ADP Arbitrage - Running Back Draft Bargains

Did your parents ever ask you, "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, does that mean you would too?" Well, that is how fantasy football mostly works when it comes to drafting your team yearly. There is something called ADP (Average Draft Position) that is nothing more than just an aggregated mark that lets us know where a player is being drafted on average. Oh, and although most folks take it as gospel and follow the crowd like lemmings, you shouldn't do so.

While ADP is very informative and can help you be informed about where you should start worrying about potentially missing on a player, it shouldn't affect your decisions massively. Take Lamar Jackson's 2019 season: 417.7 PPR points, second-best in the whole NFL, and current holder of a 21 ADP that is seeing him drafted inside the first two rounds of drafts. Does that mean you should absolutely trust Jackson having another monster year that when all is said and done gives you a good return on investment after paying a second-round pick for him? Nope! In fact, the most logical thing to happen is Jackson regressing and finishing with more average fantasy numbers in 2020.

In this four-entry series, I'll go through the four offensive positions of fantasy football, highlighting names that are going cheap in early drafts and evaluate how they are expected to produce similar numbers to other much more-hyped players.

Identifying Overpriced RBs

I'm not going to play games in this column and bring middling names to the table. Instead, I'll be going for the fences and swinging the bat full force to get some fantasy-heavy names here and there. No second-tier players here.

There are 31 players with an ADP under 36 (PPR format) at the time of this writing, and 14 of them, more than 45%, are running backs. For some reason that escapes all reasoning, Christian McCaffrey (ADP 1.2) doesn't have a straight 1.0 ADP, but I guess you'll always have the fantasy goof-owner out there messing around. Draft CMC first overall, and I'll congratulate you. Draft him second (somehow) and you'd become a God. Other than the Panther, though, things start to become harder to asses when it comes to price and actual value.

In PPR leagues, three other rushers are going off the board in the first round: Saquon Barkley, Alvin Kamara, and Dalvin Cook. The vast majority of top-tier RBs are hearing their names called in round two: Joe Mixon, Ezekiel Elliott, Nick Chubb, Leonard Fournette, Josh Jacobs, Derrick Henry, Melvin Gordon III, and Aaron Jones. Finally, two more are being picked in the third round of early drafts: Todd Gurley II and Chris Carson.

Here is what I'm looking for when trying to identify comps for those top-ADP receivers at lower spots. If we build some sort of "combined profile" of them, we can land at something close to

• At least 13 PPG per game (that would have been good for RB23 last year)
• Ideally, 200+ PPR on the season (that would have been good for RB18)
• Ideally, 95+ fantasy points on pure rushing stats
• Ideally, 80+ fantasy points on pure receiving stats

Identifying RB Bargains with RD4+ ADP

After applying those filters and thresholds to the data from the 2019 season this is what I was left with.

Only eight of the 14 players going with third-round-or-higher ADPs made the cut given the parameters highlighted above. We're in an era where do-it-all tailbacks are what is truly valuable, no matter how you look at it, so I considered it very important to include the receiving prowess of them in the equation and factor in pretty heavily.

The players going at cheaper prices/later spots are those to the right of the plot. As you see, almost all of them (except Mark Ingram) racked up fewer points that those bunched to the left, but the differences are not staggering while the price you'll be paying for them is definitely going to be much lower. In fact, there is a gap of almost 16 spots (over a full round) between Aaron Jones and Miles Sanders, and one of 27 (more than two rounds!) between Jones and Mark Ingram, already part of the fifth-round.

Let's go through the identified players highlighting their value for the 2020 season:

Miles Sanders, Philadelphia Eagles (ADP: 37.2)

It would be impossible to convince you that Miles Sanders had a better rookie season than Josh Jacobs. Impossible, yet reasonable. Jacobs was a machine, but a lot of owners seem to be sleeping a bit too much on Miles Sanders' exploits last season. Sanders didn't reach 1,000 rushing yards but finished with 818 on just 179 carries. His 4.57 yards per carry ranked eighth among those to rush the ball at least 179 times. He scored three touchdowns on the ground, too. But where I love Sanders most is in the passing game.

Sanders lapped the rookie-field of rushers with his 509 yards on 50 receptions (the second-best marks were 204 yards and 29 receptions) and added three more scores through the air. Sanders brings the complete package, Philly will no longer feature Jordan Howard in the backfield, and Sanders is probably about to become as much of a bell-cow as you can imagine.

Mark Ingram II, Baltimore Ravens (ADP: 48.2)

Some folks have doubts about 30-year-old Mark Ingram but I truly believe 2019 Ingram is as real as it gets. Sure, he scored 10 touchdowns rushing and five receiving, but such is Baltimore's offense. Ingram broke for more than 1,000 yards on the ground and 247 receiving, but he had done so other two and four times respectively in his career (on diminished roles sometimes).

Lamar Jackson's running traits are always going to impact Ingram chances, but even with that the running back is as solid a bet as they get, and his price is that of a fifth-rounder. The team did bring in J.K. Dobbins in the draft, but he won't replace Ingram in the offense. If anything, he should simply serve the same role Gus Edwards did last year and make him expendable. Baltimore doesn't have many options at receiver, either, so Ingram will more probably than not keep his receiving numbers up.

Kenyan Drake, Arizona Cardinals (ADP: 61.6)

Drake is part of the sixth round these days. That is insane. Arizona has made it clear who will man the backfield in 2020 after getting rid of David Johnson for good and slotting Chase Edmonds as the No. 2 at the position. After trading for Drake mid-season, the ex-Dolphin thrived for the Cards. He finished 2019 as the RB17, racked up 817 yards in just 170 carries, scored a very healthy eight touchdowns (tied eighth-most in the league).

He didn't fall short of his peers on the receiving end either: Drake caught 50 of 68 targets for 345 yards and the only thing he lacked was a score. Sure, Arizona has added DeAndre Hopkins and the passing game is the top option in this offense, but the Cardinals are a dynamic team and I'm sure a full season of Drake in the desert will do wonders. His ADP may rise now that Arizona didn't add a back until the sixth round in Eno Benjamin, but it's still an impressive discount for the upside.

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