Breece Hall is out for the season, James Robinson was traded to the Jets, Najee Harris is doing his best T-Rich impression, and the Twitter-verse still can’t find the value of a dynasty running back. This gives me the perfect opportunity to throw fuel on the fire with some curated arguments from the analyst group chats and Twitter (where we waste time instead of making content) and I’ll add my two cents with some sound advice.
The Dameon Pierce Effect
KTC Rank: RB10, 40 Overall
Rushing: YPG: 77 | BKT: 19 | RPG: 17
Receiving: Receptions: 20
To be fair, If you’re a legitimate contender you should absolutely hang on to Pierce. But then you should sell him as soon as your season is over. My colleague Paul Patterson wrote a beautiful piece on exactly why you should sell him and I’ve gone from disagreeing with him to thinking he’s very much correct. The hype has gotten insane and you shouldn’t be valuing him higher than any 2023 first.
80% of the time you should definitely sell Pierce for a first if somebody asks and the reason is simple: Running backs just aren’t worth as much as the average joe may believe. But we’ll unpack that concept as we go along and we’ll stick with Pierce for now.
It goes without saying that the rookie out of Florida looks like the best player on the Texans and Lovie Smith absolutely adores him. But that doesn’t mean you should love him enough to mortgage your future on him when the next draft is chock full of players of his skill or better. Pierce is a tackle-breaking machine, but he also is benefiting from volume, and Bijan Robinson, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Tank Bigsby would likely do the same or better. You can take a deeper look at 2023’s RB class in Andrew Pettiford’s Devy RB Stock Watch, but spoiler alert: they’re freaky good and the top-5 in this class are likely better than Pierce. Moreover, paying a first or higher for Pierce is more like paying BMW prices for a 2012 Honda Civic. Sure, that Civic could last you four more years, but why bust out a loan with interest for a Honda when you can have a Turbo Diesel for the same price later?
Lastly, running back has been proven to be too volatile of a position to mortgage your future on a Day 3 back on a bad team. Coaching regimes could change and if talent falls front offices are most likely to pounce on it. Remember Michael Carter and James Robinson? Pepperidge Farms and the guy who didn’t accept a first-rounder when he had the chance remembers. (It’s me. I’m the Michael Carter guy.)
Now that we’ve established that we shouldn’t overvalue running backs with low draft capital on bad teams. What about the ones with high draft capital on good teams? Boy, do I have an example for you!
The Najee Harris Effect
KTC Rank: RB20, 73 Overall
Rushing: YPC: 3.3 | YPG: 45.1 | TD: 1
Receiving: RPG: 3
I’ve said this before, but Najee Harris isn’t very good right now and his stock has taken the same arc as Dogecoin. Is it all his fault? Probably not, but it definitely might be a little bit of his fault if you check the viral clip below.
Somebody, please tell this man he’s almost 240 lbs. To be fair, he doesn’t have the recipe to be super successful seeing as he’s on an offense plagued by both poor quarterback and offensive line play. But many could also argue that Javonte Williams and Dameon Pierce have had much better success with the same circumstances which has driven the narrative that Najee himself isn’t good.
Joe is right about the age factor and it’s a major factor why myself and many others have driven Harris’ price down from KTC’s RB2 down to the RB20.
That’s quite the tumble without an injury in just a few months for a player people were taking Round 1 in Redraft formats. Remember when I mentioned RBs not being as valuable to the average joe? Positional volatility like this being prevalent even among high draft capital players is why. Jonathan Taylor is another Dynasty Darling that has been a top-5 startup pick and has fallen to KTC’s 16 overall. That would push him toward the middle of the second round.
That’s not as dramatic as Harris by any means, but don’t be surprised to see that fall further once the new crop of talent is drafted.
“But JT has been battling injuries and would still be top-5 if healthy.”
Funny you should mention that.
The Breece Hall Effect
You can’t project injuries, but let’s say you were All About Hall and are smart enough to pay for RBs when they’re still rookies because then they’re worth selling the bag, right?….right?
Now imagine that you’re Paul except you gave up multiple first-rounders and you’ll come to the even sadder realization that you’ve lost both your workhorse RB1 and decreased your odds of reloading on young top-tier talent next season. I don’t sound so crazy when I give you that perspective, do I?
But I just wanted to hammer home a point with Hall and I can move on to bring it all together.
RBs Should Never Be Worth More Than a First-Rounder
To some, this may seem like the ideal strategy, but I don’t think the general consensus is quite there yet.
Now the point about Day 3 RBs is an article for the offseason, but the data tells us that the rest of my argument is sound. Using the VBD (Value Based Drafting) Metric we can determine the value of a player by subtracting the baseline player’s (the RB24) total points from said player’s total points. In the last three seasons, Austin Ekeler, Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, and Jonathan Taylor are the only four RBs to be in the top 24 overall more than once in this metric. This means that only four running backs have been consistently worth a top-2 SF startup pick during that span. Nick Chubb has been the only RB to do it all three. The reason we’re using VBD for this argument is to answer any questions that my colleague Joe Memmolo might have.
Doc hits the key points: Shelf Life and Volatility. Quarterback is a position where most players stick closer to the median but have a much higher floor than any other position and use a VBD baseline of QB12. So having five players in the last three seasons hold multiple top-24 overall runs and 2 two do it all three seasons holds more weight when considering floor and security.
The real eye-opener is when this metric is applied to pass catchers (WRs, TEs) because seven total have had multiple top-24 overall finishes within the last three seasons and five have finished top-24 for three in a row. It’s hard to argue my point below when you consider how much stickier every other position is.
Now I’m not trying to argue that RBs mean nothing, but simply that we shouldn’t sell our futures to secure Dameon Pierce, Jonathan Taylor, or Christian McCaffrey when it’s just as likely that they’ll fall short of expectations and you can draft a player that gives you top-24 value. Furthermore, this hammers home the point that running back should be the very last position you secure when finishing out a rebuild. Spending picks on high draft capital receivers and Quarterbacks and only drafting RBs to trade is the answer in a rebuild.
Want to add your own argument? Let me know your opinion on Twitter @SportsJag!
