💸 RBs Are Cheaper Than Ever

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In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Happy Head:

The NFL salary cap has forced teams to drastically reconsider just how many resources they want to devote to the RB position. Look no further than the current crop of big-name free agents who remain without a team as we inch closer and closer to the beginning of training camp.

Of course, in fantasy land there arguably isn’t a more important position than RB. Nine of the top-10 highest-scoring seasons in PPR points per game have been courtesy of an RB during the Super Bowl era.

It’s tough for QBs, WRs or TEs to match up to the raw upside available for a position that can simultaneously lead the running AND passing game.

That’s what makes the current state of Underdog Fantasy ADP so wild: WRs are flying off the board like never before in the early rounds.

Just take a look at the current Round 1 ADP:

From 2017 to 2022: Six, eight, eight, 10, nine, and seven RBs were off the board inside of the first round in best ball land.

Right now? Three.

This is a drastic shift in early-draft mentality in favor of WRs.

Things can and will change at least a bit come August when strategy shifts more heavily toward redraft. But at the moment, it’s hard to not be awfully intrigued with the mid-round offerings at the position.

The sort of early-down grinders that used to make up the “RB dead zone” in the third, fourth, and fifth rounds are suddenly going off the board multiple rounds later than we might have expected in past years.

The range I’m particularly fond of attacking at the moment is the RB30 to RB36 tier of backs, as the top-49 WRs, top-eight TEs and top-10 QBs are drafted by the time you get to this selection.

Each of these options profiles as a “FLEX with benefits” type of RB: Someone capable of providing occasional weekly FLEX value while maintaining potential boom upside should their primary backfield competition miss any time:

• Bills James Cook (RB30, pick 97.2)

• Saints Alvin Kamara (RB31, pick 100.4)

• Seahawks Zach Charbonnet (RB32, pick 101.7)

• Packers A.J. Dillon (RB33, pick 102.6)

• Commanders Antonio Gibson (RB34, pick 105.7)

• Broncos Samaje Perine (RB35, pick 107.4)

• Commanders Brian Robinson (RB36, pick 111)

Gibson was one of Chris Allen’s favorite mid-round RB targets that he broke down earlier this week.

The rising fourth-year RB is someone I have also LOVED drafting throughout the summer at ADP. As Fantasy Life’s new (and free!) Best Ball Hub tool shows: I’ve drafted Gibson on a whopping 24% of my 85 drafted teams to this point.

Don’t be afraid to zig when others zag in fantasy football land. Right now, one of the easiest ways to gain exposure to both unique lineups AND value is by spending at least a few early-to-mid-round picks on the sorts of RBs that used to be a reach, but are suddenly cheaper to acquire than ever.

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Two of our high-volume best ball bros, Pete and Jonathan, discuss the unique QB landscape this year and how they are handling it across their drafts.

🤔 The Topic of the Day: QB Draft Prices

Pete: The prices of elite QBs are more expensive than they’ve ever been in drafts with three QBs going off the board in the first 30 picks. Even though we’ve started to see a small correction in ADP, this is still a major shift from previous years.

For almost a decade, we were drafting in the “Late-Round QB Era” where QB production was relatively flat across the draft, and QB points were largely replaceable in the later rounds.

The new era of the rushing QB has certainly flipped that dynamic on its head with QBs like Jalen Hurts and Justin Fields turning into fantasy cheat codes, but I’m still experiencing some sticker shock with how high these signal-callers are going in drafts.

How are you thinking about this current ADP landscape? Will you spend a top-30 pick on a QB? When you do, is it always stacked or will you select those KC, PHI, and BUF QBs unstacked?

Jonathan: I’m rarely drafting the top-three QBs right now because I think there is a decent chance their ADPs will continue to fall over the course of the draft season. If I’m wrong, I can level out my exposures later this summer.

When I do take an elite QB, it is almost always because they fell to me after ADP. Both Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen have plenty of late stacking options, so I am comfortable taking them and figuring that out later.

Hurts doesn’t seem to slip in drafts as often, so I have him on just 1% of my best ball teams so far despite taking plenty of A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith.

As a result, I’ve been drafting more three-QB teams than ever before while looking to exploit the cost of the top-end QBs in other ways.

What has your approach been? When you do take an elite QB, how does that impact the rest of your draft?

Pete: I’ve been mixing and matching how I approach my Elite QB teams. If you grab an unstacked Hurts in Round 3, it’s essentially Dallas Goedert or bust as far as viable stacking partners. But as you said, Mahomes and Allen have a plethora of options throughout the draft, and so I’ve not been hesitating to take them without Travis Kelce and Stefon Diggs in Round 3.

Structure-wise, I think unstacked Mahomes and Allen teams pair really well with Anchor RB or Elite TE teams where you are behind the eight-ball at WR. These builds allow you to trump the early WR drafters at the onesie position while still providing you with viable late-round WRs thanks to the ambiguity of the pass-catching options in Kansas City and Buffalo.

Check out this board from a recent draft where I was drafting out of the four hole:

All of my favorite WRs were long gone by my pick at No. 28, and I had already made a RB detour for Saquon Barkley (to correlate with my Cooper Kupp pick in Week 17). With the board flat, and knowing there are tons of late WRs I can stack Mahomes with, I went ahead and selected an unstacked, elite QB.

I ended up waiting all the way until the 17th and 18th rounds to complete my Mahomes double stack with Justyn Ross and Richie James, both of whom I think have a decent chance to outscore the Chiefs WRs going ahead of them (Skyy Moore, Rashee Rice, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling).

I’m curious how you have been handling your backdoor Allen stacks. Gabriel Davis is multiple rounds cheaper than he’s ever been and Dalton Kincaid is one of the most polarizing selections in our neck of the woods right now. Do you have a preference on the WR3 battle between Khalil Shakir and Deonte Hardy?

👀 Aaron Rodgers has thoughts about the legalization of psychedelics. His quotes here are … something, man.

😲 The love for Packers QB Jordan Love continues to flow in. Romeo Doubs said what?!

🤕 Injuries continue to be the stone-cold worst. The Jets lost a good one.

🌿 The NFL and NFLPA are investigating alternative pain management methods. Ricky Williams has entered the chat.

🔎 More updates in the ongoing Tyreek Hill case. This doesn’t seem ideal.

🐟 Scott Fish Bowl is one of the biggest fantasy tournaments of the year. You can win an entry here!

😅 There’s a mid-round RB that Ian believes could handle a Najee-esque workhorse role. Are you ready to be hurt again?

Fantasy Life senior analyst Ian Hartitz is breaking down all 32 NFL teams over the next two months. Let’s take a look at the Cardinals, who enter the year with possibly the league’s single-worst offense on paper…

💪 WRs

• Marquise Brown (Ian’s WR29)

• Rondale Moore (WR61)

• Greg Dortch (WR101)

• Michael Wilson (WR120)

• Zach Pascal (WR133)

Brown’s start to 2022 as the Cardinals’ undisputed No. 1 WR during DeAndre Hopkins’ suspension was a sight to behold:

• Week 1: 4 receptions-43 yards-1 TD (6 targets)

• Week 2: 6-68-0 (11)

• Week 3: 14-140-0 (17)

• Week 4: 6-88-1 (11)

• Week 5: 8-78-1 (10)

• Week 6: 5-68-0 (9)

Overall, the artist known as Hollywood worked as the PPR WR5 before breaking his foot.

Read that last sentence again. Madness. Only Stefon Diggs, Cooper Kupp, Tyreek Hill and Justin Jefferson had more PPR fantasy points than Brown during the first six weeks of his Cardinals career. His pre-injury pace: 122-1,374-9 – and he looked good doing it!

Things didn’t go as smooth down the stretch for Brown or the rest of the Cardinals’ Kyler Murray-less offense. This is unfortunately a potential reality to start the 2023 season as well.

The concern with betting too heavily on Brown is the fact that he did indeed struggle to put up the sort of high-end efficiency numbers that most top-end fantasy WRs also possess.

• PFF receiving grade: 69.6 (No. 45 among 80 qualified WR)

• Yards per route run: 1.44 (No. 46)

• Yards per reception: 10.6 (No. 62)

• Targets per route run: 0.209 (No. 29)

Ultimately, I have Hollywood in the same tier as guys like Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Drake London: Talented WRs who could struggle to consistently provide high-end fantasy goodness due to a worrisome situation under center.

Of course, there’s at least a theoretical end in sight to Brown’s QB woes, making him a more than viable target with a still-low WR31 ADP (pick 61.1).

Dwain McFarland is also VERY high on Brown. You can watch his recent breakdown of the Cardinals #1 WR here. 

And then there’s Moore, who ripped off 7-92-1, 8-69-0 and 9-94-0 receiving lines before suffering a season-ending groin injury. Note that the second-year WR also dealt with hamstring and finger injuries during 2022.

While it wasn’t for long, Moore flashed the sort of high-end YAC-ability that made him a second-round pick in the first place. It was also encouraging to see him spend plenty of time out wide (196 snaps) in addition to his usual time in the slot (253).

It’s not a given that Moore works ahead of Dortch, who put some fun YAC-ability on tape himself. There’s also potential for Wilson to work as the new outside starter in two-WR sets considering his fellow day-two draft capital and superior size. Maybe Pascal’s familiarity with Gannon leads to a role.

Overall, I don’t expect this passing game to enable more than one consistent upside fantasy option before Murray is back – Moore is most worthy of the late-round dart out of the group, but even then there’s potential for his new normal role to be more of the part-time variety than what we saw in the past. This is particularly true if OC Drew Petzing embraces two-TE sets and the run game in a similar manner as his longtime mentor Kevin Stefanski.

You can also listen (or watch!) Ian Hartitz and Dwain McFarland break down Kyler Murray and the rest of the Cardinals’ outlook HERE!