The mid rounds are considered rounds 6-10, or picks #72-#120. The absolutes are gone and it's time take some calculated risks.
How History Can Help Us
Every year, there is an early run on all the fantasy-viable running backs, and for good reason: you can start 2-3 of them, the genuine RB1s get all the goal line chances, and the really really good ones put up WR1 numbers in addition to stellar rushing stats. It’s like having two players filling one roster slot. But after the top 24 or so, there is a definite fall-off and you tend to see wide receivers, tight ends, and quarterbacks being drafted because no one is really sure what to make of the next tier of RBs. Generally these guys come from a variety of situations that makes them fantasy risks, including crowded backfields, injury history, age (both old and young), and uncertainty about the overall potential of the offenses they play on. Which are, generally speaking, bad teams.
There are some websites that have compiled fantasy data for decades, but the meat of the info comes from 2011-2020, a ten year sample. I won’t get into the details of the hours I spent combing through the data, but here is basically what I found:
In rounds 6-10, the RBs drafted since 2011 fall into four main criterias that caused them to fall: split backfields, i.e. more than one RB is being drafted within two rounds of each other in the middle rounds; youth, as in rookies or second year players that play on traditionally pass-heavy teams; RB1s on poor offenses that didn’t produce at the position the year before; and gadget players, non-traditional RBs who are not the RB1 on their team but have a skill set that gives them fantasy value without necessarily carrying the ball. Current examples of these situations respectively are Miles Sanders, Travis Ettienne, and David Johnson. Let’s start with Sanders and the Split Backfield numbers.
The Philadelphia Eagles have a lot of question marks in 2021, the biggest being whether or not Jalen Hurts is the answer at QB, but right up there is what will happen in the RB room. Currently, Sanders is being drafted in fantasy as the RB1, but the presence of rookie Kenneth Gainwell and also Boston Scott and Jordan Howard raises questions as to what the plan is. The numbers show us, however, that taking the perceived RB1 in a crowded backfield yields a breakout performance from that guy at a much higher rate than the RB2 (Gainwell) in the situation. You can also apply this to Chase Edmonds and James Conner in Arizona: the numbers tell us Edmonds will have a better year than Conner, so if you are debating between which one to take, the fantasy gods think Edmonds will have the larger role and the fantasy gods tend to be right on ADP as it pertains to breakout probability. This is the case because fantasy managers are actually pretty smart when it comes to listening to what the teams tell us, and there is generally a reason one RB is trending higher than the others, and that reason tends to pan out more often than not. Basically if you are drafting Gainwell expecting him to break out and usurp Sanders, the odds of that happening are, historically, low. Training camp battles also have a lot to do with this, because right now we aren’t sure what some of these backfields will look like, but clarity generally forms a little as the preseason draws to an end. When it doesn’t, and 2 RBs are still being drafted close together from the same team, this information has even more weight.
Youth is the second category. My example here is rookie RB Travis Ettienne. First round RBs generally don’t fall to the mid-rounds, unless: they play for a bad team, or the team already has a pretty productive RB. Ettienne coincidentally finds himself with both these issues. James Robinson was a beast last year, which clouds the waters as to why exactly Jacksonville spent a first round pick on Ettienne. Well, probably because Urban Meyer has no plans to use Robinson the way he was utilized last year, and fantasy owners have realized that early on by having Ettienne going at RB24 and Robinson at RB29. We can extrapolate some converging data that is very interesting here: when two RBs from an crowded backfield are drafted close together (see above) the perceived RB1 (Ettienne) generally outperforms the RB2, and also that when you have an NFL-drafted first round RB being fantasy drafted as the RB1 on his team, he tends to hit at a pretty high rate because that team didn’t spend all that capital to not use the guy. In the Jacksonville situation, add in the fact that Ettienne‘s college QB Trevor Lawrence, taken with the Jags first overall pick, probably had a lot to do with him being selected over a much needed offensive lineman there and Ettienne has more upside than most young RBs in ambiguous situations.
The “RB on an uncertain offense” situation applies mainly to David Johnson. His draft stock has fallen off to pretty much barely being trusted as a flex option, currently being taken in the 8th round. This is kind of crazy for an RB1, though he does a backfield crowded with Philip Lindsay and Rex Burkhead, who will certainly take some carries away. The main reason he has faded soooo far though is the abysmal situation at QB and defense and pretty much everything in Houston, plus a few less-than-stellar fantasy years suggesting maybe he never fully healed from that initial season-ending injury. While the situation looks pretty grim for Johnson, if we look at the expected point production from an 8th round RB…they usually don’t “hit” at a very high rate, many meet their quite low expectations, but few actually exceed them by enough to be considered a “hit”. Surprisingly, since 2011, veteran RBs who are the RB1 on their team (or drafted as such based on ADP) have been breakout players (scoring 100 or more points than their projections) at a 40% rate. Compared to 14% for rookie RBs taken in the same rounds. It’s a slightly skewed stat because they weren’t projected to do well in the first place, so we aren’t saying that these veteran RBs ended up being top 12 RBs. They just outperformed expectations at a higher rate than non-RB1s, or rookie RB1s. Basically, if you are looking at an 8th round RB, it’s not a bad idea to roll the dice on David Johnson merely because he is being projected soooo low, his chance to outperform that is pretty good.
The “Gadget” guy situation applied really well to the Rams and Cam Akers/Darrell Henderson, but nevermind on that one. It also applies to Las Vegas, with Josh Jacobs and Kenyan Drake. Drake’s draft stock is rising quickly, but Jacobs is the workhorse there, and we have no reason to assume he won’t be used in the same way they always have. That means Drake will be the “gadget“ guy, which isn’t to say he doesn’t have value, but to expect him to outscore Jacobs on the season is, again, historically improbable. Drake had a huge number of touches in Arizona last season, but don't expect that to continue in Las Vegas. If Drake is suddenly the plan to carry the load for the Raiders, expect Josh Jacobs to be Los Angeles Ram sooner rather than later. As the season stands currently, the data shows us you are better drafting David Johnson than Kenyan Drake in the 8th round. Drake will probably be drafted ahead of Johnson though, because what’s the fun in drafting anyone from Houston in 2021?
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