Dynasty Stock Market: Running Back Seasonal Streaming

Ryan McDowell

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This summer, I began a series called Dynasty Blueprint, in which I detailed some of my general strategies for dynasty startup drafts and team building. The first two editions of that series were Punting Running Backs and Productive Struggle. If you haven’t read those already, you might want to start there before continuing with this article. Also, if you weren’t necessarily on board with those tactics, you’ll probably hate this latest development, but please continue reading and share your thoughts below.

The idea of punting running backs in a startup draft obviously leaves your cupboard bare when it comes to the ball carriers, but that doesn’t mean your only option is to move to Productive Struggle mode. Instead, you could opt for what I call Seasonal Streaming.

Streaming a position has become a popular weekly in-season strategy, especially in yearly leagues, when managing the “onesie” positions, such as quarterback, tight end and team defense. The idea, in case you’re not familiar with it, is to focus more on weekly matchups for those positions rather than acquiring a player who will serve as your weekly starter. This means swapping out players at those positions each week using your waiver wire. Clearly, players like Andrew Luck, Jimmy Graham or even the top team defenses would not be part of this streaming format as they’ll never hit the waiver wire. Instead, you’ll be choosing from some of the leftovers that inhabit the waiver wire. The good news is that each week, it’s relatively easy to find a player with a good matchup who can fill in as your starter. The even better news is that sometimes, those “streamers” become better options than many of the players who were drafted. Giants’ tight end Larry Donnell is a good example of that so far this season.

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Streaming in a dynasty league is not quite as easy though, mostly due to larger rosters paring down the waiver wire and active, high-level owners rostering players like Donnell before they break out. Instead, what I propose, specifically for the running back position, is Seasonal Streaming. I’ve discussed my general disdain and lack of trust for nearly every running back and it seems that I’m not alone. Not only are dynasty startups filled with early round wide receivers, but even NFL coaches and general managers have devalued the position, being willing to stick with an older, established back or opting for a committee approach to get through a season.

So, rather than investing a high startup draft pick or paying the ransom required for a highly ranked running back, I’m now willing to form my own running back by committee, like so many NFL teams are now doing. I will say, this strategy could work very well in leagues that require just one starting running back, which is becoming a popular format. If your league uses two or more starters, this may not be the plan for you.

Each off-season, it is important to analyze your team’s needs and make a plan to improve in that area. The position of need for me, in almost every case, is running back. Of course, this goes back to my affection for the wide receiver position, combined with the need for only one starting level quarterback and tight end. So, when each season ends and I begin planning for the upcoming season, my search for running backs begins. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I eliminate all top 12 backs, based on their expected cost in a trade or draft pick. Also, any young starter is also likely too expensive for my plan. Instead, I begin my shopping list with older starting running backs. These are usually players who’ve had great success in the past, but their value has dropped due to age. Recent examples of this category could include Frank Gore or even Arian Foster.

The next group of players I look for are high upside backup running backs. Sometimes, these players might be just as expensive as their starters, like Christine Michael. Others though, have a very reasonable price tag and can pay off in a major way should they get a chance to play due to injury or ineffectiveness. We’ve seen Knile Davis have some success early this season and he fits this bill. The list of backs to acquire would differ each year based on depth charts and recent performances, but these are the two main categories where I gather targets

Rarely will you find a starting caliber running back on the dynasty waiver wire, but it does still happen. If you are choosing this plan, there are three prime windows you have to acquire your running back targets. Like I mentioned, the first is the off-season. We’ve all seen veterans from every position lose value during the off-season and this is the time to pounce and buy low on a running back who could serve as your starter.

The second time to cheaply acquire a potential running back starter is early in the regular season and this time, you’ll be scouring the waiver wire. Just one month into the 2014 season and we already have some prime examples of top performers that were recently available for free, like Matt Asiata, Ahmad Bradshaw and Justin Forsett. Many of the players you take a chance on during this time will not offer a favorable return, so you must be active in your league to stay on top of the waiver wire and take as many shots as you can, hoping even one will pay off and reward you with a streaming starter.

Finally, the third opportunity to acquire a starter is at the trade deadline. For most leagues, this occurs somewhere between weeks 10 and 12. Once teams have decided they are not contending, they become willing to sell off their older starters for youth or picks. While I’m still not willing to sell the farm and give up my cornerstone wide receivers or top draft picks, with desperation on each side, a fair deal can often be hammered out. In fact, in many cases it doesn’t take until week 10 to decide which teams are buyers and sellers. That is decided much earlier, around this time, depending on the teams’ records. While you might get a better deal later in the season, acquiring an extra running back now could provide your team with an extra win or two.

Now that the “how” is fairly clear, let’s address the “why” of the Season Stream. As I mentioned earlier, running backs have been devalued in both the NFL and fantasy leagues. The lifespan of a running back, outside of the very elite top tier, has decreased, making it tougher to spend a high pick on one. Startup dynasty drafts just two or three years ago included players like Maurice Jones-Drew, Chris Johnson and Ryan Mathews as first round picks. Just a couple of years later, those are looking like very bad picks, while other owners in the first round opted for Calvin Johnson or Jimmy Graham. The longevity, or lack thereof, at the running back position is one of the major factors that has led to my Seasonal Streaming method.

Since we’re one-quarter through the regular season and likely one-third into the fantasy regular season, let’s look at this year’s top running backs to see how streaming might work. I’ve looked at the top 12 running backs using PPR scoring with at least three games played. Here are the current RB1s:

rbchart

As I’ve already mentioned, Bradshaw and Asiata were waiver wire targets who have no turned into weekly starters. Based on my Punting Running Backs article, DeMarco Murray, Le’Veon Bell, Marshawn Lynch, Giovani Bernard, Arian Foster and Matt Forte would not be options based on their costly August ADP. That still leaves Rashad Jennings, Lamar Miller, Knile Davis and Darren Sproles who could have been easily acquired during a startup draft or via trade. Even among the list of players with a higher ADP, both Lynch and Foster were affordable, as owners factored in their age into the overall cost and value.

You might think four weeks is simply too small of a sample size, and that is true, but there were similar results in 2013 with a full season’s worth of data. Knowshon Moreno, Fred Jackson and Danny Woodhead were all drafted outside of the top ten round in ADP mocks held in August of 2013, yet all finished as RB1s in PPR leagues.

Other than the deteriorating period of a running back’s relevance, another factor that leads me to Seasonal Streaming is the inconsistent year-to-year production from specific players. There are many reasons for this, such as injury and depth chart changes, but it is more prevalent at the running back position than others. Again, I compared the end of season 2013 fantasy scoring data to the first month of the 2014 season. Eight of the top 12 quarterbacks from 2013 are again scoring in the top 12 this season. The tight end position is the next most reliable with half of the top 12 repeating that performance. At wide receiver and running back, you can expect more variety simply due to the number of players at those positions. Both running back and wide receiver currently feature only three players in the top 12 that finished 2013 in the same range. In this instance, I’ll give wide receivers a pass for a couple of reasons. First, wide receivers generally have longer careers and deal with fewer serious injuries than their counterparts at the running back position. When the number of starting fantasy wide receivers is factored in, an even larger gap is evident between the values of the two positions.

While this has been part of my overall team building plan for the past few years, this season’s overall struggles at running back has me thinking I need to take this to even more of an extreme. We’ve lost Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice to off-field concerns, injuries have already plagued Jamaal Charles and Doug Martin, and some backs are simply not playing well, including LeSean McCoy, Eddie Lacy and of course, Trent Richardson. My new thinking is with the relative ease of acquiring starting level backs through trades and sometimes even on the waiver wire, the opportunity cost of owning a highly ranked and highly coveted back is simply too great. I’d rather take my shares of McCoy, Lacy, Bernard and Charles, exchange those for high level wide receivers and then fill in the holes at running backs with veterans and high upside backups.

This is a change from my original thinking of punting running backs in the startup draft, but then using rookie picks to acquire backs and fill in those holes. In fact, that is how I have some of those top running backs in the first place, since I didn’t get them from the startup drafts in my leagues. While I still may draft a running back in the rookie draft, the change will come when I look to cash in on that new found value in hopes of improving my team at another spot that can offer more longevity, consistency and less injury risk.

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ryan mcdowell