A Primer: Positional Scarcity in Fantasy Football

When discussing fantasy drafts, no matter the format you’ll hear about values, reaches, sleepers, busts, and breakouts. Digging deeper, one subject you’ll discover is positional value, which is about what it sounds like: the value of certain positions in fantasy football. And that’s what we’re going into today. But in this instance, I’m going to tackle positional scarcity. 

There are only so many players available to draft that are actually useful for fantasy. And that is partially what drives fantasy ADP. Better players are generally drafted first, and while waiver-wire heroes exist, there is a reason they were on waivers in the first place: we liked other players more during the draft.

Another thing that drives ADP is the league scoring format. In PPR formats, receivers are quite valuable, in standard leagues (which are much less prevalent nowadays), running back is the way to go. So players with more value in a certain format are among the first drafted. Roster construction is yet another key element to this. Do you need to start two receivers or three? How many flex spots do you have? The roster element is no better demonstrated than in Superflex or 2QB leagues. Because there are only 32 starting QB jobs in the NFL, and fantasy leagues are usually 10-12 teams, quarterbacks go off the board extremely fast.

In the same way, but less drastically in most formats, there are only so many running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends to go around that are useful for fantasy. How this impacts your draft is what we’re going to explore today.

This isn’t an in-depth study into the finest points of drafting. I can’t perform this study to cover the specific aspects of every league scoring and roster type out there. While I will provide some specific style draft takes (redraft, dynasty, superflex, etc), this is meant to provide you with knowledge and a general overview of what you can expect from a WR1, RB2, mid-tier QB, or a backend TE, and how that impacts your draft decisions.

Our Study Data

I didn’t base this study on purely one season because of the variance a single season has, I wanted the data to have a fair amount of predictiveness to it while being relevant to the current NFL meta. So I settled on the last five NFL seasons and the fantasy performances in them. Also, to be included in this data sample a player must have played at least 8 games in a given season.

I found the Top 24 QBs and TEs, and the Top 36 RBs and WRs of each year, and put them into buckets. The top 6 at each position in each season, then the next six, down to the 24th at each position. I took it a step further with RB and WR because we usually play more of them than the other two positions, grouping all RB and WR3s together. I then took the average PPR points per game of each bucket to spit out a general idea of how many points you expect to score with a certain type of asset.

To put it another way, as an example, I looked at every Top-6 QB from the last five years and averaged out their PPG to give you what you can generally expect from a Top 6 QB. Then I repeated that with every other group of players in this study.

Keep in mind, despite how I started off talking about ADP and fantasy drafts, this is not telling you ADP data or what you should expect from a Top-6 running back by ADP. This is simply a chart showing you the fantasy finishes of players regardless of draft capital.

So how exactly is this useful? I’m glad you asked! 😄 

What Are We Learning?

First and foremost, quarterbacks score the most on average. Shocker, right? In Superflex, that especially increases their value. But in single QB leagues, which most are, you can afford to hold off on them (this is because you can find a lot of value in drafting quarterbacks later who can finish inside the Top 12). The PPG drop-off from QB1-6 to QB7-12 is the smallest drop-off compared to any of the other positional 1-6 to 7-12 at 15%. 

Receiver follows with a 17.6% drop, then running back with 19%, and lastly the tight end with a 26% drop from TE1-6 to TE7-12 in PPG. That’s a massive drop in points! 😲 With that, let’s focus on the tight end for a second.

I wrote about going Bully TE in tight-end premium dynasty drafts in a recent article and teased I would cover positional scarcity at a later date. That time is now! Everyone loves the late-round tight end who breaks out and is huge for fantasy: Sam LaPorta in 2023, Robert Tonyan and Logan Thomas in 2020, Dalton Schultz in 2021, and Jonnu Smith last year. But more often than not, you’ve known who the top guys are going to be; Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, George Kittle, and T.J. Hockenson come to mind. Trey McBride and Brock Bowers now join the list in 2024, likely replacing the aging Kelce and possibly Andrews.

While tight ends do not score, on average, nearly as much as receivers and running backs do, you usually don’t have to take them as late in regular redraft formats. That is how you can take advantage of snagging a top-tier tight end and still not set your team back by missing on an elite asset elsewhere. If you don’t get your tight end early, you’re likely streaming the position and it can get ugly as the numbers above show.

Of any position, the receiver has the least amount of drop-off, but they also produce the most amount of points on average aside from quarterbacks. That means two things:

1. It’s important to get them early because of the advantage they provide.

2. You can afford to wait on grabbing depth because of the advantage they provide.

Sounds a bit contradictory right? Let me explain. This positional advantage is why grabbing a receiver early in drafts has become so popular in recent years. But, once you’ve snagged your top one or two receivers, you can afford to wait to add depth at receiver while you stock up at other positions (say, a high-end running back or an elite tight end). 👍️ 

Running back was a boon last year, something I highlighted last week. But in most years, you can afford to grab one early and then try the shotgun approach for drafting running backs later on, as we usually have around three a year who are drafted in the mid-to-late rounds and finish inside the top 14 at the position. Of course, there is merit to taking multiple elite running backs early and taking advantage of the depth at receiver because running back is not as deep, but I’m not going to get into that here.

➡️ The drop in PPG production from RB7-12 to RB13-18 is nothing crazy, 9% on average. And while running back fantasy finish isn’t the same as preseason ADP, I want you to humor me for a minute. Generally, the top 24 or so running backs will finish fairly close to their ADP outside of injury. Let’s assume that for this thought exercise regarding our RB7-18 groups:

With the start of the dreaded running back dead zone coinciding around the RB10 in ADP, you can feel less pressure to draft a running back in that area (say, early third round) and wait till the back half of the dead zone or even after it to snag a running back in the RB16-18 range. By doing so you’re likely drafting a running back with a similar floor and ceiling as one drafted earlier, and you’re able to spend that earlier pick on a top receiver who fell or an elite QB or TE.

That is a lot of info! But, I do want you to walk away with some quick, actionable takeaways:

• Quarterback experiences the least amount of drop-off in points between the top 6 and 7-12 in PPG, so while the top guys are an advantage, it’s possible to wait on a quarterback and draft one late with upside to sneak into the top 12.

• Tight Ends see the most point disparity, pushing up elite assets and making them more valuable. 💰️ 

• Receiver has incredible depth, but also elite PPG potential from the elite producers. They see the least amount of PPG drop percentage-wise.

• Running Back has decent depth and the versatility of the position allows you flexibility. You can draft two early and secure yourself at the position and use the depth of receiver to your advantage, or you can draft a receiver early and go running backs later, throwing darts on the later-round guys knowing several should greatly outperform ADP. If you can grab two guys you think can finish inside the top 24, great, because it gets ugly after the RB2 range.

I know I covered a lot of ground in this article, and there are many, many more nuances in fantasy drafts that I can’t cover all at one time. But, this should give you a good primer on the ways positional depth and scarcity can affect how you and your league members draft.