966: The Running Back Renaissance

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Speaker 1: This is the Late with your host JJ Zachera, J J. Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen in this episode nine and sixty six of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. It's been a minute since I did one of these episodes. You may have heard Rich, Ryan and me talk Best Ball with our becoming a Best Ball bro recap about a week and a half ago. But this the Late Round podcast, It's been a minute. I've missed you guys. Now over the last few weeks, I've been getting Late Round Fantasy Football's new COO, David Kitchen, up to speed, and I've also been in my prospecting cave, the ZAP model. It's updated, it's better than ever, and I can't wait to get to all that prospecting work over the next couple of months. Now. Usually my first episode after a long season is all about the things that I got wrong. It's about me refining my pro to make sure that I don't make the same mistakes year after year. And trust me, I'll get to that episode. In fact, there won't be a mail bag episode or a Late Round Perspective episode on Friday this week. Instead, you're gonna get that episode and I'll follow it up with an episode and the things that went right, and that's for early next week. Remember, during the off season, you get two episodes of the show each week, one kind of a fresh episode each Tuesday, and then one mail Bag or Perspective's episode on Friday, except for this week. Now, regardless of all that admin stuff, Today, today I want to talk about something I brought up a ton of times in the show throughout the season. I thought to myself, you know what, the people need a research study after my brief hiatus. Actually that's not even true. I'm kind of creating this episode for selfish reasons. A lot of my work is driven by just pure curiosity. When something strange is happening in fantasy football, I want to dig into that something and learn more about it. And that brings me to the topic today running back, specifically running backs during the twenty twenty four fantasy season, because there's some weird stuff that went on with the position this year and I want to get to the bottom of it. Now, before we get into the research, I want to remind you to check out Underdock. Underdog is the easiest and best place to play fantasy sports, and with the conference championships happening this weekend, there are plenty of contests to choose from. To get it on the action, you can do snake drafts, and there's always pick them selections out there too. Check it all out at Underdog Fantasy dot com, and if you're new to the site, sign up with promo code Late Round. That'll get you a nice deposit offer. I also want to let you know that the Late Round Prospect Guide is officially available for pre order. This is year number four for the Prospect Guide, and it's back and better than ever. Like I said earlier, over the last couple of weeks, I've been fine tuning the ZAP models and I've made a couple of enhancements that makes the models more predictive. But in the guide you'll see what those enhancements are. You get a rundown of what's in the models. You get profiles every running back and wide receiver who will be at the NFL combine. You get tight end z App scores after the draft. You get profiles for the year two model, and more. Right now, you can pre order it for fourteen ninety nine by heading to lateround dot com and clicking guides. Once the guide launches in March, that price is going to go up to nineteen ninety nine, so you can save money by ordering right now. Check it all out lateround dot com. Now, I'm assuming all of you played fantasy football in twenty twenty four, and if you did, you may have noticed that things were a little bit different at running back. Running Backs just seem to be better. Sakuon Barkley was a monster, Dereck Henry did his thing, Bijon Robinson was a beast, Josh Jacobs seemed to never not score a touchdown, and honestly, the same goes for James Cook. Throughout the year, I kept thinking to myself, man, this is a bizarre year for running backs. In my gut, it was an outlier season. They were performing abnormally well. So it's finally time to dig into the data. My goal here was to simply ask the following question, was the twenty twenty four season different at running back than previous seasons that we've seen? Now, there are plenty of ways to dissect that question, and I plan on looking at a few angles on today's show. First, let's just look at the results. One way to see if the running back position scored more or scored better is by looking at how many fantasy points the position actually scored like in total, and at that super super high level, nothing was really funky with running backs this year. When compared to the last five seasons, running backs across the league scored their second lowest overall total of PPR points. The twenty twenty three season was the only one that was worse. But that doesn't really tell us that much because that includes every running back across the league. What I'm more concerned about is the top running backs, the ones who impact fantasy football. So let's look at this in a different way. I looked at every year since twenty twenty fourteen and twenty fourteen seems arbitrary, but it represents how far back the average draft position data goes from Fantasydata dot Com, and I'll be digging into ADP in a little bit. But I looked at every season since twenty fourteen, and I charted the top running backs by PPR point per game finish. So the RB one and twenty fourteen, for example, he scored twenty three point two PPR points per game. In twenty fifteen, it was twenty one point one points per game. This past year, twenty twenty four, it was twenty two point two PPR points per game. That was sakuon Barkley. Now I did this all the way until RB twenty. That's also an arbitrary stopping point. I stopped there because I'm just doing a quick check to see if top running backs this year scored more or less points compared to previous seasons. I then took the average for each positional slot from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty three. So RB one's the top running backs from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty three, they averaged twenty four point seven PPR points per game. Saiq one Barkley this season, as I said, scored twenty two point two PPR points per game. So we played two and a half points below the average. And that was actually kind of a common theme among our top six top seven running backs this year. Compared to recent history, five of the top seven running backs actually played below the typical running back in that positional slot. For example, RB three since twenty fourteen averaged twenty and a half PPR points per game. That was point four points per game higher than this year's RB three who is Bjohn Robinson. And for the record, I'm using a minimum threshold of eight games played to allow a player to be ranked here. So top seven running backs this year kind of played below what we normally see. It wasn't far below, but it was below. But then something happens. When you get to the RB eight this season, who is Josh Jacobs. You see that he scored seventeen point two PPR points per game. That was above the average from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty three for RB eights. And guess what, but it's that way for literally every single running back up through RB twenty. Every single one of them outperformed what we've seen historically from their running back slot. And it wasn't by some small margin. We're talking one and a half to two and sometimes more than three PPR points per game in a single running back slot. The results this season showed us that running backs were indeed generally better, at least the ones that we care about in fantasy football. Things started to normalize after RB twenty, after the twentieth ranked running back and PPR points per game, But that's twenty running backs in a ten team league. That represents every running back starter. So if you played fantasy football this year and running backs just felt better, maybe a little bit deeper, it's because the ones that we cared about in fantasy football, for the most part, were better. The hiring guys weren't giving you quite the same edge as we've seen before, but we had this huge boost in production when we entered lower end RB one range. Why wide receivers were weaker, and I can get to that on a different episode this offseason, but running backs were definitely better. Of course, that's not where we should stop with this analysis. I mean we could we could just say, hey, running backs perform better this year, especially after the top three or so, But what does that mean for future seasons? Does that actually teach us anything? After seeing that running backs were performing better at sort of this individual level this year, I wanted to dig in and see if there was any reason why. I started by looking at league wide trends. Now, if you're on any social media platform, or if you just do a quick Google search, you'll see a lot of stories about how everything's turned around for running backs, that they went from being a devalued position to now being valued that twenty twenty four was the year of the running back. But I don't think that's totally correct. It's not totally wrong, but it's definitely not that simple. Some teams are definitely using their running backs more to their advantage. During the regular season. We saw the Eagles go with a super run heavy approach with Saquon Barkley. The Packers did the same thing with Josh Jacobs. The Ravens leaned heavily on Derrick Henry. But I think the fact that our biggest examples of this came from teams who signed a free agent running back that's going to drive home a narrative that isn't necessarily totally true and factual. Let's just look at some cumulative stats to drive this point home. League Wide, in twenty twenty four, running backs rushed for like three thousand more yards than they did in twenty twenty three, but they actually rushed for fewer yards this year than what we saw in twenty twenty two. They had a better yards per carry average year over year, but again it wasn't quite as high as twenty twenty two, and twenty twenty had it beat as well, and teams really weren't using running backs anymore across the league, the usage wasn't up. In total, running backs accounted for about eighty to eighty one percent of all rushes in the NFL this past regular season. That was almost identical to what we've seen over the last five years, all the while running weren't targeted at a higher rate through the air. In fact, running back target share in twenty twenty four it was at a low since at least twenty eleven. That number has been decreasing over the last eight or so years after it peaked in twenty seventeen. So running backs weren't really getting more yards, they weren't seeing more volume on the ground, and they weren't seeing more volume through the air either, at least league wide. Where things were a little bit different was with touchdowns. In twenty twenty four, roughly thirty nine percent of all touchdowns scored across the league came via the ground. That's offensive touchdowns. That number is definitely a lot higher than what we'd see back in like the mid twenty tens. Back then, that number would drop close to thirty percent at times. Thirty nine percent is a pretty big jump, but it's not that much different than what we've seen since twenty twenty, and twenty twenty is about the time where we saw a nice uptick across the NFL and quarterback mobility. One thing that should be noted here, though, is that about seventy five percent of the rushing touchdowns this year came via running backs. That was an almost five percentage point jump from twenty twenty three, and it tied a five year high. So when you combine these two facts, you do get something interesting. If you look at total touchdowns across the league and you look at the proportion of those touchdowns that went to running backs on the ground, that number was the second highest that we've seen over the last fourteen years in the NFL. To phrase that another way, a high proportion of touchdowns in twenty twenty four they were being scored by running backs specifically on the ground. So let me just explain where we're at right now. Number one, in general, the most relevant running backs in fantasy football this past year. They did score a lot of points, especially in that low end RB one range and into that high end RB two bucket, but league wide trends don't point to this being strictly due to volume, teams didn't use running backs more than usual. Those trends do point though, to it maybe being touchdown related. So because of that, I wanted to look back at the individual Top twenty running backs and see if touchdowns were indeed a driving force in the better point per game numbers, And because I tried not to waste your time with this podcast, they were. Touchdowns were a huge, huge reason we saw what we saw this year. When it comes to the Top twenty running backs by PPR points per game, the average one of those backs in twenty twenty four scored about ten and a half rushing touchdowns. Not only was that the highest mark that we've seen since twenty fourteen, it was the highest mark by nearly two full touchdowns. Did that happen because top twenty backs saw more volume this year? I mean, they did see higher running back rush shares compared to previous seasons, but it wasn't an outlier amount. It wasn't like the touchdowns. They averaged about a seventy percent running back rush share per game rate, meaning any Top twenty running back handled about seventy percent of their team's running back rushes this past year. That was the second highest number that we've seen since twenty fourteen, but we had many seasons that were within one percentage point of that number. So these top twenty running backs, even though league wide running backs weren't fed more, Top twenty running backs, they were fed a little bit more, but they ended up converting on a whole lot of their carries. Why did that happen? To me? There are two main reasons. One of them is that teams were providing more of those opportunities this year. A very real trend that we've seen in the NFL over the last ten years is a decrease in pass rate at the goal line. Teams are running the ball more when they get close to their opponent's end zone. To give you an idea of what I mean, back in twenty fourteen, almost forty nine percent of pass in rush attempts at the goal line, so within the opponent's five yard line, almost forty nine percent of those plays were passes. That number has dropped all the way to just forty one point six percent in twenty twenty four. It was forty one point nine percent in twenty twenty three, and forty two point eight percent in twenty twenty two. Obviously, if teams are gonna run the ball more at the goal line, there may be more opportunities for these running backs to get touchdowns. Now you may be thinking, but JJ, this also coincides with quarterbacks getting more rush attempts themselves, and I would agree with that wholeheartedly. I don't think the increase in touchdowns that we saw from top twenty running backs this year basically the main reason that top running backs were so different in twenty twenty four. I don't think it has everything to do with how teams run plays at the goal line. That's just a piece of the puzzle. Arguably a bigger piece was player quality. Now, hear me out. Where we're at right now, is that top twenty running backs scored more points this year than normal, and it really had almost everything to do with touchdowns, or that was at least a huge driving force. Why they scored more touchdowns is the question. Team philosophy close to the goal line has played some role, but so did player health. Now let's go back to the exercise where I looked at twenty twenty four finishes and compared them to the finishes from the previous ten seasons, you know where Sakwon Barkley played a little bit below the norm, and where the RB eight to the RB twenty played well above it consistently, like every single running back slot. One thing that's definitely apparent about those finishes is that so many of them came from running backs who were selected high in fantasy drafts. This year, fifteen of the top twenty running backs by PPR points per game were actually drafted in the top twenty according to Fantasy Data's ADP. That tied the highest mark that we've seen since twenty fourteen. Meanwhile, when looking at top twenty four running backs by ADP this year, so RB one's and RB twos, twenty of the twenty four ended up playing at least twelve games, that tied the highest rate since twenty fourteen. And those same twenty players, all of them ended up playing at least fourteen games. That was the highest mark that we've seen since twenty fourteen. Let's just think about this almost philosophically for a second. What do big touchdown scorers likely have in common. They're probably decent players, They're probably quality running backs. Just this year, none of the players with high rushing touchdown totals were total surprises. Aside from probably Chewba Hubbard and he scored ten, there were ten guys who had more rushing touchdowns than him. Every single one of those players had relatively high average draft positions, meaning we expect them to have at least a decent season. What would happen if one or two of those guys would have gotten hurt? Chances are we wouldn't see this same type of result. James Cook tied for the league lead with sixteen rushing touchdowns this year. If he goes down in Week four with an injury, do you think all of those touchdowns would have just gone to Ray Davis? If Derrick Henry gets hurt in Week nine, do we think that one of the Ravens backups is just going to score the same number of touchdowns as Derek freaking Henry? What about Josh Jacobs? I mean, we know the answer to that. The Packers were splitting their RB two spot all season long. With Marshawn Lloyd injured, they would have had a split backfield, and a split backfield would have led to split touchdown totals. When running backs don't get injured, there's then a higher chance for stronger numbers by those individual running backs. It may not be seen as strongly at the league wide level, but it will definitely be felt on the individual one and top running backs in twenty twenty four. They didn't get injured at the same rate as top running backs in the past. But look, I can't ignore the fact that drafters were also just better this year. We did a good job collectively setting ADP. In fact, since twenty fourteen. Depending on how you slice it, you could say that twenty twenty four did the best job at accurately predicting running back finishes compared to any other year. The correlation between pre season expectation or ADP an actual result is really strong across the board, and to be honest, the way the market was behaving preseason made some of the concepts that we drafted by in the past a little bit more difficult this year. I wrote a newsletter back in August called this year's running back dead zone is different because running backs are being drafted later in twenty twenty four than in previous seasons. In the late Round Draft guide, I wrote about how there were a lot of running backs in the traditional running back dead zone who had some traits that we would want them to have in order to emerge from that dead zone. In other words, there weren't as many traditional dead zone backs, and a lot of them did emerge. A huge reason we're seeing the numbers that we're seeing from running backs this year, if not the entire reason, is because of what happened in the pre draft high end RB two range. The guys ranked as RB thirteen to RB eighteen. Those players completely destroyed that same grouping from every other season since fourteen. They averaged sixteen PPR points per game that was a full point higher than any other year during that timeframe. Five of the six players in that group scored fourteen or more PPR points. Four of them scored sixteen or more PPR points. The market completely destroyed a chunk of the running back dead zone in twenty twenty four. That played a major role in the position being as good as it was, because, let's face it, had we gotten these exact same results but from running backs drafted in round ten, round eleven, round twelve only, we wouldn't be talking about this today. We'd be saying, yeah, running back was good this year, but there's no reason to draft them early and often because we can get them in round ten and round eleven. But that's not what happened. What happened was the top eighteen running backs by ADP largely performed very, very very well. But make no mistake, what we saw in twenty twenty four shouldn't be considered the standard. I do think we may see teams across the league try to copy the success of others who lean more on their running backs each year. It's a copycat league, after all. I do think we're gonna continue seeing teams run the ball the goal line because they think that they have a power advantage and because they have mobile quarterbacks to confuse defenses. I do think the market will be smarter than it was ten years ago. That's going to elevate the backs we used to always target in round eight or nine, while devaluing the obvious running backs to avoid, specifically in the dead zone. All of that makes me believe that the running back position may not fall all the way back in twenty twenty five. But considering how healthy the position stayed, considering the talent that we projected from the position entering the season, considering the obvious and massive shift that we saw in touchdown scoring. I would expect things to fall back to earth a bit next season. I'm not ready to call it a running back renaissance. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get some ascribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by starting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. You know, to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Remember you can pre order that prospect guide right now over on Lateround dot com. Go do that otherwise, I'll talk to you later in the week with the episode on all the stupid things that I did during the twenty twenty four season. I'll talk to you then