but it provides some valuable context to the next part of the discussion dealing with actual ADP values.

The table below shows the average ADP for running backs drafted in each NFL Draft round. Remember, a player’s ADP from each of the first three years of his career are treated as its own separate data point and thrown in together with all of the other data points.

chart3

There are a few interesting takeaways from this data, in my opinion:

First round running backs are a good bet

The gap between running backs drafted in the first and second round leaps off the page. Certainly I expected that there would be a difference, but it is larger than I would have anticipated. There was a 53 draft slot difference between these two groups, which works out to just about four and a half rounds in a 12 team fantasy draft.

Drilling down a little into the numbers, out of the aforementioned 72 opportunities the first round running backs had to register an ADP in this study, only 11 times (15%) did these players drop out of the top 100 in fantasy drafts. Only one of the 24 running backs, Chris Perry, finished out of the top 100 more than once (he actually did all three years).

Overall, the data suggests that, Trent Richardson notwithstanding, when an NFL team takes a running back in the first round, they’re on to something. That player doesn’t always go on to have a great career of course, but if nothing else, you will have a decent window in which that player has value in your dynasty league.

This is a good time to throw in a reminder we are dealing with redraft ADP. While an ADP of 61 (just outside the fifth round of a 12 team league) may not seem impressive, when you think about the fact that we’re talking about young running backs, it’s reasonable to assume that they would be second or third round picks in a dynasty setting, on average. On a whole, that’s a strong display of value that clearly correlates with a player’s NFL Draft position.

“Long shot” territory begins after the third round

The only gap larger than the one between first and second round is the one between third and fourth round. The difference between these two groups (58 draft slots) works out to just under six full rounds. It’s also notable that the ADP of running backs drafted between rounds four through seven are almost the same, suggesting that fourth round running backs don’t fare much better than seventh round ones.

Interestingly, while the ADP of the fourth and seventh round running backs is almost identical, the frequency with which they are drafted (refer back to the first table) is not. Fourth round running backs are drafted 51% of the time, while seventh round running backs are drafted just 12% of the time – this means that although the average value of running backs drafted in this range are pretty similar, we still draft the fourth round ones a lot more frequently. This data suggests that  perhaps we shouldn’t.

One important trend to note is that it is very obvious that late round running backs give you a dismal return for your investment. During this time period, a total of 104 running backs were drafted in this range, providing 312 opportunities for those running backs to be taken in fantasy drafts. Only three times (0.96%) was one of these players drafted in the top 100: Brandon Jacobs and Marion Barber in 2007, and Justin Forsett in 2010.

To put it another way, 97.2% of the running backs drafted in this range failed to register as a top 100 pick even once over the first three years of their career (if there career even lasted three years, which it probably did not in most cases).

Keep that in mind the next time someone offers you a late round rookie, saying you could be getting “the next Zac Stacy.” It would be more accurate for him to say you’re getting “a 2.8% chance of having the next Marion Barber.”

Running backs drafted in the second and third rounds performed similarly, ADP-wise 

Finally, the last, and perhaps most surprising trend in this data is that third round running backs have almost exactly the same average ADP as second round running backs. When you look over the names of the players taken in each of these rounds, it’s easy to see why. The third round group includes a number of home run picks, like Jamaal Charles, Stevan Ridley, DeMarco Murray and Frank Gore. Each of these players had ADP’s of the thirteenth round or later in their first year, but that quickly changed as their careers progressed. On the other hand, the list of second round running backs is weighed down by names like Tatum Bell, LenDale White, J.J. Arrington, Ryan Williams and Mikel LeShoure.

The question is what, if any, conclusion can be drawn by this seemingly counterintuitive trend?

The most likely explanation, I think, is once you get past running backs that are of high enough quality to warrant a first round pick by an NFL team, the next “tier” of running backs are more or less a crapshoot. Whatever perceived difference in quality that may exist between a running back drafted in the second and one drafted in the third is not significant enough to overcome variance caused by injuries, poor (fantasy) situations, and NFL teams simply getting it wrong.

While it would be foolish to downgrade players for being drafted in the second round instead of the third, perhaps the conclusion to be taken here from this trend is you should not heavily penalize players for being drafted in the third instead of the second. Based on this data, they have reasonably similar expected outcomes.

Closing Thoughts

For me, the information here will help me put some value-setting context around my rookie draft picks and assist me when choosing an actual player. I hope it will do the same for you. I have gathered this data for all of the offensive, fantasy-relevant positions and will move on to wide receivers next. Hopefully, as I finish up the other positions, the overall picture will continue to provide some useful information. Comparing the value of a first round running back to a second round running back interesting, I think, but it’ll be even more so when I can compare a second round running back to a  third round tight end, or a second round quarterback, etc.

Over the next couple of months, a lot of draftniks are going to talk about their late-round sleepers. Just keep in mind that historically, it appears that hitting on a late round running back is extremely rare. Allocate your picks and roster spot resources appropriately.

Also, as this is my first submission as a DLF staff writer, I’d just like to take the opportunity to thank the DLF team for the opportunity, and the warm welcome. Providing me a platform to get thoughts like this out is very rewarding, and probably will save my marriage over the long-term (just kidding). I’d also like to thank Microsoft Excel, for making things like this possible (not kidding). If you have any thoughts, ideas, or criticisms, feel free to get at me on Twitter (@mjreardon62) or just comment on the article here.