In this article, I’m going to take a look at the running back age cliff. In dynasty formats, player value and performance tends to decline after a player hits a certain age. At wide receiver or tight end, the cliff is typically more defined, as most dynasty owners denote 29 as the top of the cliff, and value tends to plummet when a WR or TE hits 30. However, for RB the age cliff is far less clear. RBs tend to decline faster than other positions and peak earlier in their careers. The question is: when is the top of the cliff, and when should you consider selling RBs in dynasty? The optimal point to sell would be just before they lose RB1 production or suffer a severe decline in dynasty ADP or trade value.
I want to balance a large enough sample size to have useful data with not going too far back to when the NFL looked utterly different. Therefore, I’ve decided to look at the last five years. Additionally, since this is a dynasty article, all of this data uses a PPR format. To maintain consistency, I’ve taken age as of September 1st for each season.
The RB1s (1-12):
So, what does this all mean? Before getting into the age cliff, I want to point out one other exciting trend. It is common to say that workhorse running backs are finding it harder to find and that more running backs operate in committees. Whether that is true or not, RB1 average total scoring has increased over time, especially when compared to the low of 2015. Therefore, taking running back early in drafts is still a viable strategy in terms of overall points in both dynasty and redraft formats. RB1s are performing as well as they ever have.
2015:
With all that said, let’s look at how the running back position has progressed from 2015 to now. In 2015, the previous generation of running backs had their last hurrah. Matt Forte, Adrian Peterson, Danny Woodhead, and DeAngelo Williams were all 29 years old or older. Each of them finished as an RB1 in 2015, but none of them ever came close to that again. Forte, Peterson, and Williams had all been strong fantasy performers since 2008. Peterson and Forte had been consistent RB1s when healthy ever since they stepped on the field in 2007 and 2008, respectively.
The rest of the RB1s in 2015 fell into two distinct groups. There was a group of veteran producers made up of Doug Martin, Lamar Miller, Latavius Murray, Chris Ivory, and Mark Ingram, all of whom ranged from 24 to 27 years old. In contrast, there was a trio of new emerging running backs in David Johnson, Devonta Freeman, and Todd Gurley, all 23 or younger.
As a whole, if you looked at the dynasty landscape after 2015, I think most people would have foreseen the decline of Forte, Peterson, Woodhead, and Williams. All of them were on the wrong side of 30, and even back then, we all knew that age 30 was mostly a fantasy death sentence for running backs. However, dynasty owners might not have been able to predict the decline of that group of veteran producers. Outside of Ingram, none of them considerably improved on their 2015 production, and both Martin and Ivory never really produced for fantasy again.
2016:
In 2016, though, the age cliff became muddier. Even though most of the older generation of running backs went away, multiple older veterans had stunning bounce-back seasons after a poor 2015. LeSean McCoy, DeMarco Murray, LeGarrette Blount, and Frank Gore all finished as RB1s, even though all of them were 28 or older. This was a surprise to most fantasy owners, as Blount had been left for dead while McCoy, Murray, and Gore were supposedly in decline.
In contrast to these older players, a new generation of young players emerged in 2016. Jordan Howard and Ezekiel Elliott burst onto the scene, having RB1 seasons as rookies. Additionally, Jay Ajayi and Melvin Gordon had second-year breakouts. This four-pack of running backs was the new group of young stars, ranging from 21 to 23 years old.
Finally, the last four RB1s were some middle-aged veterans. Le’ Veon Bell returned after an injury-plagued 2015 and dominated in just 12 games in 2016. Johnson, Ingram, and Freeman repeated their strong performances from 2015 and were RB1s again in 2016. These players were ages 24-26, so most expected each of them to have a bunch of productive years in front of them.
2017:
After 2016, the top-end RBs now seemed clear, with the older generation phasing out, the younger veterans staying productive, and the 2016 breakouts being the core of dynasty teams going forward. In 2017, the first part of that landscape mostly came true. Blount completely fell off the map and never regained dynasty value again. Gore and Murray lost their workhorse roles in favor of rookies from the 2017 rookie class and also lost all of their dynasty value. McCoy managed to buck the trend and put up another RB1 season, but he was the oldest RB1 in 2017 at only 29 years old.
The 2017 rookie running back class took the league by storm. Alvin Kamara, Kareem Hunt, Leonard Fournette, and Christian McCaffrey all finished as RB1s. Each player was either 21 or 22 years old and looked to be the next generational running back class.
In addition to the 2017 rookies, many of the veteran holdovers continued to excel in 2017. Gurley returned to his 2015 form and finished as the RB1, and Bell and Gordon finished as strong RB1s once again. Even 27-year old Mark Ingram continued to excel, finishing as the RB6 in a duo with Kamara. Despite a six-game suspension, Elliott also finished as an RB1.
The final two RB1s in 2017 were Carlos Hyde and Duke Johnson. Neither player finished close to the RB1 range in any other year, so those were likely outlier seasons, and we can mostly ignore them as players, outside of a couple of interesting observations. Hyde was a fourth-year player for the 49ers and had a big year in his 2017 contract year. After his excellent performance, the 49ers decided to move on, and Hyde never recovered his dynasty value. He bounced from the Browns to the Jaguars to the Chiefs to the Texans, but never regained a full backfield role. Johnson is primarily a receiving back, an archetype that seems to pop up in the RB1 range from time to time. That type of performance is typically fleeting and doesn’t last.
In 2017, there were, all of a sudden, no older RB1s. The average age of an RB1 dropped down to 23.67 years old. However, more so than age, eight of the 12 RB1s were players in their first three years in the NFL. In the past, players such as Forte or Peterson would hold high-end fantasy roles for years and years. Starting in 2017, NFL teams began to show a commitment to churning through their running backs faster and faster.
2018:
Finally, in 2018, the ax dropped on older running backs. McCoy, the last old-guard workhorse, completely fell apart, finished as the RB39 in 2018. David Johnson, a fourth-year player, was the oldest RB1 in 2018 at 26. Outside of James White, a receiving back who had unusually high rushing volume due to injuries, every other RB1 was from the 2015 draft class or later.
2018 rookie Saquon Barkley finished as the RB1. McCaffrey, Kamara, and Hunt repeated as RB1s from the 2017 class. Additionally, Tarik Cohen, Joe Mixon, and James Conner joined the RB1 ranks, all from the 2017 running back class. Elliott represented the 2016 class, while Gordon was once again an RB1 from the 2015 class.
2019:
Even though most of the new generation of running backs were still quite young, their NFL teams decided to start to move away from them in 2019. Gurley began to suffer from his arthritic knee near the end of 2018 and suddenly lost a significant portion of his dynasty value. Then, during 2019, he wasn’t used as a workhorse, and the Rams eventually cut him in March of 2020. Gurley is just 25 years old today.
Gordon decided to hold out in the summer of 2019, which backfired severely. The Chargers refused to give him a long-term extension, and then Gordon lost his job to Austin Ekeler. He signed with the Broncos in free agency before 2020, but the Chargers moved on from Gordon when he was just 26 years old.
In 2019, more 2017 running backs broke out. Aaron Jones, Dalvin Cook, Austin Ekeler, and Chris Carson all joined the RB1s. Additionally, McCaffrey, Kamara, and Fournette put up RB1 seasons. Nick Chubb joined them from the 2018 class, while Saquon Barkley also finished as an RB1. Elliott and Derrick Henry rounded out the RB1s, coming from the 2016 class. Ingram was once again an outlier, finishing as an RB1 in 2019 despite being 29 years old. However, outside of Ingram, all the RB1s in 2019 were from the 2016-2018 draft classes.
Going Forward:
Looking at what happened to Gordon and Gurley, I think we can learn the most valuable lesson about running backs: it’s not necessarily about age. While age is important to consider, in reality, it’s years of service and contracts that matter. There have been so many bad contracts handed out to free-agent running backs, including Gurley, Bell, Jerick McKinnon, and others. Outside of absolute top players such as Elliott or McCaffrey, teams will refuse to extend running backs, unless they take team-friendly deals as Ekeler did.
Therefore, here’s the takeaway: of the 2017 running backs, all but Fournette are going into their last contract year in 2020. Fournette has a fifth-year option in 2021, on which the Jaguars have not yet decided. Look for NFL teams to move on from players like Jones, Mixon, Cook, and Carson. They have seen what happens when you pay a running back big money. It seems crazy to say that the value cliff comes after three years in the NFL, but it does. I think extreme running back turnover is the new norm in the NFL.
In November 2018, Gurley was the 1.01 in dynasty startups. Now, he’s a fifth-round startup pick. Everyone said it could never happen to Gurley. It can happen to any running back at any time, even once they get paid or they’re due to be paid. Just remember that, nowadays, running backs don’t get to the point of reaching the age cliff, like Peterson, Forte, and Murray got to. Their teams move on from them far before they reach it.
Thanks for reading this article. You can find me on Twitter at @DFF_Karp. I love to interact with anyone in the community, so reach out at any time! I take fantasy questions and help with all formats, so keep sending those questions my way.
