What if RB-RB is the start you need?

With so many wide receiver injuries, maybe RB-RB is the key to taking down Best Ball tournaments.

The Best Ball Mania Landscape

A typical Best Ball Mania draft had only six and sometimes seven running backs drafted out of the first twenty four picks - every other player drafted was a wide receiver. This dynamic is due to a no longer novel concept that elite wide receivers have access to a ceiling that is typically not repeatable by players drafted rounds later unlike at the running back position where you can find players year after year in the later rounds that step up into roles of huge opportunity due to starting RBs that get injured.

The six running backs to get drafted were Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson, Breece Hall, Jonathan Taylor, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Saquon Barkley/De’Von Achane.

Barkley and Achane were drafted towards the end of the second round but sometimes in the third round.

With all of the season ending wide receiver injuries - Chris Godwin, Rashid Shaheed, Brandon Aiyuk, Rashee Rice, Stefon Diggs, Marquise Brown - and the alarming number of wide receivers from the first few rounds that have missed at least two games this season - Malik Nabers, Puka Nacua, AJ Brown, Deebo Samuel, Nico Collins, Chris Olave, Cooper Kupp, Mike Evans - I’ve been wondering, what if RB-RB is the start that you need to win Best Ball tournaments this year?

RB-RB Leverage

Nine weeks through the NFL season and it may seem like this hypothesis isn’t the most logical considering that the RB1 at the position, Derrick Henry, who currently has an absolutely astronomical 48.9% advancement rate wasn’t drafted in the first two rounds; so, why would you need to draft back to back running backs at the top to have the best lineup in week 17 if you could have in theory drafted premium, healthy, wide receivers and then drafted Derrick Henry in the third or fourth round?

The point of this exercise is that you don’t NEED anything. I truly believe there are plenty of structures that can win Best Ball tournaments and in this article I’m exploring why the RB-RB start may actually have more merit than it currently seems.

Here are the advancement rates for the top seven running backs:

Most of them are right around the expected advancement rate of 16.7% (2/12) with the exception of CMC who hasn’t played a game and Saquon Barkley who has been absolutely phenomenal.

Taking nothing away from Barkley’s start to his Philadelphia tenure, I wouldn’t want Barkley three times as often as Breece Hall or Jonathan Taylor and I definitely wouldn’t want him twice as often as De’Von Achane.

This is where leverage comes into play.

When the playoff pods are formed - low owned players will naturally become more valuable. If the playoffs started today, you could reasonably expect in your pod of twelve other teams that five teams have Saquon Barkley. 

13 teams * (Saquon’s 38.3% advancement rate) = 4.98 expected Saquon teams

However, if the playoffs started today, you should expect 2.31 Achane teams in the first round.

13 teams * (Achane’s 17.8% advancement rate) = 2.31 expected Achane teams

From a game theory perspective, this dichotomy in advancement rates for players that have incredibly similar ceilings will always make the less owned player more valuable. 

That’s why teams without Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley and Alvin Kamara (currently a 37.3% advancement rate) that still contain two elite running back options intrigue me. 

Year after year, the guys that you need in the regular season are entirely different from the ones that make a difference in the Best Ball playoffs. Two years ago this was Josh Jacobs, last year it was Raheem Mostert. This year it could easily be Derrick Henry or Saquon Barkley. 

Two RB-RB Starts I Love

I started RB-RB in Best Ball Mania three times. One of the teams has no shot of advancing - that was a Breece Hall, Jonathan Taylor start. It’s just completely buried, over 240 points back with Anthony Richardson and Stefon Diggs.

The other two teams have a shot; according to BBMDB.com after week 9, one of these teams has a 90.5% chance to advance to the playoffs and one has a 3.8% chance to advance to the playoffs.

To illustrate how much this changes week to week; the team that currently has a 90.5% chance to advance had a 44% chance to advance after week 7.

These teams are obviously not my typical draft style since I only attempted this in Best Ball Mania three times; however, based on everything I’ve previously outlined, I believe these teams are alive to win the entire contest.

Team 1: The Breece Hall/Gibbs Start (allegedly a 3.8% chance to make the playoffs)

After the Breece/Gibbs start, I drafted five wide receivers in a row with DK Metcalf, Tee Higgins, Keenan Allen, Rome Odunze & Keon Coleman.

Metcalf and Higgins are currently injured but they have proven time and time again that their weekly ceilings can propel a team to the next round of the playoffs or to the top of the leaderboard.

Keenan… I’ll get to him later, he’s unfortunately or maybe fortunately…probably unfortunately on both of these RB-RB start teams.

Rome Odunze and Keon Coleman have had fantasy relevant games in their first nine weeks of professional football which keeps me optimistic that they can have their best games of the season down the stretch.

After the five wide receivers, I drafted the most elite rookies to date in Brock Bowers and Jayden Daniels.

In round ten, I drafted a guy that looked like a clear league winner in Rashid Shaheed who unfortunately needed season ending meniscus surgery.

I followed this up with two RBs with contingent upside as clear second options on their own team in Zach Charbonnet and Blake Corum. To add to this Seattle stack, I drafted Geno Smith and Noah Fant.

In round 15, I added Tyler Conklin to pair with Breece Hall and then followed that up with two dart throw correlated wide receivers in Andrei Iosivas and Jordan Whittington. 

To close this team out I drafted the now clear RB2 after Khalil Herbert’s trade to the Bengals with huge contingent upside if D’Andre Swift were to get injured in Roschon Johnson.

There’s a reason this team has a 4% chance to make the playoffs - wide receiver points are hard to come by. Last week I had Keenan Allen, Rome Odunze, Keon Coleman and Andrei Iosivas crack my starting lineup and combined they didn’t outscore JSN’s earth shattering 33.5 point performance.

Rashid Shaheed’s injury is costly to this team and going weeks without DK Metcalf and Tee Higgins has been tough for them to overcome. Despite these injuries, this team is only 41.32 points behind second place and with five weeks left I’m optimistic that this team can make up the ground.

It’s certainly not going to be easy, but I give this team more like a 25% chance than a 4% chance to get it together. If this team can remain 40 - 50 points back and then get three weeks of a healthy DK Metcalf and a healthy Tee Higgins, I’m keeping the light on for it to sneak into the playoffs.

Team 2: The Bijan /Achane Start (allegedly a 90.5% chance to make the playoffs)

On this team, I started with Bijan and Achane. I started with two running backs only a handful of times. This team was drafted on August 28th just like a team I wrote up as a potential super team: 

With only a handful of days left to draft, I looked through my portfolio and had no Bijan/Achane teams. Achane dropped 49.3 Half PPR points off of 22 touches last year in week 3 as a rookie and Bijan had the most elite prospect profile since Saquon Barkley. Needless to say, I wanted at least one team that had these two guys together in their second year in the league.

After drafting these two elite running backs, my goal - just like the previous team - was to find wide receivers that could potentially be underpriced by many rounds.

This included guys in heavy passing offenses, guys as the number one receiver in their offense, and rookies.

Rounds three through seven I took DK Metcalf, Amari Cooper, Keenan Allen, JSN, and Ladd McConkey.

I’m pretty excited about having this cohort of receivers. 

In DK’s absence JSN stepped up producing a career best game this past weekend having 7 receptions and 180 yards with 2 touchdowns. 

Amari Cooper is now a Buffalo Bill and with Josh Allen throwing him the ball I expect him to have two or three 20+ point performances. Keenan has only had one good game as a Bear, but I’m keeping the light on for him to have a week or two…it feels unlikely, but I wouldn’t at all be surprised if he had an outlier game in the playoffs based on being a target hog and/or benefiting from an injury to this crowded receiver room.

Ladd has been an absolute hit. I drafted him at pick 79 in this draft, he went in the 60s for most of drafting season. He’s very clearly the number one passing option for Justin Herbert and getting him paired with Herbert as one of three different QB stacks gives me a ton of hope for this team.

After the 2 RB, 5 WR start, I doubled up at tight end taking Brock Bowers and David Njoku. 

Bowers is a beast, this is no longer a secret and Njoku was drafted to be paired with Amari Cooper. With the Cooper trade, Njoku becomes even more valuable - I’m excited to see his ceiling games with Jameis that we saw them last year with Flacco.

My next two picks were me doubling down on the Seattle offense in Lockett and Charbonnet. 

With a RB room of Bijan, Achane, and Charbonnet I knew that this would be a four or five running back team at most.

After Charbonnet, I took Justin Herbert and JK Dobbins. 

I decided that Dobbins was the perfect fourth RB for this team, pairing him with Herbert and McConkey - my next pick was Geno Smith to complete the omega Seattle stack (without Kenneth Walker).

My last four picks were a little bit of dart throws mixed with playoff week bringbacks. 

Jalen McMillan plays the Chargers in week 15 - McMillan’s stock looks incredibly high after the Chris Godwin injury, although he’s struggling through an injury himself - I love him as my seventh wide receiver on this team.

Jonnu Smith as my third tight end - I didn’t need a third tight end, but I bought into the idea that McDaniel could scheme touches for Jonnu. The thesis hasn’t fully played out, but getting him paired with Achane, across from Njoku and at the time I thought Amari Cooper in week 17 appealed to me.

My last two picks were Luke McCaffrey who I drafted as my eighth wide receiver who plays Bijan in week 17 and Jameis Winston who I drafted to complete my double stack with Cooper and Njoku.

I drafted a little bit of Jameis and a little bit of Flacco because despite them being backup QBs there not only was a path to them playing in theory, we’re seeing it play out.

These guys make up 15 of my 18 picks. The 3 remaining roster spots belong to my Bijan Robinson/Luke McCaffrey skinny stack & Brock Bowers.

With the Amari Cooper trade, I’m very much okay with Amari Cooper & Brock Bowers being my only uncorrelated pieces.

This team has everything that a drafter could want. I have two elite running backs as leverage against the chalky advancement rate running backs (Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley & Alvin Kamara). There are three unique QB stacks, as well as two out of the three with week 17 bringbacks. Perhaps best of all is the solid wide receiver depth, despite starting with two running backs. 

2024 might be the year where you need to have Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, or/and Alvin Kamara.

Or chaos may ensue and it’ll be another year where unique roster constructions as well as unique elite running back pairings propel you to victory.