Which position is most important in fantasy football?

You can have Peyton Manning or Tom Brady.  You can have Randy Moss or Andre Johnson.  You can have Antonio Gates or Tony Gonzalez.  And that won’t make a difference if you don’t have a decent batch of RBs. 

Far and away, the most important position on your team is the running back.  And because of this, your top priority in the first few rounds is to plug up all the RB spots.  And one of your first duties after that is to start drafting depth at the position. 

Why are running backs so important?  Why did people ever draft Larry Johnson, who likes pulling Troy Polamalu’s hair over Peyton Manning, who likes licking the cream out of big black Oreos?  Well, the answer is that top tier RBs are more likely to deliver you a reasonably high number of points on a consistent basis. 

“Oh, but Steven, eight of the top 10 fantasy scorers in the 2008 fantasy football season were QBs!  Why should we pass up the top scorers in favor of guys who don’t even lick the cream out of big black Oreos?”  To reference literature from hundreds of years ago, the decay rate of RBs is exponential, while the decay rate of every other position is geometric.  Simple, right?

Since you probably don’t know what that means, let me break down the numbers.  In 2009, the highest-scoring QB was Aaron Rodgers, with 342.8 points.  The No. 5 QB was Brett Favre with 289.8 points.  That means the No. 1 QB was only about 18 percent better than the No. 5.  Then compare that with Jay Cutler, the No. 10 QB who had 249.9 points.  He was about 37 percent behind Rodgers.

Now let’s look at RBs.  Chris Johnson had 346.9 points as the No. 1 RB.  Frank Gore was the No. 5 with 230.6…and lagged behind Johnson by over 50 percent!  Joseph Addai was No. 10 with 194.4 points, 78.8 percent behind Johnson.  Then consider that almost all fantasy football leagues have you fielding, at the very least, two RBs.  So throw in No. 20 Pierre Thomas with 157.7 points (who put up less than half of Chris Johnson) and it should be obvious why RBs need to be in the front of your mind during draft day.

While the WR position is somewhat similar to the RB, there are two things that make WRs tough to take in the first round.  Firstly, year-to-year consistency is more elusive at the WR position than anywhere else in fantasy football.   WRs fall in and out of the Top 20 positional rankings in a simply whimsical manner.  Secondly…WRs just don’t put up as many points.  The top five RBs in 2009 combined for 1392.6 points.  The top five WRs combined for 986.9 points. 

Now let’s wrap this up.  Using 2007’s Average Draft Positions (on average, where any individual player is taken in the draft), Peyton Manning (ADP of 11) scored 287.1 points on the season.  Matt Hasselbeck (ADP of 69) scored 258.3 points on the season (28.8 points less than Manning).  Ben Roethlisberger (111 in ADP) scored 269.7 on the season (17.4 points fewer than Manning).  Brett Favre (122 ADP) scored 258.5 (28.6 shy). 

Let’s stack this up against the season total of the top six RBs, ADP-wise; Ladainian Tomlinson, Steven Jackson, Larry Johnson, Joseph Addai, Frank Gore, and Shaun Alexander (213.5 points on the season, even with a year of injuries from Alexander).  RBs taken around Matt Hasselbeck included Julius Jones, Tatum Bell, Brandon Jackson, and LaMont Jordan, who averaged 66.1 points on the season (a difference of 147.3).  RBs taken around Favre and Roethlisberger?  Well, how much of Reuben Droughns, Vernand Morency and Mike Bell have you seen since?  They averaged 33.3 points, by the way.  If that isn’t the statistical proof you needed…well…I don’t know what is. 

So let me just finish, once again, by saying that you should draft RBs early and often.

Other Random RB Notes:

- Every year, there will be a handful of RBs considered “elite.”  They are usually the very first players taken during a draft.  Consider yourself lucky if you get seeded high enough to take one of them.  Don’t try to be bold and/or innovative by not.

- Almost without fail, there will be at least one rookie RB to run for 1000 yards.  Recent examples include Kevin Jones (2004), Carnell Williams (2005), Joseph Addai (2006), and Marshawn Lynch (2007).  2008 was kind of crazy, with Steve Slaton, Matt Forte, and Chris Johnson all reaching this milestone.  Kevin Smith just barely missed the mark (975 yards).  2009 didn’t have one…but Knowshon Moreno came close, though, with 947 yards (though he made up for it with over 200 receiving yards and nine total TDs).

- 2006 saw the “platoon” become standard.  A “platoon” is where you have one or more RBs receiving a fantasy-relevant statistics.  In these situations, the player with more fantasy value is typically the guy who gets more of the touchdowns (this is not always the case, however).  “Elite” fantasy RBs usually have little to no competition in the backfield.

- PPR leagues completely shift around the rankings of the position.  It puts a serious premium on players who are parts of West Coast offenses and players who often get passes dumped to them.  Past examples include Brian Westbrook, Steven Jackson, and Ray Rice.

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