Blair Andrews helps you find a simple hack that delivered a 40% RB breakout rate. Want to find four RBs who are about to break out? Read on.
As we enter the hot phase of fantasy football, the RotoViz team helps you find the most valuable fantasy product of all: the running back who will conquer the league. Shawn Siegele started the world-famous Zero RB Candidates Countdown. Michael Dubner surpassed him with How history helps you win the RB playoff championand Kevin Szafraniec helps you find the next James Conner and David Johnson.
It’s a good week for RotoViz subscribers.
My recent work has included a number of in-depth studies of wide receiver breakouts. Understanding the relationships between experience and performance, the myths about age curves, the power of secondary breakouts, and the role of talent is imperative when implementing our WR-heavy strategies.
So with Running Back Week happening at RotoViz HQ, it’s the perfect time to check out the RB breakouts.
What is the difference between RB and WR breakouts?
First, simply being on the field isn’t enough for a WR to be at least minimally productive, whereas RBs can be. WRs have to get free skates to “earn” a target. RBs don’t have to “earn” appearances — or arguably targets — in the same way (which isn’t to say they don’t have to play well). That means an RB who earns the coaching staff’s trust enough to get offensive snaps is likely to be productive.
Population changes
Second, WR careers tend to be longer than RB careers, creating more opportunities for late WR breakouts. A late RB breakout isn’t impossible, but consider this chart showing the makeup of the RB population.
Over 85% of RBs in the NFL over the last eight years have been 28 or younger. When you compare WRs on the same chart, the difference seems small, but notice how much lower the peak is for WRs at 24 years old.
The age range of WRs is less pronounced than that of RBs, primarily because there are more older WRs in the NFL. In other words, there are simply fewer older RBs, so outbreaks in older players should be less common.
Experience and career paths
This becomes a little clearer when we examine the population by experience rather than age.
At both positions, year two is higher than year one, but that’s mostly due to the number of rookies at both positions who aren’t playing offensive snaps or recording offensive stats. However, you can see again that the percentage of RBs playing in years 4 and 5 is higher than WRs. At the same time, the percentage of WRs playing in years 8, 9, 10, and 11 is higher than RBs. While the shape of the population curves is largely the same, the details point to some subtle differences that actually make a difference.
