RB2 By Committee

Photo: Kirby Lee, USA Today Sports

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-RB50 Based on ADP

Great, now we have 26 guys to pair up and see how they do. That makes 325 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 4 rounds of your fantasy draft to pursue 3 receivers 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 - all the running backs on the list above except for Ryan Mathews, Chris Ivory and Eddie Lacy have ADPs that are Round 6 or higher (later). It might even be possible to push this into a Round 6 and Round 7 RB pair.  We will have to keep that goal in mind when we look at the results because it would not make sense to expect to get two Round 6 running backs in one of these combinations 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 16 weeks based on the strength of schedule. I call this result the "distributed fantasy points" for each back.

After I had all 26 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 85 pairs that are worth more than or equal to Chris Ivory by his lonesome, and 35 pairs that exceed 150 projected fantasy points. 

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, three RBs show up on this list with a lot of regularity – Eddie Lacy, Chris Ivory and Ryan Mathews  Three more backs (Shane Vereen, Ahmad Bradshaw and Rashard Mendenhall) also appear at least nine times, so this gives a strong indication as to which six backs to target for our RB2BC for this season.   

Putting It All Together

Now that we have 85 possible pairs that are better than Chris Ivory, what exactly does that mean? Should Ivory 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 RB24:

Table 4: Projected Fantasy Points for RBs 12-24

Based on Table 4, we see some things that catch the eye.  It jumps out that only 22 running backs are projected to score over 150 points.  Now, to be fair, these running backs in Table 4 have a giant “zero” on their bye week, while our RB2BC duos never have a week off.  To compensate for that, we should add in 4-7 points for a bye week lineup fill-in that someone who owned of these players would use.  Even with an extra 4-7 points, however, still only 22 running backs would be over 155 projected points (Darren Sproles and Montee Ball all fall short of 155 even if you throw another seven points on their projections for a bye week filler).  Looking at our possible pairs, we have 13 pairs that meet or beat 155 fantasy points, and the top two pairs exceed LeVeon Bell by five points above his projection. This tells us that choosing the correct pair can give us the result we wanted - RB2 production on the cheap.

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 RB23 (Darren Sproles, 147.9 points + 5 for a bye-week fill-in):

Table 5: Top 21 RB2BC Options for 2012

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 RB27, and possibly both backs with ADP of 30 or higher. The trick to RB2BC will be timing, as it is quite possible that 3-4 RBs on the list will be selected in Round 6 and the next 4-5 are unlikely to escape Round 7. That makes it tough to project when and where to draft these guys as they are likely to go in a RB3 run in Rounds 6 and 7.  Throw out waiting too long on this RB2BC approach unless you have picks that are very close at the beginning or end of a Round (such as 6.11 and 7.02).  Only then can you be certain to get a great duo if you want for Rounds 6 and 7, but I would not take the risk.  That is why the recommendation for RB2BC for 2013 is Eddie Lacy and Shane Vereen.  Take Lacy in Round 5 (ADP of 60) and Vereen (ADP of 75) in Round 6 to pair together for your RB2 committee.  Lacy is starting to pull away as the top tailback for the Packers, and he should be the top tailback on early downs and goal line situations in Green Bay.  If you want to draft some insurance or are concerned for Lacy’s role, Johnathan Franklin should be available later in your draft (current ADP of 118, so Round 9 or 10).  Vereen represents great value to the Patriots, who will be looking at him as a playmaker both out of the backfield and also split out wide as a receiver.  New England has lost a lot of offensive weapons since last year, and Vereen will play a big role filling in those gaps.

I will go one step further this year, which is to provide some backup plans if Lacy goes early.  Take Lacy in the fifth, but if he is gone, go ahead and draft Chris Ivory (ADP of 55).  If both are gone, take Ahmad Bradshaw (ADP of 69), which may seem too early, but Bradshaw and a few backs that should be available in Round 6 (Rashard Mendenhall (ADP of 68) or Shane Vereen (ADP of 75)) to finish your RB2BC pair.  Both combinations (Bradshaw/Mendenhall, Bradshaw/Vereen) are Top 10 options, so all will not be lost.

As you may have guessed, there is more than one way to use this strategy. For thoroughness, Table 5 should be your guide on Fantasy Draft Day if you attempt to use RB2BC. If all else fails in Round 5, take the top back available from the list in Round 6 and grab the next best back to pair with him and keep on going.

Here is a final summary of the combined schedules for Eddie Lacy and Shane Vereen, and when the committee approach suggests starting each one:

Table 6: Suggested RB2BC Schedule Plan

Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.