Zero RB As Easy As It's Portrayed?

[Sandman62]

Is the assumption that it’s easy to find viable RB1/2s in the mid-rounds a flawed premise of the Zero-RB strategy? True, many RBs who end up in the top-24 will ultimately have come from draft spots much later. But how likely are we to be able to identify them at our drafts?

Taking a look back at 2015:

• Number of RBs that finished in the top 24, but were drafted outside top 24: 11 (46%)
- So are people looking at that 46% ratio and thinking “I have roughly 50:50 odds of hitting on a top-24 RB if I wait and draft them from later ADPs”?
 - The problem with that is that our crystal balls don’t tell us upfront which RBs beyond the top 24 will end up in that group.

• Number of RBs drafted in a 12-team non-DC league: on average 72 (6 each)
- So the actual hit ratio on RBs drafted outside the top 24 who end up there is 11/48 (72-24), or 23%, not 11/24 (46%)
 - IOW, there’s a 77% chance that we miss on getting RB1/2 value from RBs drafted outside the top 24.

We aren't likely to see as many injuries to elite RBs this year as we did last year. Plus, with so many other owners adopting ZeroRB, there'll be more competition for WRs early, as well as for mid-round RBs. So does that make it even harder to hit?

Hmmm, maybe zagging while others zig is worth considering?

[Jersey Dawg]

I agree. If you are near the end of the first round you can grab one or even two of the "top 5" projected RB's or one or two of the 8th to 10th "projected" top WR's so you might want to zag.

[Sandman62]

I agree. For example, here was my start in a slow DC that started July 8:

1 10 Todd Gurley RB
2 3 Adrian Peterson RB
3 3 Sammy Watkins WR
4 10 DeVante Parker WR
5 3 Larry Fitzgerald WR
6 10 Giovani Bernard RB
7 3 Coby Fleener

[BigBlueNation]

great start Mike, though I'm kinda surprised you didn't take AP in the first and hope Gurley made it back to you in the second .

[nolencole]

Would this determine the dilemma? Mano A Mano, Top 3 from each

Antonio Brown, O'dell Beckam, & Julio Jones
versus
David Johnson, Todd Gurley, & Leveon Bell (0 SUSP)

Who would you take?

[Greg Ambrosius]

I agree. If you are near the end of the first round you can grab one or even two of the "top 5" projected RB's or one or two of the 8th to 10th "projected" top WR's so you might want to zag.

I don't know about that Pete. Since about 16 WRs go in the first two rounds and 24 WRs in the first three rounds, you might get two Top 5 RBs but you're probably getting the 17th or 18th WR in the third round. And then the dropoff is even bigger for your WR2 and WR3, whereas the guy going with 3 WRs or even 4 WRs is still getting guys like Carlos Hyde, DeMarco Murray, Dion Lewis, etc. as RBs 16-18 in Round 5. You can definitely zag this year, but you better find three breakout WRs in Rounds 3-6 if you do that.