In the modern forward passing game of football the team who’s QB posts the higher “QBER” is the team that wins 74.9% of the time. QBER is calculated thusly — Passing Yards + Rushing Yards – Sack Yards Lost – (30xTurnovers) / Incompletions plus Sacks.
Over the past few weeks, armed with new statistical information, I have done an Adjusted QBER (adjusted to the 2021 average of 14.9) for all of the candidates for “greatest QB of all time” that I could find on the various internet lists.
Having done so, the clear winner at the moment is Otto Graham. Graham played quarterback for the Cleveland Browns in the early 1950s, and he posted an incredible 0.831% winning percentage during his NFL career. (I only considered Otto’s season in the NFL, none of his years in the All-American Football Conference were included.) Graham’s adjusted QBER of 29.7 is far and away the best I have yet to find.
This is not to say Graham was the most skilled QB of all time — indeed his 11.3 career QBER would be horrible today. However, when one takes into consideration the fact that the average NFL QB posted a 5.3 QBER through his career, he is the greatest relative QB of all time, and his domination of the position allowed the Browns to dominate the NFL, as they won 3 NFL Championships in his six NFL seasons.
THE 49ERS DOMINANT QUARTERBACKS
The second and third greatest QBs of all time according to Adjusted QBER both played for the 49ers in the 80s and 90s. The second greatest was Steve Young and just behind him was his rival and predecessor Joe Montana. Clearly both benefited from the advanced nature of the “West Coast Offense” established by Bill Walsh in San Francisco in the late 1970s. Young for certain benefited from this offense as his adjusted QBER with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was a below average 13.7, whereas his career Adjusted QBER overall was a second best ever 25.9. That underscores the tremendous work he did as the 49ers signal caller. Indeed, Young stands as the quintessential “QBER” quarterback. Not only did he rarely turn the ball over, he had an extremely high completion percentage and was a modern running QB at a time when most QBs were statues.
PACKER AND STEELER FANS MAY BE MAD
My rankings will not win me many Packer or Steeler fans. Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre, Ben Roethlisberger, and Terry Bradshaw all come in the bottom half of the rankings. For Favre and Bradshaw, the problem was too many turnovers. For Rodgers and Roethlisberger the problem is a late career slump. Rodgers has actually pulled out of his slump, but his five or so seasons of average quarterbacking may make it impossible for him to rally any higher on our list.
JOLLY ROGER STAUBACH
The one QB who doesn’t seem to get the respect he deserves is Roger Staubach. His 1971 “split season” where he and Craig Morton shared QB duties ranks as the best season ever produced by any quarterback. His adjusted QBER in that season was an incredible 40.2, a level of dominance that I cannot imagine any modern QB will ever achieve.
In an attempt to do the undoable, I have done an analysis of rookie (and Etienne) running backs who are being drafted in Fantasy Football in order to try to find their fantasy potential.
How did I do it? I simply used the same method I used for NFL backs, my “Per52Snaps” evaluation, but then applied it to their college performance. One caveat, I have no college snap data, so I simply assumed each back would get the average number of NFL carries per snap and the average number of NFL targets per snap for running backs.
One other thing I did is what I call “YPC Above Teammates” which is an attempt to decipher how many of the college yards per carry each player gained compared to the yards per carry gained by their collective college running back teammates. Now, this gets tricky when it comes to players like Brian Robinson, because he could very well have NFL caliber teammates whereas Breece Hall at Iowa State might not. Nevertheless it is an educational data point.
RESULTS: GOOD FOR COOK AND PIERCE, NOT FOR SPILLER
The one back who really shined in this evaluation was Buffalo’s James Cook. He had the highest Per52Snap production at Georgia, and those numbers were not illusory because he outgained his teammates per carry by a healthy margin. I will say Footballoutsiders are not that high on Cook because of his size and lack of usage in college. Nevertheless, as you can see his Per52Snap numbers in college exceed Jonathan Taylor’s numbers at Wisconsin and his YPC Above Teammates are comparable (I can only do backs drafted in the last three seasons because I don’t have their college target information past 2019)
Another back who shone well was Damien Pierce of the Texans. He should be even hotter because it looks like he will get a ton of usage, whereas Cook might be a committee back. Breece Hall was pretty good too but I guess I expected a bit more out of him given the hype. Finally, the best pass catcher in the bunch is Travis Etienne of Jacksonville. This should be no surprise because he looks much more like a wide receiver than a running back. His rush numbers were mediocre.
The worst guy was Isaiah Spiller of the LA Chargers. He was a poor pass catcher at Texas AM and could not outrush his teammates, two big fantasy red flags.
When it comes to Fantasy Football, its great to have a Tyreek Hill who can suddenly explode for 44 points and carry the week. But I’ve always preferred players who put up good averages and can avoid “bust” weeks.
So a couple of years ago I developed what I call the Fantasy Football Reliability Rating for each player, and today I will share my chart with you for use during your Fantasy Drafts.
The Fantasy Football Reliability Rating starts by judging each player’s game appearances last season according to the percentage of starts that can be called a “poor start” (below average) a “quality start” (in the range of average) and a “great start” (exceeding positional average).
After establishing the 3 different categories of starts, I then give each player a “Reliability Rating” by giving each player double credit for the percentage of great starts, add them to the percentage of quality starts, and then subtract from that the percentage of poor starts. The resulting number is the player’s “Reliability Rating”.
How to Use the Reliability Rating
Here’s how I use the Reliability Rating. I take it as a baseline of consistency and compare that player’s consistency (as well as projected average) to the consistency of those players around them. But its just a guide. If I believe the number could change because of a change of circumstances this season, I take that into account as well. However, when I see that both Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry have risks because of past injuries and depreciating performance, but then look closer and see that Henry’s Reliability Rating is 100 whereas Barkley’s is -30, I’m going to fade Barkley much harder than Henry because neither has provided me with any information that would lead me to believe that those numbers are illusory.
WHERE THEIR KUBIAK MODEL DIFFERS FROM THE FANTASY FOOTBALL DRAFTING PUBLIC
One of my favorite, if not my very favorite, NFL “analytic” sites is footballoutsiders.com. I’ve been reading it for years, and their “DVOA” system is one of the best “competition and situation” adjusted ways I have found to evaluate how NFL players are truly performing, not just what their box score statistics are telling me.
On their site they have a Fantasy Football prediction model called the “KUBIAK” model. Don’t ask me how it works, I have no clue (but I think it is named after former Denver Broncos QB and NFL coach Gary Kubiak — again, don’t ask me why).
One caveat. Last season I was invited to join an additional Fantasy League and just for shits and grins I drafted my team entirely based upon Kubiak advice. Yahoo rated my team by far the best in the league after the draft. I finished near the bottom of the league (not blaming it on KUBIAK, just making a point).
Oh, second caveat. I’m not listing kickers or defenses or quarterbacks, unless its a shocking divergence (they hate Justin Fields much more than the public). And I’m focusing on players you might actually draft, so I’m not going to mention how much more they hate WR Sammy Watkins than the general public.
With that out of the way, here we go
LOVES: WR JULIO JONES (Espn Delta: +118)
There is no player Footballoutsiders’s model is more out of step with the public on than Tampa Bay WR Julio Jones. They currently have him rated #41 overall and WR15. As far as the public is concerned, Julio is not even draftable in even larger sized leagues.
I will not be justifying the Footballoutsiders’s picks because I don’t know how their Kubiak works. But I will say Julio Jones PPR production last season on catchable targets as well as his air yard conversion rate was very good. He seemed the old Julio in every way except his body broke down on him (which has to be a major concern again). Also, Tom Brady WAY overtargeted Antonio Brown last season and that bastard almost won my regular league for me if he didn’t go mental. This was especially the case in games where Rob Gronkowski did not play.
So there is some justification for their love of Julio. Perhaps Footballoutsiders’s sees Julio as Tom Brady’s “substitute Gronk”. There certainly doesn’t seem to be anyone else who fits the bill (unless Brady concentrates on existing receivers like Evans and Godwin).
MY JUDGMENT: Take a late round flier on Julio, but don’t get crazy early
HATES: ROOKIE RECEIVERS (Except Traylon Burks)
The Footballoutsiders model is almost universally lower on every single rookie wide receiver than the public, with the only exception being Tennessee WR Traylon Burks.
The most disagreement is with Skyy Moore who’s delta is -104. I suspect after the negative news that has come out regarding his spot on the depth chart, the public and Footballoutsiders will begin to converge before Labor Day (actually the largest disagreement is with Detroit WR Jamieson Williams whom the public must just be taking wild fliers on, because its not even certain he will play at all).
But let’s not pick on Moore, it seems the FO’s are less enthusiastic about all of them to varying degrees. The rookie wideout they rank highest is the aforementioned Traylon Burks, but they only have him at WR 43, which would put him outside the 8th round in my league.
MY JUDGMENT: Only use late picks on Rookie WRs
LOVES: RB RASHAAD PENNY (ESPN Delta +65)
FootballOutsiders has killed my buzz on some midround players I was really high on, but one where we are in agreement is Rashaad Penny. They have him at RB24, and I have him in that same range.
His “Per52Snap” production has been excellent, amongst the highest in NFL running back category. His DVOA put him among the most productive running backs in the NFL last season. His “Broken Tackle/Missed Tackle” percentage was also among the highest in the NFL last season and has been outstanding throughout his career.
There are only two problems with him. One, he cannot stay healthy. But at his current ADP that is baked in. Plus, the public seems to have no problem with Saquon Barkley, who not only cannot stay healthy but has seen his production per opportunity plummet since his rookie season. Second, he is not often used in the passing game. But that is more than overcome by him having the highest “touchdown neutral” fantasy point per rush in the NFL. If you will overlook injury for one guy, why not the other?
Finally, the Seahawks love to run the ball, and the rookie from Michigan State Kenneth Williams looks like he will be out to start the season. And I imagine their QBs will be checking down more than Russell Wilson was willing to do throughout his Seahawks’ career. I’m all in on Penny as a possible league winner.
MY JUDGMENT: Pounce on him in the mid rounds
HATES: WR TERRY MCLAURIN (Espn -30)
Here is where I have to part ways (oooooh so reluctantly) with the Footballoutsiders (I’ll have a few more disagreements when I do Part 2 to this post). I don’t see why they are so down on Commanders WR Terry Mclaurin, but they have him way down at WR29.
My thinking is: (a) he will have his best QB he’s ever had, albeit Carson Wentz; (b) last season Wentz loved to target Michael Pittman and Mclaurin runs similar routes to Pittman, albeit with more dynamism; and (c) I think its reasonable to assume he will get around 6.3 “catchable targets” per game, which would translate into roughly 15.2 “touchdown neutral” PPR points per game (meaning, if he scored a touchdown at the NFL WR average of one per 165 receiving yards).
In the Footballoutsiders favor: (a) Mclaurin’s touchdown neutral production did dip last season from his career average of 2.47 ppr per catchable target to 2.36; and (b) his “Air Yard Conversion” rate (which means the difference between his receiving yards and the number of yards he would have had if he just caught every “catchable target” and fell down) dipped alarmingly from his career average of 96.4 to his career low of 82.6, which is below NFL average even when taking into account depth of target (by comparison JaMaar Chase had the same average depth of target and had an Air Yard Conversion rate of 120.1).
MY JUDGMENT: I’m with the public, and expect a bounce back year for Mclaurin
(PART TWO OF THIS POST COMING IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS)
Continuing with the theme from my last post that Red Zone opportunities are worth much more in Fantasy Football than opportunities between the 20s, today I measure the percentage of catchable targets that each WR/TE whom I consider draftable gets in the Red Zone.
If you look at the RZ workload percentages below you will see that some WR/TEs are targeted much more often in the Red Zone than others.
Heavy Workload Players
If you are using the Red Zone Workloads from below to evaluate pass catchers for your Fantasy Football draft, I would pay most attention to the extremes.
On one extreme we have the Buffalo Bills WR2 Gabriel Davis and TE Dawson Knox. A heavy margin of their catchable targets are high value opportunities. The same goes for Adam Thielen, who is one of my sleeper Fantasy WRs. He is targeted heavily in the Red Zone.
Interestingly, everyone says that Tampa Bay looks exclusively to Mike Evans in the red zone, but in fact, Chris Godwin had a higher Red Zone Workload. The one surprise I had on the high end was Cooper Kupp. I wouldn’t have thought he was so heavily used by the Rams in the Red Zone, but he was.
Also, with Davante Adams and his big contract now in Las Vegas, one must assume Hunter Renfrow’s Red Zone Workload will fall
“Between the 20s” WRs and TEs
If most of your work comes between the 20 yard lines, that is not good for Fantasy Football purposes because of the heavy weight given to touchdowns. How many times are you left begging when one of your WRs helps the team get down the field only to have some big lug TE vulture his touchdown?
18.8% is Average Red Zone Workload
Among the chosen 54 pass catchers on my list, 18.8% Red Zone Workload is the average. If a guy you are considering drafting falls below that workload, you should take that into consideration.
For instance, the player on the bottom of the list, New England WR Jakobi Myers, is a very productive fantasy producer between the 20s, but the Patriots like to use TEs and especially RBs in the Red Zone (see my last post). Therefore you must give him a haircut when it comes to Fantasy PPR estimates.
Will CeeDee Lamb inherit Amari Cooper’s Red Zone Workload?
An intriguing question from the list is who on the Dallas Cowboys gets Amari Cooper’s Red Zone targets? As you can see, last season the choice Cowboy goal line targets went heavily to Amari. Dalton Schultz also got above average chances. The question is: will CeeDee Lamb necessarily inherit those or will the Cowboys go heavier to the TE and RB style game that the Patriots favor? Is there something inherent in Lamb’s game that makes him an undesirable target in the Red Zone? Time will tell
WR/TE RED ZONE WORKLOAD CHART
Information Sources: Footballoutsiders and SIS Datahub
Fantasy Football experts like to say that what happens to a running back between the 20s “is for losers”. So it occurred to me I ought to find out who gets the most opportunities per snap in the revered Red Zone.
Thus below is my “RB Red Zone Rating” which is a weighted measure of the number of opportunities each of the backs I have in my “draftable” category get in the Red Zone. Since red zone carries are worth 1.2 PPR points and targets are worth 2.3 PPR points, I weighted each players opportunity accordingly.
Akers, Fournette, Taylor top the list
Cam Akers is atop the list but with a caveat. All of his numbers are 2020 and thus pre-Stafford. However, since Darrell Henderson rated fairly highly, my guess is that Akers will get his fair share of red zone touches. Another player who should be highly coveted for his red zone usage is Tampa Bay’s Leonard Fournette. He gets both carries and targets in the red zone and those make him very valuable.
The “Zeke gets the Red Zone Touches” Myth
I hate to keep pounding a dead horse, but the RB Red Zone Rating puts the lie to yet another Zeke Elliott myth, ie that he “gets all the red zone touches”. In fact if you look at the red zone rating, both he and Pollard have almost identical opportunities, in the air and on the ground. One more reason to be wary of Elliott.
Saquon Barkley and Najee Harris are pure volume plays
People seem to be assuming Saquon Barkley will be back to the old Saquon this season. But, he’s got red flags everywhere. His Per52 production is very poor, he’s unlikely to get huge snap numbers again because of his fragility and he gets next to no goal line action.
The same is true with Steelers’ RB Najee Harris except he IS likely to get huge volume snaps. Otherwise he’s a bad play because he his Per52 production was just as poor as Barkley and he didn’t get much action down at the goal line.
Another guy who is hurt by the Red Zone Rating is DeAndre Swift. If you look at his Red Zone numbers and compare them to backfield mate Williams, it is clear that the Lions like to switch Swift out at the goal line which means many of the touchdowns he “earns” with his production will be vultured.
Look to the Packers and Patriots
Two teams who LOVE to use all of their backs in the Red Zone are the Patriots and the Green Bay Packers. Both teams have two backs who rate above 100 in the RB Red Zone Rating. If the Patriots go with a two back rotation, as the Packers are almost certain to do, then one back will be slightly more valuable, but both backs will have clear value. They will get the big time touches, especially in Green Bay where Red Zone magnet Davante Adams is gone and TE Robert Tonyan is still recovering from an ACL injury and likely will not be in full swing until midseason.
A few years ago I developed a quarterback metric I call “QBPA” or “Quarterback Production Average”. Essentially it tracks every forward yard each quarterback directly produced for every snap he played, after deducting for turnovers and sack yards lost.
Quarterback production is not as important as quarterback efficiency, but if you are not efficient you damn well better be productive. Jordan Love of the Green Bay Packers has been neither. He is at the bottom of the NFL in QBER, which measures efficiency, and he is second only to Netflix’s Jake Fromm as the lowest producing quarterback on a down for down basis.
PACKERS COULD HAVE HAD HURTS
No one is saying Jalen Hurts is a superstar. But he had a MUCH better college career than Jordan Love and so far he is grossly outperforming him at the NFL level. The Packers could have stayed where they were at in the 2020 NFL Draft and gotten Hurts instead of trading up to get the erratic Jordan Love.
Hurts may not be the best downfield thrower, but he is fourth in the NFL in QBPA because he can run with the ball, a skill he frequently displayed in college. He also displayed a highly efficient passing game at both Alabama and Oklahoma. If he develops that this season with the addition of AJ Brown, he will move himself into the top tier of quarterbacks. Meanwhile, Jordan Love averaged less than 3 yards a run at Utah State and had a promising junior season, and a disastrous senior season. And after three seasons he was still amongst the worst passers in Week One of the preseason. Yet the Packers chose him with Hurts on the board.
SOPHOMORES ALL CONGREGATE NEAR THE BOTTOM
Though they are nowhere near as bad as Jordan Love, it is funny to see last season’s top rookie QBs all congregated in the bottom tier, even the heralded Mac Jones at around 1.23-1.28 forward yards per snap. The Texans have to be encouraged to see Davis Mills tied with Trevor Lawrence and just behind Mac Jones since they drafted him well after his fellow rookies. Zack Wilson is the worst of the crop at below one forward yard per snap.
FAVORING THE RUNNING QB?
The metric obviously favors the running quarterback to a certain degree. Nevertheless as Tyrod Taylor’s sub 1.0 average shows, it isn’t a guarantee of a successful average. Moreover, old man Tom Brady, who can’t run at all, is among the leaders because he pushes the ball downfield and protects the ball in general.
DETROIT LIONS PROBLEMS
I know Jared Goff is not Johnny Unitas, nevertheless I was surprised to see him down lower than any of the rookie class. He turned the ball over too much, didn’t run it that often, took too many sacks, and didn’t push the ball downfield. Thus, the Lions were totally dependent upon his supporting cast to move the football. Backup and former Packer QB Tim Boyle was even worse. He is down in Jordan Love country.
Every Fantasy Football season, one of the trickiest things players must do in the run-up to their Fantasy drafts is to determine the Fantasy “fallout” of new situations.
There’s a new situation in Miami. The Dolphins traded for Chiefs WR Tyreek Hill. Hill has been one of the most explosive Fantasy receivers ever. He could single-handedly win games for his owners when he was a Chief.
But the Dolphins already had Jaylen Waddle, whom some draft experts considered a “Tyreek Hill Lite”. Moreover, Waddle did something few rookies have done in the past — he developed such a trust with QB Tua Tagoviola that he received an incredible 7.7 catchable targets per game.
So how do we evaluate Waddle and Hill this season? I’m putting Waddle ahead of Hill for the following reasons:
1. TARGET DEPTH
Waddle’s average depth of target was 6.3 yards. Hill’s average depth of target for his career is over 11 yards. Thus one can assume Waddle was targeted alot by Tua because he served as a sort of “training wheels” checkdown for Tua. My instinct tells me Tua will not shake that habit.
Moreover, Tua throws most efficiently to the area where Waddle is mostly targeted — the shallow depth. Hill, on the other hand, is a middle depth receiver. Tua has had a hard time throwing to that area.
2. ALABAMA CONNECTION
This might be overstated, but one of the reasons I think Waddle was so productive last season was because he had an established history at Alabama with Tua.
I realize Tyreek Hill has been brownnosing Tua all summer, but I don’t think it will be enough to make him Tua’s “go to” receiver.
3. AN ASCENDING RECEIVER vs A DECLINING RECEIVER
I use a WR metric I call “Catchable Target Conversion Rate”. For his career, Tyreek Hill has a CTCR of 109.5% at an average target depth of 10.8 yards. That’s pretty respectable. However, last season that number declined significantly to 91.4% indicating a possible decline in his skills.
By contrast, Jaylon Waddle produced an incredible CTCR of 171.4% on targets averaging on 6.3 yards. Even if you adjust for shallower depth of target, that is incredible production. It wouldn’t make sense for Tua to go away from such a productive and ascending talent simply to appease an aging veteran who’s shining him up.
BEST GUESS: WADDLE vs HILL
Thus, I am guessing Waddle will be the alpha receiver when it comes to “catchable targets” among the Dolphin’s WR corp. I still have him getting a haircut from 7.7 to 6.1 catchable targets per game, but I have him higher than Tyreek Hill’s projected 5.7 catchable targets per game.
Will they get enough opportunities to be Fantasy Gods?
Going into my Fantasy WR evaluations this summer, the two receivers high on my list to be big time producers were Deebo Samuel of the Niners and Ceedee Lamb of the Dallas Cowboys.
Deebo was high on my list because he is incredibly productive with “catchable targets” and I assumed San Francisco would continue to feed him heavily. And Ceedee Lamb was high on the list because it appeared that the departure of Amari Cooper left him as the “alpha” receiver in Dallas.
Then two things happened. First, I began to hear reports out of SF saying that Samuel is a bit out of shape and hasn’t made a “connection” with the new SF QB Trey Lance. Then I went back and looked at the catchable targets he received in the two games started by Lance last season. The catchable targets were depressed. Therefore, in my initial evaluation of Samuels I went from a top 3 guy to below the top 10. It pains me to do that, because I was SUPER high on Samuels a month ago, but I have to go with the evidence.
As to Ceedee Lamb, it seems like he would be fed mega-targets from Dak Prescott. However, I went back into the archives and found that Prescott has never been a “myopic WR” quarterback.
Even in the first season when the Cowboys were so depressed at WR that they made the midseason trade for Amari Cooper, Cooper received only 5.8 “catchable targets” per game. In fact, Cooper never got more than 6.0 catchable targets per game at anytime during his tenure with the Cowboys.
Even with that historical data, I am projecting Lamb to receive 6.6 “catchable targets” per game. However, because Lamb has only produced 2.41 PPR per catchable target for his career and 2.38 last season, that “high” number of catchable targets only puts him at 15.7 fantasy points per game, which is not top five
Do Your Own Evaluations, this is Informational
I would encourage you all to do your own evaluations. Don’t take what I am saying as Gospel. However, when you are doing those analysis, if you find my arguments compelling, take them into account.
Below I have taken the “Per 52 Snaps” metric which I introduced in my last post, both from last season and for each player’s career, and used those to predict each player’s PPR fantasy production based on my best guess as to how many snaps each player will receive this season. I also made a guess for each RB based on their college production and their estimated snaps per game.
THE CONSISTENCY OF PER 52 SNAPS
The consistency of each RBs “Per 52 Snaps” was remarkable. The only thing that seems to vary is the number of snaps each player receives from his team. That applies no matter whether a player has remained with the same team or has been a journeyman. In either case, his usage on the ground and in the air, and his production in both areas will generally be consistent across his career (until he sees a Zeke Elliott type collapse).
RBs I LIKE MORE THAN OTHERS
My rankings are fairly consistent with those you will find elsewhere except in a couple instances. I am very high on Denver’s Javonte Williams. I believe he will receive an “Aaron Jones” load of 39 snaps per game from his new coach. That would make him a very valuable back. His “Broken Tackle plus Missed Tackle” percentage according to SISDatahub was the best in the NFL last season and I expect him to improve on his very strong rookie numbers. I also like Elijah Mitchell, even though predicting the 49ers backfield has been dicey at best. But I truly believe he will get around 35 snaps and will post excellent numbers.
I’m also a bit higher on Cleveland’s Nick Chubb than others for a simple reason — his numbers are incredibly consistent and with Kareem Hunt’s bad attitude, I assume that Chubb will not only get the 34 snaps he’s been averaging over his career, he will get a few more. And if he does, he will put up good numbers.
As I stated in my last post, I am also very high on Dallas’s Tony Pollard and very low on Dallas’s Zeke Elliott (see below). Pollard is so much more productive than Elliott I am gambling that Dallas will increase Pollard’s workload from 24ish snaps to around 30ish snaps or more. If they do, Pollard is a “league winner” in Fantasy because he is highly productive.
I’m also very high on Rashaad Penny. The only variable for him is snap count, because if he gets a decent to near decent amount of snaps he will produce because he always has. He also needs to stay healthy. But if he does he too can be a league winner.
Finally, I think I rank the Jets RB Breece Hall much higher than others, but his college production both on the ground and in the air warrants the ranking. His PPR per game in college was 24.9. Even if you give him a 40% haircut, he’s still looking like this season’s Jonathon Taylor.
RBs WHOM I DON’T LIKE
RBs I am lower on than others starts with Zeke Elliott. I wouldn’t go anywhere near him in a ten team draft unless it is a lower round. His production is cratering and he has Tony Pollard behind him whose production has been stellar. My advice is to stay away from Zeke.
I’m also much lower on players like James Connor. Connor is a pure volume play. He has never been all that productive on a snap-by-snap basis and so he must get heavy usage to score well for you but he’s aging so I don’t see real heavy usage.
I also don’t like Cam Akers, mostly because I do not trust the Rams RB usage system. They seem to limit their backs to around 25 snaps per game and that just won’t get it done in fantasy.
Another back I am low on is Chicago’s David Montgomery. He’s purely a “grinder” who needs heavy usage to score even modestly in fantasy. He’s lucky his backup isn’t really that much more productive. Take Montgomery as a flex and that’s it.
MY RB RANKINGS
Below are my RB Fantasy rankings, along with their “Per 52 Snap” scores from last season and from their career.
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