Fantasy Football Strategy: Is it Time to Re-Think How We Draft Running Backs?

I am in three fantasy football leagues this season and while they all have different rules, they each share one thing in common; the first round was not remotely close to being good.

Now, I suspect that it's exceedingly rare for a first round of any fantasy draft to be perfect. But there's a big difference between perfect and good. There are fantasy owners all over the country crowing about the steal they made in the eighth round, but I don't think you hear many people going, wow I got crucified for my first-round pick but he's been doing great!

Let's take a look at my three leagues and see how the first round shook out in each.

MOFFIA - This is a 12-team league with an emphasis on quarterbacks. It is a very stable league that has all 12 owners back from a year ago and one that has been going on for roughly a decade.

1. LT
2. Steven Jackson
3. Joseph Addai
4. Larry Johnson
5. Shaun Alexander
6. Frank Gore
7. Brian Westbrook
8. Willie Parker
9. Peyton Manning
10. Carson Palmer
11. Laurence Maroney
12. Drew Brees

HAL - This is a 12-team league with a more traditional scoring system. It is another very stable league with all 12 owners back from a year ago. This is the seventh year of the league.

1. LT
2. Jackson
3. Johnson
4. Addai
5. Alexander
6. Manning
7. Gore
8. Parker
9. Rudi Johnson
10. Reggie Bush
11. Westbrook
12. Maroney

AC - A 10-team league in its first year of existence, but made up of people who have played fantasy football before. This is a default Yahoo scoring league.

1. LT
2. Jackson
3. Johnson
4. Addai
5. Alexander
6. Gore
7. Westbrook
8. Parker
9. Bush
10. Manning

It's tough to make direct comparisons because of the difference in scoring from one league to the next plus one league having just 10 teams. But nine players (LT, Jackson, Johnson, Addai, Alexander, Gore, Westbrook, Parker, Manning) were taken in the first round in all three leagues, while two others (Bush, Maroney) were taken twice.

But what if we were drafting teams right now? In a standard Yahoo league, a reasonable first-round draft order would be something like this:

1. Tom Brady
2. LT
3. Adrian Peterson
4. Manning
5. Randy Moss
6. Tony Romo
7. Marion Barber
8. Addai
9. Westbrook
10. Derek Anderson
11. T.J. Houshmandzadeh
12. Terrell Owens

Only four of the 11 people selected in the first round in at least two of my three leagues have an argument for deserving that high ranking. And Addai and Westbrook have plenty of QBs and WRs above them that I bypassed solely because of their position.

Now, Jackson gets a pass because of his injury and Willie Parker is putting up fine numbers but just not getting into the end zone. But Johnson, Alexander, Gore, Bush and Maroney have all been disappointments. Johnson at #54 is the highest-ranked player of the group so far in fantasy points. Definitely not what owners had in mind when he went third or fourth overall.

If we look at the top 25 scoring leaders on Yahoo, we find 11 QBs, 6 RBs (the one back not listed in my mock above is Ronnie Brown, who's out for the season) and 8 WRs. Now this flies in the face of rule #1 in fantasy football that running backs win championships.

There are always QBs in the top of fantasy scoring but conventional wisdom says that if you don't get one of the top few ones, you are best off waiting until the later rounds to pick one up because (like kickers) they are a crap shoot. Exhibit A in this line of thinking is Derek Anderson, who didn't even start the first game of the season yet is the fourth-highest scoring fantasy player so far this year.

Running backs are supposed to be the foundation of your team because they are the most reliable. But with more and more teams shifting to a running back by committee approach (just think how good Peterson and Barber would be if they weren't splitting carries) should fantasy owners do the same?

It is a bad idea to chuck a proven formula for winning just because of one partial season of data. But this is a point to ponder going forward and definitely something to consider if you have one of the middle or late picks in your draft.

If you have one of the bottom picks in your league, it may be well worth your time to consider taking QB-WR or (horror of horrors) WR-WR with your first two picks and look for RB values the rest of the draft.