653: Breakout Running Backs

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Speaker 1: This is the labor of podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J zacher reson. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyesen and this is episode six hundred and fifty three of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. So I want to be completely open and transparent to start off today's show. One of the things that's been most difficult with the launch of the Late Round Draft Guide is not giving too much of it away on this podcast. If people are gonna spend their hard earned money on that guide, I want their experience while reading that guide to be unique. If you can get all that information on a free podcast, why bother. There's a lot of stuff in that guy that you won't get on this podcast. I've scheduled things out for the rest of the off season, and it is impossible for me to put everything from that guide into these podcasts by the end of August. But I talk about things like positional value in the guide, and I give data that I've just never talked on this show before. And even if some of the things in there are things that you've heard me talk about on the podcast, it's kind of nice to have everything in one place. That's at least what some of the feedback on the guide has said. Now, this is all a long winded way to say that there's going to be some overlap. Some of the things that I talk about on this show are in that guide, but not all of it, not even close. But over the next three weeks, I'll be diving into something that was talked about quite a bit in the guide, and that spotting breakout players. I've found some things that running back, wide, receiver, and tight end that can help us spot potential breakouts in the middle and late rounds of our drafts. I share those things in the guide, and I share those things on this podcast each and every year. There's one difference this year, though. This year I started splitting up that analysis by middle round breakouts and late round breakouts because the types of things that you look for within those subsets is a little bit different. That's all broken down in the guide. But because of that balance that I was just talking about, rather than talk through every subset at each position, over the next three weeks, we're gonna focus strictly on middle round breakouts. So today we'll talk about spotting middle round running back breakouts. Next week it's Wide Receiver and then we'll finish things off with tight ends. Maybe some of you think that it's unfair that I'm withholding some information on this podcast that I'm not talking about late round breakouts, and I get it. People want free things, you want free content. Not everyone can afford spending twenty five dollars in a draft guide. I totally understand that, but I need to figure out a fair balance here. I need to make a living and I want to ensure that people who are buying the guide are getting something unique. And let me be clear here, it's not like you're gonna walk away from this episode without any information. It's just that there's more to dig into that I didn't talk about on this show. That's all. So thank you for understanding, and remember that if you want to purchase the Late Round Draft Guide, you can do it over on lateround dot com. The support for me and that guide has been amazing so far. I'm really really grateful for it. Now, before looking at how to spot these middle round breakout running backs, I wanted to give a shout to the Establish the Run podcast. The podcast is free and it's toasted by two legends in the fantasy space, Adam Levitan and Evan Silva. You probably remember them for their time at Rotal World. Establish the Run episodes are quick, fun and packed with analysis. They cover fantasy news and reactions, rankings, how to bet, player props, best ball, and more. I think it's a great compliment to this podcast because it's more conversational in nature and they cover topics that I might not cover. I'm a longtime listener, I can vouch that they know what they're talking about. So check out the Established the Run podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts. Also, don't forget to sign up for Fandle Fantasy. For users who you have had to make a deposit on Fandle Fantasy, you can deposit today to receive two free entries. All I have to do is deposit a minimum of ten dollars into your fandal dfs account and you'll be instantly rewarded with two free vouchers. Be sure to deposit now and play for free. Head over to fandle dot com or download the Fandle Fantasy app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go tofandle dot com or download the Fandle app for more details. Okay, So when I looked at the studying breakout running backs, I looked at middle and late round players only because early round players aren't necessarily breaking out. They can really exceed expectation, sure, but I had to draw the line somewhere. So with these breakout studies, I looked at all players drafted after round five or pick sixty in a twelve team PPR league. Since we're focusing on middle round breakouts, I considered middle rounders as players drafted between round six and round nine, so after pick sixty, but before pick one hundred and nine. I actually talked through a lot of this last month when I did that episode on ambiguous backfields, and honestly, if you haven't listened to that episode, it's episode six hundred and forty one, I would do that before listening to the rest of this episode. I think it provides a nice baseline, and some of the things that I'll be talking about today are things that I talked about on that show. But how do we define what a breakout running back is? Is it a player who finishes as an RB one and RB two. How I define breakout is going to be different than how you might or another analyst might. But how I define it is through expectation. I plotted every running back since twenty eleven who had an average draft position, and I plotted their ADP on the X access with how many points they ended up scoring per game on the Y axis, and I focused only on players who had eight or more games played in order to get a reasonable sample for points per game. And shout out to Myfantasy league dot com. That's where this ADP data is coming from. So on the X access, you've got ADP. On the Y access, you've got points per game. When you draw a trend line connecting these running back data points, you then get a line showing expectation, or how many points per game we'd expect a running back to score at a particular ADP. The way I'm defining breakouts then, is by seeing which running backs exceeded ADP expectation most. So let me throw some numbers at you. Since twenty eleven, we've had one hundred and twenty eight middle round running backs selections who played a minimum of eight games in a season, so one hundred and twenty eight backs picked between rounds six through nine. Of those, one hundred and twenty eight thirty one of them exceeded that ADP expectation by three or more PPR points per game. That's a rate of twenty four percent. And then eight point six percent of that sample exceeded ADP expectation by six or more points. Now, in the Late Round Draft Guide and throughout the rest of this podcast, I'll be referring to those running backs as moderate breakouts and true breakouts. So moderate breakouts exceeded ADP expectation by three or more points per game. True breakouts it's six or more PPR points per game. My goal then is to look at this sample compared to the sample that didn't break out and see if there was anything unique about the players who did breakout. And there are three main buckets you can look at when you're looking for these breakouts. The first is everything that I talked about on episode six hundred and forty one, but it's all about ambiguous backfield. We should aim for middle round running backs or in these backfields that just seem totally up in the air before a season starts. Among our moderate breakouts, the average ADP of the top running back from those players' backfields has been sixty eight point two, meaning there aren't stud running backs on the teams. Of these players very often, the RB one is being drafted on average at pick sixty eight, And if you listen to that episode last month, you know a lot of this data already. Since twenty eleven, we haven't seen a single middle round running back breakout who had a teammate drafted in either round one or round two. Those types of players aren't available very often, but they do exist. We're seeing it potentially this year with both AJ Dillon and Kareem Hunt. It doesn't mean that those players are bad or they can't exceed expectation. It's that historically they have not been league winners. And it's likely because if there's a running back in that backfield as being drafted early, that running back is probably a really good back. So the only way a middle round teamate is gonna end up hitting at a substantial rate. The only way that happens across an entire season is probably through an injury, and that hasn't happened much. That's the thing that's important to remember. With today's show and really all of the shows over the next couple of weeks. I'm looking at points per game, but points per game still spans the entire season. If Aaron Jones gets hurt for three weeks and AJ Dillon is a bellcow for those three games, he could be an RB one for three weeks. He could in those three games really exceed ADP expectation. But once Jones is back, things could fall back to earth. This is why I don't think all of this is applicable to a best ball tournament style format. I have to be honest about that. A player like AJ Dillon can still be a fine enough pick even with a healthy Aaron Jones. He just won't exceed expectation more than likely based on history, by a whole lot of points. But if Jones gets hurt during the peak tournament weeks, then AJ Dillon could really boost you into the money. It's just that across the entire season, you're unlikely to see a player who's a league winner from these backfields. That's really how fantasy football works, though, right the playoffs are so important and everything weighs heavily during those weeks. We want to be set up well throughout the season, which is why I do these types of studies and why they're important. But we also have to recognize the weekly angle to this game and be open minded about it. So I'm not saying avoid Kareem Hunt and AJ Dillon necessarily. I'm just simply noting and sharing that players and positions like this have not been huge hits historically. That's all. There are a couple of other ADP related things that can help us spot middle round breakouts. One is that team RB ones tend to hit better than Team RB twos. That sort of plays into what I just talked about, but our sample had seventy five team RB ones and fifty three team RB twos. And to be totally clear here, because this is something that people can't always wrap their head around, I'm not referring to what the team's depth chart says or how I feel about the player personally. I'm saying that at team RB one is a running back who's being drafted earlier than his teammate by ADP. SO for example, with the ADP source that I use over on my fantasy league, I look at August PPR re drafts. Last year, Leonard Fournette was the RB one in the Bucks backfield by ADP. Ronald Jones was the RB two. SO four Nette gets categorized as an RB one and Jones is an RB two. Historically, those RB ones have hit better than the RB twos. Like I just said, twenty nine percent of the RB ones were moderate breakouts. Seventeen percent of the RB twos were moderate breakouts. But what's interesting is what happens when you take that one step further. What type of team RB twos are hitting versus not hitting? Well, we know that team RB twos with stud teammates they're not that great across an entire season, But when those RB twos have teammates in the running back dead zone, they're awesome. The running back dead zone is a thing, in my opinion, because fantasy managers force inferior running backs up draft boards because of the lack of supple lie at the position. So running backs in the dead zone are not necessarily elite talents. If they have middle round teammates, that's kind of telling. It tells us that those teammates are good enough to still be middle round picks despite the fact that they have a teammate that's being drafted in the first five rounds, and that means that perhaps that RB two is able to make noise himself in that backfield. Not only have RB twos with those types of RB one teammates hit well over the last decade, but they've been some of the best bets for ceiling. Their true breakout rates are the highest among any subset, so while middle round rb ones have better moderate hit rates in general, these backup running backs with teammates in the dead zone seem to be league winners more often, and I dug into this in the guide, but the reason's pretty simple. These RB twos have upside if an injury occurs to their teammate, but even if an injury doesn't happen, they can still exceed expectation because of what I just talked about, because their teammate is not that talented, he's not a stud, but if an injury does occur, they can take on more of a role in their offense. This is one of the reasons I like Tony Pollard this year. I haven't been on Pollard over the last few seasons, and he's a good example of a running back who's had a teammate drafted early but he's never been able to really break out. But now Zeke is getting drafted in the dead zone, which means the market might be viewing Zeke as not this supremely talented running back. And we're already seeing reports about the Cowboys using Pollard more this year, so Pollard can exceed expectation even without a Zeke injury, but we know the upside could be unlocked if there is a Zeke injury. That's why these RB twos with dead zone teammates can be so effective. And then the last subset that I want to talk about is the RB twos who have RB one teammates going in the middle rounds. I dubbed this as the ambiguous RB one theory last year, which I fully regret, and I talked about episode six and forty one. But the RB twos in those backfields have very very low hit rates, meaning we may be better at picking out team RB ones than we think. But do take that with a grain of salt. ADP can fluctuate depending on your source, and ADP also changes while you're drafting. Last year, Leonard Fourette and Ronald Jones, they flip flopped a lot in late July and early August before Fournette finally took over as the RB one by ADP. So it's not always easy to spot this, which is one of the reasons why I regret going so hard with the idea last year. Sometimes that happens as an analyst, sometimes you realize that how you communicate an idea just wasn't the best. That was the case with this. But overall, with these middle round backs, you want team RB ones like a Damien Harris fits that mold this year. But if you don't get a team RB one, you should look for Team RB twos who have teammates in the dead zone, like Tony Pollard. Now, so far this offseason, I've stopped there. I've let that mayor a little bit. But there's more to spotting breakout running backs. For instance, I just mentioned Damien Harris as a team RB one. You were probably listening to that and saying, oh, I got to draft Damien Harris now because he has that going for him. But should you be drafting him simply because of that? Absolutely not. The second bucket that you should be focused on with these middle round breakout running backs is pass catching ability. You know that targets are more valuable than attempts at running back, but the market every year still undervalues them. I said it last year. I'll say it again, players like Damian Harris just will never do it for me. He was a moderate breakout last year. I missed on that. I was wrong. I talked about that on The Things That I Missed episode back in January. But almost everything went Harris's way last year, and he still exceeded ADP expectation by fewer than four pper points per game. He wasn't even a true breakout last year, despite scoring fifteen freaking touchdowns, and that's because he's not a pass catcher. Among our sample of non breakouts from the middle rounds, those players average a five point six percent target share. When you look at moderate breakouts, the target chair rises to nine point six percent, and among true breakouts the average target share for those players eleven point two percent. I also drove this point home by looking at attempts per target. Attempts per target is simply rush attempts divided by total number of targets, So the lower the number, the higher proportion of touches that are coming through the air. Among non breakouts from the middle rounds, the attempts per target rate has been seven point four since twenty eleven. It's four point seven for moderate breakouts and three point five for true breakouts. And in that breakout group it includes Derrick Henry, who really helps skew that data towards non pass catchers. Basically, you want a player who's seeing a lot of looks through the air, which is another reason I'm buying into Pollard this year. But it's a reason to not be into a player like Damian Harris again, at least in a regular season long type format and best ball. We know his touchdowns could give him some spiked weeks. That's not what this analysis is necessarily for. And the final thing to consider with middle round breakouts is age. Age is so important across the board in redraft leagues. I've alluded to this before with the rookie wide receiver episode from last month, but it's just something that goes overlooked way too much. Since twenty eleven, we've seen one single breakout from a running back in the middle rounds who has passed his fifth year in the NFL. And you might be sitting there saying, but JJ, when we draft running backs in the middle rounds, we're not drafting older running backs usually, and you're not wrong, but there are more than you'd probably expect Of the one hundred and twenty eight running backs in our sample, forty three of them, so thirty four percent of them were past their fifth year in the league. Like right away, you can basically eliminate a third of the middle round running backs from your consideration set. If you're drafting across a lot of leagues, of course you want certain exposures to players. Seeing hits from roughly thirty three percent of our potential selections. That's huge. And by the way, that one breakout from the middle rounds who has passed his fifth year in the league, he was just a moderate breakout. He wasn't even a true breakout. So, as I said in the guide, avoid the Olds, you don't want old running backs from the middle rounds. Examples of these types of running backs this season Cordero Patterson and Melvin Gordon. They may mean expectation, maybe they even exceed expectation a little bit, but they would become the first running back since twenty eleven in the middle rounds that have been past their fifth year in the league to become true breakouts if they're able to outscore their ADP expectation by six or more points and for the record, Melvin Gordon was not a breakout last year. He exceeded expectation by two point three points per game, so that could happen this year. Sure, I just highly doubt those are league winning players. So there you have it. You now have some ways to spot middle round running back breakouts. And here's the thing with stuff like this, it's just as much about eliminating players you may not want a draft as it is targeting certain ones. Like the age thing. You now know that you may not want to be overweight on older running backs. That's going to naturally lead you to other players, which will increase your rods of hitting on them. And remember, I've got criteria for late round running back breakouts too in the Late Round Draft Guy, which you can purchase right now over on Lateround dot com. That's going to do for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening, everyone, greatly appreciate it. I'll talk to you later in the week.