2019 Running Back Report

[Lord_Varys]

Matt Kelley actually came through and fixed his breakout age, which in turn puts DWill on the "studs" list. What an interesting turn of events.

THE PLOT THICKENS!

[Straycatz2]

I love these types of statistical analysis / system reports and I really enjoyed your report and will wait anxiously for next year's. There is always those that try to question the system, I would just ignore them as it is your system.

Fantasy Pro system is another I enjoy looking at.
RB
https://www.fantasypros.com/2019/05/pre ... -football/

WR
https://www.fantasypros.com/2019/05/pre ... -football/

[Sriracha]

@Dynasty DeLorean

Assuming Sanders had a break out age of 18-19, would that change his status in your rankings?

It seems strange to punish a player for not usurping (one of) the best college football prospects of all time. Especially when he produced at a nearly identical rate the first time he got his chance, in a similarly terrible situation, and was a highly sought after recruit himself.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

@Dynasty DeLorean

Assuming Sanders had a break out age of 18-19, would that change his status in your rankings?

It wouldn't, sorry.

[Straycatz2]

@Dynasty DeLorean

Assuming Sanders had a break out age of 18-19, would that change his status in your rankings?

It seems strange to punish a player for not usurping (one of) the best college football prospects of all time. Especially when he produced at a nearly identical rate the first time he got his chance, in a similarly terrible situation, and was a highly sought after recruit himself.

You can see from fantasy pro system above which uses many of the same metrics that as DD uses, that all the RB this year are looked at unfavorably with a small description on each. Sanders is rated so low, increasing just one metric like breakout age wouldn't boost him into the elite category.
https://www.fantasypros.com/2019/05/pre ... -football/

Monty score is particularly funny.

[rubber_duck]

Matt Kelley actually came through and fixed his breakout age, which in turn puts DWill on the "studs" list. What an interesting turn of events.

I think I just heard someone pull their hair out

[rubber_duck]

Yeah, the work never stops. But it has slowed down some on the RB front, mostly because there hasn't been a need to make any big changes to the RB evaluation process. The last few years have been really solid.

The past couple of years has been spent looking closer at WR and QB, with the same overall goal: bust avoidance. I find that most of the web sites and pod casters are good at pointing out how each rookie could become a star player, and are great at drumming up excitement for the rookies. But those same groups are really poor at predicting failure or risk of failure.

Heh, yeah. If you read/listen to enough people, literally every rookie in the draft is destined to become a stud

Bust avoidance is a good term, because i'm trying to avoid busts as much as I am trying to identify studs. A small but important distinction that gets lost on some ppl I think.

I'd be interested in taking a peek at your continued work if you're up for it. If not no biggie. I remember the gist of it but have to dig through my old PM's to see who exactly you liked and didn't like. I won't say any names, but there was a pretty high profile guy that you were a little down on, and uh idk he's certainly been underwhelming so far even though I still like him overall.

Apologies for my temporary absence.

Yeah, as I recall we were on opposite sides of the fence with D'Onta Foreman. It is really awful that he went down with the Achilles tear.

As for the top RBs in this class ... I'm not holding our much hope. I've got Jacobs as a buy for this year, then sell immediately after 2019 is over. Montegomery is the same. Sanders has the best long term outlook of the three (in my opinion), but he still carries too much risk of busting for me to pursue him at the given cost.

As for the WRs, this is very much a work in progress. The data, the videos, the situational analysis ... it is starting to take some form. But I'm not attacking it with the same enthusiasm that I did with the RBs. At least not yet.

I'll shoot you a PM.

[Sriracha]

@Dynasty DeLorean

Assuming Sanders had a break out age of 18-19, would that change his status in your rankings?

It seems strange to punish a player for not usurping (one of) the best college football prospects of all time. Especially when he produced at a nearly identical rate the first time he got his chance, in a similarly terrible situation, and was a highly sought after recruit himself.

You can see from fantasy pro system above which uses many of the same metrics that as DD uses, that all the RB this year are looked at unfavorably with a small description on each. Sanders is rated so low, increasing just one metric like breakout age wouldn't boost him into the elite category.
https://www.fantasypros.com/2019/05/pre ... -football/

Monty score is particularly funny.

Yea, I noticed that. But since he's a pretty good athlete and is being drafted on a high octane offense, I was curious how he'd stack in his best case scenario production scenario-- where Barkley isn't there. Meaning he's a 4 year 1,000 yard plus RB with an early breakout age. I'm curious what's holding him back so much in these models if it's not production (which, I'm not guaranteeing he would've had if Barkley hadn't been there, just that it's a non-zero possibility that it could be explained away with him)

[Dynasty DeLorean]

https://www.fantasypros.com/2019/05/pre ... -football/

Monty score is particularly funny.

-33%,

Pretty interesting work. I like how it seems to identify players that will be at least somewhat productive, Aaron Jones is someone who sticks out to me as a player who would have been easily identifiable and obtainable at low cost if you were using their model. ID'ing a player like him at that price seems very valuable. On the other hand, the sample size is pretty small (only about 4 years or so) and it doesn't really differentiate between the Nick Chubb / Derrius Guices of the world and CJ Prosise / Tevin Colemans.

I'll shoot you a PM.

Awesome, looking forward to it.

Yea, I noticed that. But since he's a pretty good athlete and is being drafted on a high octane offense, I was curious how he'd stack in his best case scenario production scenario-- where Barkley isn't there. Meaning he's a 4 year 1,000 yard plus RB with an early breakout age. I'm curious what's holding him back so much in these models if it's not production (which, I'm not guaranteeing he would've had if Barkley hadn't been there, just that it's a non-zero possibility that it could be explained away with him)

I completely understand where you're coming from, but the problem with thinking this way is you could take nearly any player and play the what-if game. As for why he's not ranked highly with the z-score, I think they pretty much said he's only average or above average in many areas, so his zscore is going to be average. He doesn't really have any elite traits in his profile.

[Sriracha]

I completely understand where you're coming from, but the problem with thinking this way is you could take nearly any player and play the what-if game. As for why he's not ranked highly with the z-score, I think they pretty much said he's only average or above average in many areas, so his zscore is going to be average. He doesn't really have any elite traits in his profile.

I see what you're saying, I just feel that Sanders playing behind a RB of Saquon's caliber is something that very few elite RBs have had to deal with. Generally speaking, if a RB can't beat out his competition in college that's a major red flag. Dexter Williams not being able to usurp Josh Adams for instance is not a good sign for his NFL prospects. But I don't think it's crazy to say that even the elite RBs in the NFL today would've had a rough time stealing touches from Saquon. Would Ezekiel Elliot, David Johnson, Christian McCaffery have been able to do so? I'm hesitant to say yes, which means, to me at least, that that's a crazy high bar to use against Sanders.

Sanders is absolutely not a safe RB prospect, but in a lackluster RB class I'm very interested in his ceiling. (which is why I'm asking these "what if scenarios" that I don't typically do).

As for his athleticism he's not spectacular in any one thing; however he's top 75th percentile - 83rd percentile in Speed, Burst, Agility.. so he definitely checks the athleticism benchmark.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

I completely understand where you're coming from, but the problem with thinking this way is you could take nearly any player and play the what-if game. As for why he's not ranked highly with the z-score, I think they pretty much said he's only average or above average in many areas, so his zscore is going to be average. He doesn't really have any elite traits in his profile.

I see what you're saying, I just feel that Sanders playing behind a RB of Saquon's caliber is something that very few elite RBs have had to deal with. Generally speaking, if a RB can't beat out his competition in college that's a major red flag. Dexter Williams not being able to usurp Josh Adams for instance is not a good sign for his NFL prospects. But I don't think it's crazy to say that even the elite RBs in the NFL today would've had a rough time stealing touches from Saquon. Would Ezekiel Elliot, David Johnson, Christian McCaffery have been able to do so? I'm hesitant to say yes, which means, to me at least, that that's a crazy high bar to use against Sanders.

Sanders is absolutely not a safe RB prospect, but in a lackluster RB class I'm very interested in his ceiling. (which is why I'm asking these "what if scenarios" that I don't typically do).

Yeah, I get it. Weird situations happen sometimes, like when Gore, Portis and McGahee all shared the same backfield at one point. You had Fournette/Guice. I remember someone making a similar argument for a different player not too long ago, and these types of situations were all posted. Can't remember exactly where though.

edit: Nevermind, found what i was thinking of. Argument was for Josh Jacobs I believe. Starts here https://forum.dynastyleaguefootball.com ... 0#p1624390 and gets maybe a little more specific to what we're talking about here https://forum.dynastyleaguefootball.com ... 9#p1624909

Not exactly apples to apples as to what we're discussing but similar enough maybe.

[Sriracha]

I completely understand where you're coming from, but the problem with thinking this way is you could take nearly any player and play the what-if game. As for why he's not ranked highly with the z-score, I think they pretty much said he's only average or above average in many areas, so his zscore is going to be average. He doesn't really have any elite traits in his profile.

I see what you're saying, I just feel that Sanders playing behind a RB of Saquon's caliber is something that very few elite RBs have had to deal with. Generally speaking, if a RB can't beat out his competition in college that's a major red flag. Dexter Williams not being able to usurp Josh Adams for instance is not a good sign for his NFL prospects. But I don't think it's crazy to say that even the elite RBs in the NFL today would've had a rough time stealing touches from Saquon. Would Ezekiel Elliot, David Johnson, Christian McCaffery have been able to do so? I'm hesitant to say yes, which means, to me at least, that that's a crazy high bar to use against Sanders.

Sanders is absolutely not a safe RB prospect, but in a lackluster RB class I'm very interested in his ceiling. (which is why I'm asking these "what if scenarios" that I don't typically do).

Yeah, I get it. Weird situations happen sometimes, like when Gore, Portis and McGahee all shared the same backfield at one point. You had Fournette/Guice. I remember someone making a similar argument for a different player not too long ago, and these types of situations were all posted. Can't remember exactly where though.

edit: Nevermind, found what i was thinking of. Argument was for Josh Jacobs I believe. Starts here https://forum.dynastyleaguefootball.com ... 0#p1624390 and gets maybe a little more specific to what we're talking about here https://forum.dynastyleaguefootball.com ... 9#p1624909

Not exactly apples to apples as to what we're discussing but similar enough maybe.

I'd say Saquon was a better college prospect than every single RB you mentioned, which is the point I'm getting at. Elite RB's having to deal with other elite RBs in the same backfield isn't that rare. But none of these guys have had to compete with Saquon Barkley-- who broke the yards created metric and couldn't have been a better RB prospect if you created one in a lab.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

I'd say Saquon was a better college prospect than every single RB you mentioned, which is the point I'm getting at. Elite RB's having to deal with other elite RBs in the same backfield isn't that rare. But none of these guys have had to compete with Saquon Barkley-- who broke the yards created metric and couldn't have been a better RB prospect if you created one in a lab.

I get it, but even if you ignore the saquon factor he doesn't profile as an elite guy anyway.

[Sriracha]

I'd say Saquon was a better college prospect than every single RB you mentioned, which is the point I'm getting at. Elite RB's having to deal with other elite RBs in the same backfield isn't that rare. But none of these guys have had to compete with Saquon Barkley-- who broke the yards created metric and couldn't have been a better RB prospect if you created one in a lab.

I get it, but even if you ignore the saquon factor he doesn't profile as an elite guy anyway.

Oh for sure, I'm just hoping he turns into an RB2 with RB1 upside. I don't think he has a shot at joining the top 5.

[Defender]

Yeah, I get it. Weird situations happen sometimes, like when Gore, Portis and McGahee all shared the same backfield at one point. You had Fournette/Guice. I remember someone making a similar argument for a different player not too long ago, and these types of situations were all posted. Can't remember exactly where though.

edit: Nevermind, found what i was thinking of. Argument was for Josh Jacobs I believe. Starts here https://forum.dynastyleaguefootball.com ... 0#p1624390 and gets maybe a little more specific to what we're talking about here https://forum.dynastyleaguefootball.com ... 9#p1624909

The Gurley / Chubb / Michel backfield is a crazy one to consider.