2024 Zero-RB: Fantasy Draft Disaster?

Last year I was involved with a research article by Doug Orth posted on the The Sports Affiliation. In it, we discussed the viability of the Zero-RB style of drafting. And the interesting thing about the article was the timing of the research project. The high-end running backs went off last year and seemed to deal with fewer injuries than usual among that group aside from Christian McCaffrey and Isiah Pacheco.

The resurgence of elite running backs producing and staying healthy led to some fascinating consequences in the fantasy football world. Just take a look at this tweet by Justin Herzig:

Zero-RB was AWFUL for bestball last year. But let’s take this with a grain of salt. Bestball doesn’t allow you to use waiver pickups, and because of that, they are usually a deeper draft. However, the main focus of this article is redraft leagues, and usually those leagues allow you to make waiver pickups and snag guys who slipped through and improve your team if your Zero-RB picks didn’t pan out.

As far as ADP goes, while the ADP I will use from FantasyPros is different than Underdog’s bestball contests, there will still be some similarities. Guys in the Zero-RB range last year included names like Zamir White, Raheem Mostert, Devin Singletary, Zack Moss, Jonathon Brooks, and Blake Corum, who simply didn’t work out. So does that mean Zero-RB is dead?

What the Data Tells Us

➡️ To find out, we’re going to take a look at ADP and running back finishes from the 2021-2024 seasons, both the ADP and stats are coming from FantasyPros. But first, let’s take a look at why exactly it felt like Zero-RB was so bad last year.

Earlier this year, JJ Zachariason dove into this subject in his Late Round Fantasy podcast in an episode called “Running Back Renaissance?” I won’t attempt to go over all the data he discussed, but I will bring up an interesting point he mentioned, and something I also found interesting when looking at this subject. The high-end running backs scored a lot more than usual last year (FYI, the numbers listed below are based on my study in this area, not JJ’s).

For example, the average score for the RB1-6 in 2021-2023 is as follows: 303, 321, and 294. Last year it was 331. For the back half RB1’s, 2021-23 was 234, 242, and 242. In 2024, those same running backs averaged 259 points. And finally, the RB13-18 range from 2021-23 averaged 207, 214, and 213 points. Last year, it was 238 points. Breece Hall was the RB16 in 2024, he would have been an RB1 in any of the other years.

So we’ve established that running backs scored a ton in 2024, but were there fewer good running backs available late in drafts than usual❓️ 

The definition of what Zero-RB drafting is depends on who you ask, but I like to define Zero-RB as drafting your first running back after Round 5, so after pick 60 in 12 team drafts. That will operate as my baseline for when I reference ADP in previous years. From there, I define a “hit” as a running back who finished inside the Top-24 at their position.

And for what it’s worth, I will also be examining all the way to pick 216, which is where Underdog drafts end compared to the usual 15-16 round drafts for most redraft leagues. I know I’m straddling the line between bestball and redraft here rather than solely focusing on one, but one thing you can keep in mind is that this study is still useful for both. No matter what, it’s showing you what might happen in those deeper bestball drafts, or it shows the opportunity you have in redraft leagues to pick up running backs who produce. 

In 2021-24, the number of running backs who finished inside the Top-24 but were drafted after Round 5 were 7, 6, 9, and 7 respectively. But of couse, that is just the hits, not the misses. The actual percentage hit rate for drafting a Top-24 running back after Round 5 was 19, 17, 23, and 19%.

So there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary last year in terms of fewer guys hitting. It was actually fairly similar to previous years. Once I dug a little further, I found something intriguing.

In 2021-23, we had three Top-14 running back finishes each year from Zero-RB guys, including at least two Top-8 finishes per year. In 2024, we had only two, and the best was Chase Brown who was the RB10 in PPR formats. So while the “hit rates” remained fairly steady, we didn’t get the same sort of potential ceiling we’re used to from lower-drafted running backs.

Conclusions

So let’s try to do a TLDR because there’s a lot going on here. In 2024, top-end running backs scored more than they had in the previous three seasons, and most of those top-end guys were drafted early. The hit rate for Top-24 running backs drafted after round 5 remained fairly steady. But even among those who hit, they didn’t quite hit the ceiling we had seen in previous seasons.

We saw what was likely an outlier season in running back health and production, which could allow it to resurface as a viable strategy this year. What looks to have happened in 2024 is the early round running backs stayed healthy (for the most part) and produced so well they pushed the later round guys down further than they might have been in previous seasons. In total, I don’t think Zero-RB is dead, it just took a backseat for a year.