The Best Running Back Draft Strategy (+ A Mock Draft) 

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This topic and video are a gem! A whole new angle to view the game from. Can’t think of a reason this isn’t the best video of his that I’ve seen to date✊🏽

There are so many WRs and only a handful of full workload RBs. Give me Anchor RB and wait on that RB2 until late fill everything else with WR or TE.

Love the idea of explaining your data analysis and then actively going through and making an example of a draft implementing that information into a real draft! 🙌

Beautiful video Mason! These are by far my favorite ones you do! Thank you!

Would you be interested in doing a best values video for platforms outside of underdog? Like ESPN or NFL platform? I’m seeing players like Pacheco go round 1 and MVH go round 3. Seems so backwards lol

Love the insight thanks for all the advice heading into the fantasy season!!!!

great video Mason! love seeing the numbers break down for the different strategies on choosing your first RB, the numbers were surprising and important info for us sickos!!!

Appreciate the grind my man! Motha Flocka!

Really dope and informative video, thanks Flock 👍

My favorite video of the off-season thus far. Keep up the good work Mason!

Individual players will throw off these numbers by quite a bit. For example Josh Jacobs is probably the reason for such a high advance rate for RBs drafted in the 7th

Wow awesome Video! Great insight

Would love a video like this for every position, great work

Awesome vid

Great video!

I’m typing this before watching, but I’ve won a lot with the high T strategy. Usually grabbing 1-3 rbs to start the draft. Obviously there’s exceptions. But rbs have more value in fantasy football so if there is a wr and a rb you view about the same(in the early rounds) take the rb.

Great Video Mason, how would we extrapolate this to a redraft that isn’t best ball? Do you think the sentiment stands that we can wait on RB?

One of your best videos

Awesome breakdown! I would love to see an analysis like this done for QBs in superflex/2QBleagues. Just a thought...?

love the insight hopefully can help me win big!! would this strategy be viable in a home league non best ball or is this specifically for underdog

Can you make a video on draft strategies for private underdog drafts? Love this video too

There are always a handful of RBs who get drafted late or go undrafted who have a breakout year. The key is to pick them up in waivers the first few weeks.

Awesome data and video on what this looks like on best ball. Would you be able to show how you would apply this strategy in a redraft format?

Last year i won my family ppr redraft league with the zero rb approach. Went wr, wr, wr, qb, te, rb, rb, rb. Ended up with Lamar, JJ, aman ra, aj brown, andrews, Breece, montgomery, and conner. Got achane on waivers too lol

Would this info also be for regular non bestball non dynasty draft ?

Do you think the hero RB is a good strategy in dynasty leagues? Been taking a lot of Gibbs/ hall in round 2 then don’t take another rb until round 6 or 7 usually mixon or Montgomery

All of this guy's videos seem to forget two main things: 1 - real world drafts have lots of surprises, and many players go way way later then they are projected to go 2 - many of the the best players at each position are very often players who nobody thought would be very good ... cases in point are Puka and Kyren last season

I love the hero rb strat

What about in my friends non ppr league 2wr, 2rb, 1flx, is rb more important?

Dude at 3 was very kind for taking Henry round 2 and kamara round 3

not sure if its available or not with this or you need the raw data but I think it would also be interesting to segment by avg rd taking a rb = sum(rounds rb taken)/number of rbs taken. You might even want total pick number. I think you would find some interesting patterns even amoung the same tier. Like taking 5 in the top10 vs taking 5 with last picks

Estime could be a sneaky pick in dynasty leagues

I have pick 1.01 in my 10 man ppr redraft. Any strategy I should look into? Should i go CMC and WR in round two?

I got Devon Achan, Raheem Mostert, and Kyren Williams as free agents last season. I had the 2nd highest RB point total in my 8 team league, with the least invested in the position. Which pretty much means that the draft doesn't matter as much as in-season transactions do.

I can’t find these search’s you do on underdog???

I’m not sure this information is available but I’d be very curious to know what percentage breakdown on draft positions 1 through 12. The correlation between success rate and what position the team was drafting from seems interesting and something I think many would enjoy because of how some view various draft positions as being better/worse.

Recievers are very deep this year when you go 4 straight RB it forces other teams to start drafting backs and then you go Recievers that's the gold technique

This is strictly for BB drafts right? And not standard half or full PPR redrafts?

how do these drafts work? How many qbs, wrs, rbs, etc do you need per team?

Whats the sweet spot for this year’s draft? What’s the ideal mock draft position to prepare? Thank you for the content always very helpful

I went zerp half back strat last year, won my league. I did trade for gibbs midway through season.

Yo Mason! Great vid man. I'm PICKEMTHENSICKEM from last night Zay -> Lamar -> Andrews takes, was my first time in the room with you. I've been tinkering with similar Hero/Zero constructions that you point to here and played a version of it last night w Kamara at 6 and then built the full GB MIN game stack with the side Lamar stack (I'm fading from this 3 full stack a bit, as Love round picks are a wrench when you wait on RB, but could def splash) Thanks for all of the awesome insight. Look for me on Monday nights and stay frosty brother! (Ps lol on your side eye at my Hubbard take, still raw from that Young draft, it's cool)

Do these metrics also apply to Half PPR?

Impressive video

These videos are always wild talking about going zero RB because I've been playing fantasy for almost a decade on average 4-5 leagues and all 12 team leagues no dynasty. Every year I ALWAYS either go RB,WR,RB or RB,RB,WR and I have a very good championship rate. I've cashed every year except for 1 (and I'm saying out of all my teams I've had one year when none of them made the playoffs and I didn't cash on anything). I will say I've very active on the waivers but I run with a trio RB strategy to anchor my team and I always either find a RB break out and trade one of my studs prepping for the playoffs. I typically go RB,RB,WR,TE/WR,QB, then I build out the rest of my team around that start more than likely taking the best RB on the board. I was thinking this year if I get a pick in the first 5 picks if chase,ceedee,or hill is there I'm taking them as my first pick then going RB for the next 2-3 picks. I plan on taking stroud early this year but I have been doing mock drafts and the teams I've been putting together smell like championship teams. I've seen if I'm in that top 5-6 picks I've been able to pair saquon and henry/taylor on the same team then also grabbing mixon in the late 4th-5th round.

I've been going with 4 straight running backs and then 4 straight recievers then tight end and Quarterback I'm back to back fantasy Champ

Non PPR league do I keep Bijan or St brown?

Last year I took CMC Gibbs Breece JT But also took Higgins Waddle Mike Williams Luckily I drafted Puka and Laporta in my last 2 rounds

We’re so back

So wondering why not go with Travis Etienne for your 4th pick there and ride it out a bit with him?

Thoughts on taking Mark Andrews instead of Stroud in the 5th, and using the Burrow stack as your QB1? Then you get your elite TE as well

I would be interested on what the optimal build is in a redraft league.

What’s the population for each of these advance rate statistics? Is it the advance rate of teams conditional on the RB round selection? If so that might introduce some bias if we’re comparing within each group - “teams that advanced to [playoffs/semis/finals] selected RB1 in round 4” It might be better to express these as relative edges against the overall population expected value. Essentially if we see that teams that select their RB1 in round 1 make playoffs at a 17% rate, and the overall expected playoff rate is 15%, then that could represent a 2% edge

12 man league right? Thoughts on waiting until round 5 for an RB in 10 man leagues? Thanks for this info dude.

This is very useful information. It would be good to mention that the RB ADP is totally different from years past due to more drafters getting better at drafting and realizing zero rb is the best build. I wonder how the data will look after this year. Will be interesting to see if Zero RB will come out on top, or will a different build come out on top this year due to the adjusted RB ADPs.

U gotta make sure ur data makes sense as ur comparing data from drastically different sample sizes. For example one u have 500k teams and then the same graph with like 10k teams

Would u trade aiyuk for JT, rb weakpoint? Got puka mhj evans pickens, aiyuk, admitchell etc. Jacobs, monty chubb main rbs

thoughts on zero TE? I feel like using a pick on a medium level TE isn't cost effective. once the top 5 TEs are off the board, the scoring variability at TE sort of stagnates. & we're talking about a position that scores less than Kickers for the most part.

Last season I waited on the rbs but I made the emphasis to have several - as u say 7. I made it to the championship. Also, I literally lost the championship by 1 yard when my QB took a knee and time ran out on the game clock. I had won on Fantasy until they adjusted my score and lost by a half of a point. Unbelievable!!

Would love to see a video of how this applies to redraft leagues

i went triple rb last year won two of my leagues and top scored in the other 3 i found going against the consensus strategy is where you can find the undervalued guys

Anyone know if this translates to lineup redraft leagues?

Is this for PPR?

Last year I waited until round 7 to select a RB and out of 56 teams, 52 made playoffs. 15 1st place finishes. What hurt me is benching of players in the fist round of the playoffs

Does this work in your redraft leagues as well? Or strictly for best ball?

🙏🙏🙏

Good idea OR BAD idea to draft Lamar & Henry? Snag the majority of the rushing on the roster.

Funny enough in my home league my last 2 seasons have 2 RBs in round 1 and 2. Lost in the championship both years 😅.

Is the RB in round one just CMC? We've seen so many busts from round 1 RBs last season like Ekeler, Bijan, Chubb, etc.

I don't draft running backs. I draft systems. I absolutely love the panthers because of Dave Canales

What’s the best way to end the draft with players per position? Been doing 3 qbs: 6 rbs 6 wrs and 3 tes for most teams.

With the data point to RB1 drafting in R5 and R6, what RB's are those that got people to the playoffs? Mostert, Achane type of guys? The zero RB strat looks good based on that, but I dk who will be this year's Kyren Williams or Achane etc.

I like jake ferguson in dallas there noone else but cd there he going eat

How does this carry over to a standard redraft league not best ball?

My issue with the Burrow pick is that you already have stroud and can only start 1 QB. feels like one of those picks was just wasted

I’m gonna go RB, RB, RB this time. Never done it but if at pick 9 of a 12 team league i can get Gibbs, Taylor/ Barkley, Pacheco/ Cook. Then I can take the likes of Waddle, Flowers, Higgins at picks 4 and 5. QB round 6

early rb is trade bait as everyone draft wr early

Basically if you don't get a top 3 RB in round 1, wait until round 6 or so.

I definitely need help at RB in my dynasty league, we keep 6 keepers, and i have Robinson and Cook smh

If your not drafting a TE in the first 4 rounds your losing your draft unless u get lucky in the waiver wire (or u draft hock late this year 😂)

I once started a draft with 5 RBs and won the title.

I appreciate that you drafted Adams , he's getting so disrespected imo

What is the benefit to drafting same team QB/WR?

Best strategy is drafting best player available. And it will always be the best strategy

Bryce Young in the 12th round is gold I guarantee

if kyren had fallen to rd3 would that have been the pick?

Andrew’s instead of stroud knowing burrow would fall to you would’ve been so much prettier

underdog must must be different then other networks

Lets goooooooooo

All the data tells you that its Really hard for RB's to stay on the field. Get the guy who will play all year and get depth.

Tells us you have to get elite qb and aliste tightend then chooses Higgins and burrow over going Lamar and Andrew’s 🤦‍♂️

TJ Hockenson isn't coming back until week 5 at best

I must be the god of luck because I’ve won 8/12 of my leagues in the past 2 years and I always go RB first

Why is t.j. hockenson so late??? He performed awesome last year...

Like ur thoughts, but much better before it was underdog. Now, undedog, underdog, underdog.

Trey benson > Conner this year

I play in 2 standard scoring cash leagues You had better draft a runniback in one of the first 2 rounds

He went to draft to show us how to implement both strategies then he ended up implementing neither Lmaoo classic mason

Almost all of those finals are probably mccaffrey teams