Value-based Drafting for Running Back in Standard and PPR in 2018 Fantasy Football

According to our machine learning models and the Fantasy Outliers team, these Running Backs could return higher value than ADP and ECR in the 2018 Fantasy Football season.

Chris Seal
Sep 3, 2018 · 6 min read

Imagine you’ve been malnourished for seven months (which happens to be about the duration of the NFL offseason) and you reach an oasis that contains all the different types of food you need — protein, carbohydrates and fats — with only a few morsels of the best of each. But there’s a line. And everyone’s in line for the carbohydrates (of course they are). So do you wait in line like everyone else for do you get the best protein available?

If you’re like me, you’d go for the protein. But that said, the above scenario is much like a fantasy football draft where everyone makes a run on running backs (no pun intended) early in the draft. If you miss out, you might be left with chop liver, but you risk drafting a ‘meh’ RB when you could have had a baller WR or TE.

Hopefully, we can help with that. Last year, our PPR Overall Total Points Rankings for running backs were better than ESPN’s projections 65% of the time and were directionally accurate 81% of the time. Our biggest value pick last year was Mark Ingram who we had at 9th going into the season and he finished 6th (ECR was 17th). Also, Duke Johnson and C.J. Anderson were good value finds. But injuries and the fact that there are a lot of rookies and second year starting running backs make this a tough position to predict — hence we had to make more adjustments for this position than any other.


Every year, we make predictions for: Points per Opportunity, Opportunities per Game, and Games Played. From these, other metrics like the ones we’ll discuss below can be derived. Our dataset includes data from a wide range of sources, but it does not have all the data. That’s why we think combining our models’ outputs with human opinions will lead to better results than either by itself. Hence, a few of the projections below have been hand adjusted.

We will show you:

  • Weekly Value: This compares individual Points per Game projections to the average Pts/Gm projection of the top 20 projected players at a given position. It can be interpreted as average points won/lost versus position (against the top 20 players).
  • Total Points: This is simply our Points Per Game projection multiplied by our Games Played projection. Last year, we predicted 27% of the variance in games played (not bad), and our total points projection beat ESPN’s pretty handily.

So without further ado, let’s get to it…


This Average Weekly Value chart shows how many points our models think a player is going to win/lose your team against the top 20 starters at wide receiver.

Projected Weekly Points Won/Lost vs. Top 20 at Position — PPR (left) and Standard (right)
  • In PPR, Le’Veon Bell has an enormous+7.5 projected weekly points versus other starting running backs this year.
  • Mark Ingram, despite the suspension, is projected to be a high weekly scorer.
  • Joe Mixon is showing a replacement level status in Standard leagues.
  • Our models like LeSean McCoy this year.

These projections are Points/Game * Games Played, so they take into account injury risk.

Projected Total Points Scored (Points per Game * Games Played) — PPR (left) and Standard (right)
  • Mark Ingram drops off this list, due to his suspension
  • Also, David Johnson, Melvin Gordon, and Joe Mixon have a higher injury risk than other RBs
  • Our models are low on Saquon Barkley. That said, personally, I’d draft him if he slid a bit. We’ll see.

Top 20 ECR rankings on the y-axis and corresponding Fantasy Outliers Weekly Value rankings on the x-axis. Anyone in the top left of the graph is a potential value find. Green means they have a projected positive value versus top 20 players at their position. Rankings are for PPR scoring. (For you designers out there, yes, I know this graph is messy.)

Fantasy Outliers’ Weekly Value Projection vs. Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR): Top left half is where, according to our projections, you can find draft value relative to ECR
  • The top end of the running back position this year is filled with rookies and second year players. Since our models are not as good as those who have at least two years of experience (smaller sample sizes), we had to make adjustments. Even so, our projections are still low relative to ECR on almost all of the rookies and 2nd year players. You can see the bottom right-hand side of this graph is almost completely filled with them.
  • For the top end of the draft, I’d stick with ECR/FO or LeSean McCoy — and Devonta Freeman a little later.
  • Later on in the draft, I think you could find good replacement level or higher value with Kenyan Drake, Chris Thompson, Lamar Miller, Duke Johnson, and/or Tevin Coleman

This is a screenshot from an interactive tool built by Ray Harris.

Fantasy Outliers’ Top 30 Running Backs in PPR Ranked by Points per Game

For the full experience, our 2018 Fantasy Football Season Projections are now available for free in this Glorious Google Sheet.

To stay in touch, please, join us by following us on Twitter (@fantasyoutliers) or subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We’re a small team, so let’s grow together!


Fantasy Outliers

Where machines and humans team up to win at fantasy sports

Chris Seal

Written by

Co-Founder, Lead Data Scientist at Fantasy Outliers

Fantasy Outliers

Where machines and humans team up to win at fantasy sports

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