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Does Draft Capital Matter For Future Fantasy Success?

Now we know we are not the first to journey down this path, but we are here to simplify the search. What we did was look back over the last 10 years (2011-2020) to see how many consistent fantasy contributors came out of each round of the NFL draft. We aren’t going to be talking about one hit wonders. Instead, we are highlighting the players who were able to sustain some level of fantasy success over their careers.

In this article we are reviewing the running back position. The benchmark used was 10 points per game in half point per reception (PPR) for their career. Before anyone loses their minds, this article isn’t saying that 10 points per game is a top 24 running back each year. However, the lower points per game helps take into account flex spots to start a 3rd running back and/or a down year from an otherwise consistent starting tailback.

Below you will find a chart breaking out draft capital by round for running backs. The chart is broken out into four columns:

  1. Round Drafted – Identifies the round in the NFL draft that the running backs were drafted
  2. Total running backs drafted – This is the total number of running backs drafted in that round over the past 10 years
  3. Career 10 PPG in .5 PPR – This column represents how many running backs drafted in that round hit the benchmark of 10 PPG for their careers in .5 PPR
  4. % Hit Rate – The final column shows what percentage of the running backs drafted in that round hit that benchmark

Feel free to just review the chart only and take what you want from it. If you want some additional insight on how we feel about 2021 prospects based on this data it will be included later in the article!

Round DraftedTotal
Running Backs Drafted
Career
10 PPG in .5 PPR
% Hit Rate
1141179%
2291345%
330723%
44537%
531310%
63400%
74025%
Total2233917%
Totals after Round 315085.30%
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I’d like to begin this week’s installment of the handcuff report by apologizing profusely for ignoring Andre Williams last week. I seriously considered mentioning Williams value as a keeper, but ROS considered him nothing more than a deep bench stash or handcuff for Rashad Jennings. I had him buried down in the Duct Tape tier, with the Stepfan Taylor‘s and Ka’Deem Carey‘s of the world. Zoinks! Imagine a world of Stepfan’s and Ka’Deem’s! Oh snap, there is such a place? It’s my Duct Tape Handcuff tier! It exists in my mind, and it’s a shiny silver world where everything can be fixed with a couple inches of the good stuff. Jeez I went off topic real quick, back to Andre Williams. I knew that Rashad Jennings was quickly approaching his highest usage numbers of his career, and I knew that Jennings had some injuries during his time in Jacksonville. I chose to ignore it. Just as I chose to dismiss Williams’ 15 carry, 66 yard, TD breakout against Washington. I thought it was nothing more than some meaningless garbage time magic. After all, Jennings had been getting almost all the usage in the Giants offense. Before the Week 4 blowout, Williams had seen two games of 6 carries, and one game of 8 carries with four looks in the passing game. There was no reason to pay him much mind, and those touting him as a good stash were working off nothing more than a hunch that Rough Shod would break down.

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Can you feel the electricity in the air? I know what you’re thinking– Mom/wifey has yet to learn her lesson and attempted to deploy her plug-in vibrator in the Jacuzzi again. (When will they ever learn?) Pray to the Elder Gods that twas not due to them discovering my mythical Instagram account, for once a mortal witnesses those photographs they literally have no choice other than “Releasing,” which is much like the way I felt after viewing the latest Nicki Minaj video, Anaconda! I am known in some underground circles as they Ganymede of fantasy football analysts and I thoroughly embrace it. Back to that electricity your boy Beddict spoke; It’s due to the return of not only football, America’s greatest sport, but FANTASY FOOTBALL, America’s greatest game! ARE YOU READY?!?! I SAID, ARE YOU READY?!?!

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Welcome back for another strategy session, where you and I sit down, group our intellect together, and prepare to discuss fantasy football ad nauseum, and then promptly get distracted by Pornhub.com. So pretty much every other Tuesday, for me at least. We already have a Beginners Guide to Fantasy Football for those of you who had no idea fantasy football existed… I’m sure there are dozens of you. DOZENS! But now that we have the “101” stuff out of the way, now we arrive at the do’s and don’ts of a draft. As what should be pretty self explanatory, there are things that you should do, and things that you should not do. Crazy stuff, I know. Granted, these are based on my own practices and experiences, so take them for what you will. Which, frankly, should be lots. Because it’s free. Free stuff is always good. Unless it’s crayfish in your pants. That’s something that’s free, mysterious, titillating, and scary all at the same time.

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new-york-giants_alternate-logo-1959

For a sixth straight season, Razzball will be interviewing NFL-team blogs for some actual in-depth football knowledge to shed some additional light on our fantasy football knowledge.  Keep your eye out for an interview for every NFL team for our Team Preview Series through the summer.  This installment comes courteous of Dennis Esser from the leading New York Giants’ blog: Big Blue View.

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2014 Rankings: Top-200 | Top-200 (Half-PPR) |  Top-200 (PPR) | QB | RB | RB (PPR)| WR | WR (PPR) | TE | TE (PPR) | K | DST | IDP Rankings: Top-100 | DL | DB | LB

So we’ve finally arrived at what many consider the Cadillac of rankings– the running back position. Though, I don’t really get the car association, seeing as how there are several other makes I’d rather own. I’d even consider some Kia’s, but that might be my half-Koreaness (is that a thing?) coming into play. Which might make it raycess. Who knows. What I do know is that Kia stands for Keeping It Awesome, and that’s all that matters. So here we are, ranking the running backs, and the first thing that I think of is a little boy’s village being attacked by a vicious tiger named Chaka Khan Shere Khan. During the attack, he gets lost in a jungle and ends up meeting a wise bear and black panther, who both talk. Which sounds like a good acid trip. Or the plot to The Jungle Book. Why this is the first thing that came to mind is the more interesting subject, but I have no idea how to tackle it. So this whole thing will have to stand on its own. Yeah, I have no clue either. Rankings forward!

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Welcome to the new off-season series, aptly named ‘Final Fantasy’. In this series, Razzball will be focusing the spotlight on certain players that either exceeded or fell-by-the-wayside of our expectations, and we’ll briefly touch them with our thoughts, legally. Despite rumor (and the series name), we will not be discussing anything +5 to magic missile. Unless there’s actually a NFL player that shoots missiles. And has, like, an amulet to vitality or something like that. Michael Vick’s -98 amulet of dog-caring will be excluded in this particular instance. Regardless, let’s get to the spotlight for today, and that’s Eli Manning.

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Well, here we go. What? You didn’t get enough Jackie Battle news this past week? What about Tony Fiammetta? Breaking! I just signed Terrell Owens, and all it cost me was a Subway Tuna sandwich. Yeah, I know I overpaid. But, to be fair, there wasn’t any mayo, so I had that going. But enough about me, let’s take a look at some of the key news that’s happened so far during free agency week, all through the fantasy football scope. That scope is real by the way. I’m serious. It has chrome plating and comes with a bottle-opener.

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Ouch! That hurts! A lot! Get the cart and take this guy back to the locker room. Let’s check out his (insert body part here) and…oh my…this doesn’t look good. Let the coach know he’s done for the year and put him on injured reserve.

That scene has played out across the NFL countless times this season. Because of how often it’s happening, we have enough players to put together an amazing team of players who are or have been on injured reserve this season.

We took into consideration players on the traditional injured reserve list as well as those who have had a stint on the designated-to-return injured list as well. This was going to be an end-of-season feature but we have enough talent down for the count that we can do it now.

Without further delay, let’s meet the All-IR Team for 2013.

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As a life long Panther fan, it’s usually been fantasy that’s carried me through the season, but flippity floppity and look at em go!  In the midst of their 6-game win streak I’ve seen my fantasy teams go to way of the Nick Capozzi David Wilson hot tub.  But I had decent starts in my leagues – I’m mostly around .500 on most teams (and mostly come out at night!  mostly…) – so there’s a few weeks left to cross my fingers and hope my Writer’s League team can make the playoffs after starting 8-0.  Because it’s looking really, really bad…

What’s great about the fantasy football season is that the pivotal weeks go down the next few weeks, and if I suffer a ridiculous Thanksgiving showing (something as nuts as say, Michael Floyd getting a bajillion points), I can just eat my pity away with Thanksgiving leftovers.  I’ll go into the day like Shawn Kemp as a rookie and leave it like Kemp as a Cav.  Except minus all the baby mamas!  Tryptophan isn’t exactly an aphrodisiac…  I hope you all have a great week 12 and Thanksgiving, and hope Razzball Nation crushes towards a 1st seed.

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Ostentatious. Adjective. Definition: Characterized by vulgar or pretentious display; designed to impress or attract notice. Welp, it sure worked. We saw it all, Tavon Austin, and we’re all impressed. The 98 yard punt return? Flashy. The 81 yard TD catch and run? Swank. The 57 yard bomb? Razzle-Dazzle. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m using synonyms here for that ‘o’ word you can’t pronounce. It’s ok, it’s the internet, you only need to know context, you don’t have to know how to actually say them. Well here’s where I’m supposed to say ‘Tavon has arrived’ or ‘look for Austin to test his city limits’ because we pun like that around here. But I’m not gonna. Not even close. NOPE. Sure, it was an impressive day but here’s what doesn’t impress me: the number 2. No, I’m not talking about the polite way to say you’re taking a crap. I’m talking about his receptions in the game. Sure, he had 138 yards receiving but c’mon this game screams fluky. Further problems with the ‘pick up Tavon’ mantra or ‘Tavontra’ if you will? The number 7. That’s the number of drops he has on the year heading into the weekend. That’s tied for the league lead and of the 4 others he’s up against in that category, he has the smallest amount of targets. Third? Kellen Clemens is still throwing to him. That’s, to say the least, not a positive. Look, I’m not saying this kid can’t be good some day but that day isn’t today. In deep leagues, I can see getting interested but if I own any shares I’m looking to move on from Tavon. In other 2013 Fantasy football news from Sunday of week 10…

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I’m not one to talk the trash or put someone in a verbal vice-grip, but when it comes down to knocking off my fellow RCL writers I feel the urge to gloat. Just a little. Despite my Red Sox World Series hangover of 2004 proportions, your humble-but-nonetheless-bloviating Guru took down JB’s undefeated team that is cleverly named “JB Gilpin” last week and he spent most of Sunday crying to me on the phone about “bye weeks” and how his cat doesn’t “understand” him. Sorry JB, I don’t know how to help you with Mittens, but bad things happen when you assemble your roster after 14 wine coolers. The one and only “Tis Tehol” also fell to your turban clad friend last week. Of course Tehol was too busy checking the progress of his receding hairline to set his roster again, but I’ll take the win. Tehol, are you so mesmerized by your Drakkar drenched banana hammock that you can’t find a tight end to start? However, my first place 6-2 “Scotch Fueled Gurus” lost to an unknown 12-year-old “expert” somewhere in Pennsylvania Amish country whose trash smackin’ prose made Richie Incognito look like Maya Angelou. The kid told me my turban smells like my grandma’s…well, you know, then he beat me 20 points. I feel so bullied. *one lonely tear drops* However, the jammer crammers have been coming through for us this year. Last weeks jams of Terrelle Pryor and Tim Wright were solid plug ‘n’ plays. Let’s forget I suggested jamming on the New Orleans defense, okay? Overall, we have hit on about 70% of our jammer/crammers in any given week. I’m not ready to surrender my turban just yet, my Razzballer’s. And I certainly won’t hand it over to a prepubescent, Fall Out Boy loving kid that sleeps in his Ben Roethlisberger footie pajamas while his mommy rubs his heiny and tells him how special it is. By the way, kid, my dad can beat up your dad. It’s time to jam it or cram it.

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