Running Back #2 By Committee - RB2BC

  Posted 8/5 by Jeff Pasquino, Exclusive to Footballguys.com

Over the past few years, there have been two very popular articles written by our very own Chase Stuart that look at an interesting approach to building a fantasy team with late value picks. Based upon the theory of using both Strength of Schedule ("SOS") and taking two players as a combination to build one very good player, he has discussed both Team Defense by Committee ("TDBC") and Quarterback by Committee ("QBBC") as a general fantasy league strategy. In general I think that this is a wise move because very early on in fantasy drafts there are a ton of RB and WR prospects to go after to build a great team. While there are a few studs at QB and also a few choice defenses, I do not see a huge need in leagues to pursue either too hard in the beginning stages of a fantasy draft.

So with this in mind, I started to think about what else can be done with the committee approach. Tight end? Perhaps. Wide receiver? A possibility, but it might be better to look at third WR options than any other option. What about running back? Hmmm, that's really intriguing. What if you could grab two running backs later in the draft that could combine to perform on a RB2 - or even RB1 - level, based solely on their current projections and their schedule? Now we're talking. This really got my attention, so I went after this one first. Let's take a look at how I went about this and then we can digest and discuss the results.

The Ground(game) Rules

So how to begin? Defenses and quarterbacks are relatively easy to "committee" together. There's usually only one QB and certainly only one team defense per NFL club, so the approach is pretty simple as far as picking out which players / teams to try and pair up. When it comes to running backs, the line is not quite so easy to draw, but I needed some basis to pick which players it made sense to try and combine for a decent committee. I decided that I would use the following criteria to decide which players to start with for evaluating:

Criteria #1 - RB25 and Beyond

This seems pretty simple. If we want to have a duo that puts up RB2 numbers, that means we want RB24 or better production - else we would just draft RB24 or higher and forget the whole idea. So here is the list of players with which I started, based on their Average Draft Position (ADP):

Table 1: Running Backs RB25-RB48 Based on ADP

Great, now we have 24 guys to pair up and see how they do. That makes 276 potential committees, so there had better be a decent one (or several, we hope) out of all of those couplets. Now, before I go over the method of how to pair them up and the results, we need one more rule:

Criteria #2 - No more than one RB from Round 5 and one from Round 6.

This could get tricky here, but understand the overall goal. The point of RB2BC is to "free up" the first 5 rounds of your fantasy draft to pursue 3 receivers (especially in PPR leagues) after grabbing a stud RB in Round 1. This also gives you the flexibility of grabbing two receivers and a stud QB or TE, depending on your personal preference, or even to get RB2 and have the "RB2BC" be your RB3. Flexibility is the name of the game here. We all want value in our drafts, and having the ability to grab two RBs in Rounds 5 and 6 to act as our RB2BC gives us that ability.

Here is the good news - nearly all the running backs on the list above have ADPs that are Round 5 or higher (later). Only the first few (Jonathan Stewart, LenDale White, Rudi Johnson and Julius Jones) are being selected on average in Round 5. We will have to keep that in mind when we look at the result because it would not make sense to expect to get two of these four backs in a combination based on their ADP.

So what do we do now to figure out some RB pairs?

Criteria #3 - Use Footballguys' RB Strength of Schedule

This sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Just take the RB Strength of Schedule to figure out when certain players are more likely to score well. What I did is similar to what the Projections Dominator and Draft Dominator do for you - take the projected fantasy points and slice them up over 17 weeks based on the strength of schedule. I call this result the "distributed fantasy points" for each back.

After I had all 24 running backs with distributed fantasy points on a weekly basis, I just compared all of the possible RB pairs to find the best duos for RB2BC. So here we are - time for some results.

Table 2: Running Back #2 Committee Pairs

As we can see from Table 2, we have some very good pairs to select from for RB2BC. There are 88 pairs that are worth more than LenDale White by his lonesome (and some would argue that he is two running backs, but that's another article). I have included White by his lonesome as Pair #90 for comparison reasons. Let's also take a look at how often some of these guys show up on the table:

Table 3: Running Back #2 Committee Pair Appearances by Player

As we can see from Table 3, four RBs show up on this list with a lot of regularity - Selvin Young, LenDale White, Matt Forte and Jonathan Stewart. All four backs are in at least 19 of the 88 pairs. This should surprise no one that read Table 1, as these four guys are all near the Top of the RB25 and beyond ADP list. They should have good value and should make for good pairs.

Putting It All Together

Now that we have 88 possible pairs that are better than LenDale White, what exactly does that mean? Should LenDale White be the basis of our comparison? Of course not. Remember our goal - find a pair of running backs that can combine for RB2 (or better) fantasy production. To figure that out we need a better metric, so here are the projections for RB12 through RB26, using PPR:

Table 4: Projected Fantasy Points for RBs 12-26 (PPR)

*Note: RB24 is LenDale White, who is in the RB2BC list of available backs because his ADP has him out of the Top 24. Thomas Jones, on the contrary, is not available because he is in the Top 24 based on ADP but not based on fantasy points.

Based on Table 4, we see something that catches our eye. Edgerrin James (RB18) projects to have about 180 fantasy points this season. Looking at our possible pairs, we have 12 duos that meet or beat 180 fantasy points. This tells us that choosing the correct pair can give us the result we wanted - RB2 production on the cheap.

So why did I use PPR scoring? For one thing, the concept of waiting to grab your second running back works best in PPR leagues as WRs have much more value in PPR leagues than in non-PPR leagues. Waiting on RB2 is a solid plan in these scoring formats, so comparing running backs in a PPR scoring scheme makes the most sense for the purpose of RB2BC (although it should still work in non-PPR leagues).

Now, to look for the best bargains available, let's take one more final look at these pairs, focusing on those that project to be comparable to RB20 (Ryan Grant, 175 points) or better:

Table 5: Top 30 RB2BC Options for 2008

Lastly, we should focus on the best of the bargain bin - pairs of running backs that include no more than one RB with ADP of RB28, and possibly both backs with ADP of 30 or higher. The trick to RB2BC will be timing, as it is quite possible that the top four RBs on the list will be selected in Round 5 and the next four (RB29-32) are unlikely to escape Round 6. This likely means that pairs #2, #3 and #4 are not very likely to put together, but the first pair is certainly on the table. That is why I am recommending LenDale White and Matt Forte as the RB2BC for 2008. Take White in Round 5 and Forte in Round 6 to pair together for your RB2 committee.

For thoroughness Table 5 should be your guide on Fantasy Draft Day if you attempt to use RB2BC. Take the top back available from the list in Round 5 and grab the next best back to pair with him and keep on going.

Here is a final summary of the combined schedules for Matt Forte and LenDale White, and when the committee approach suggests starting each one:

As always, feedback is welcome at pasquino@footballguys.com.