Hello and welcome to PFF Fancy football podcast. I'm your host, Ian Hardison. Today we continue our fancy file series with a look at some sleeper running backs. Now I've talked a lot on this podcast about the idea of chasing volume out running back.

I just wanted to put some more analytical thoughts behind that and ultimately tell you who you should be drafting with that principle in mind. So you know we'll go through certain things on this podcast with the main goal today is to give you 10 running backs. So I think are vastly undervalued in their average job position compared to what we should expect them to get from a volume standpoint.

So thank you as always returning in everybody and we will get right into it. So first off, arbitrary, you know, numbers are going to be used a little bit throughout this as we always do. Why is it 100 targets. Why is it 50 25.

We always use these arbitrary numbers, but I'll attempt to put a little bit of substance behind them. So the three main groups of just touch categories. I wanted to use to get a sample size of running backs to determine which of them have been, you know, busting with high touch usages have been 15 touches per game 17 and half per game.

Those give you season long total is 240 280 and 320. So with that in mind, I went back over the last 10 years 2011 to 2020 looked at every single running back to meet these criteria and to see how they finished off on the season. Now I understand there's limitations here, you know, running backs can have real high touch counts for a couple weeks then get hurt.

They wouldn't end up in the study because they don't have the overall total numbers. We also have instances where, you know, someone's limping to 240 touches over 17 games. They don't necessarily turn in that high of fancy production because it was, you know, more of a factor of being on the field for 17 games, not necessarily them, you know, having this awesome,

you know, it's a really good thing to have a variety per game average, but this is just again, we can't predict injuries. We can't exactly predict when guys are going to be taking off the field for, you know, just these random reasons. So with that in mind, we will just use this to not say that you need to just target every single guy we think gets 240 touches, although it's not a bad start.

Now improve that I'm not lying to you when I tell you how important volume is. So with that in mind, we've had, let's see, 42 touch 42 running backs, excuse me, rack up at least 320 touches over the past 10 years 98% of them finished as an RB1 only one of them finished as an RV2 in the entire study.

We go to 280 touches 80% of them finished as an RB1 90% as an RV2 just 1% as an RV3 or worse and overall into 240 touch group again a modest 15 touches for game 64% finished as an RV1 33% as an RV2 just 3% as an RV3.

Now this is full point perception scoring. I'm sure you can imagine who some of these RV3 candidates were that weren't able to crack the top 24 even with 240 plus touches just five of them over the past 10 years 2019 Sony Michelle 2019 Carlos hide 2018 Peyton barber 2011 Wilson Gahie and 2011

Cedric Benson RIP easy problem to spot with all these guys receptions. I mean the totals in these nobody had more than 20 receptions among Michelle hide barber McGahie and Benson. So that's basically the thing you need to have targets north drive and full point perception scoring and it's arguably even more important than total touches like this was one of the wildest takeaways I had with this study.

So I just took the PPR rank and I took the correlation between every single PPR rank and every single running backs touches targets and rush attempts and PPR rank was actually more correlated targets than it was overall touches like that just wild to me it was you know in

significant difference targets had a positive correlation of 0.63 touches only a or excuse me a negative correlations because one's going up one the other ones going down but negative 0.63 correlation for the targets negative 0.62 for touches just a point 01 difference but targets did have the edge

of 10s all the way down there at 0.34 this is why it's so important to realize if you're running back isn't going to be looking at more than 30 receptions how tough it is and then to get there we see happen it's not like that you know we had again only five running backs that had at least 240 touches couldn't

at least crack at top 24 there's plenty of grinders that managed to get by without the receptions but when we do see issues coming from guys without those receptions so you know went through this went through the 10 years I think we all can agree volume is very important and one of the formulas I've been bringing up on this

was last season basically targets were worth two and a half one target was worth basically two and a half rush attempts in terms of a projected amount of fancy points if you look at the whole league I brought this up on several podcasts so far I went back though 10 years to just get more of a you know not just a one year sample size of things and it ended up being about the same basically

two points seven so one target equal to about 2.7 rush attempts in terms of expected fancy points I use that equation applied it to our pf projections ahead of 2021 to basically get this expected projected fantasy of opportunity score took that ranking some

of the two guys that are there to guys ADP so essentially what I'm comparing here where are guys being drafted and where from a pure projected expected opportunity standpoint should they be going if we're only caring about volume and I'm just going to go through the top 12 running backs and ADP courtesy of fancy football calculator and just to get a grip on you know which of these guys are maybe being projected a little bit higher and they should be in terms of brawl opportunity which guys are maybe a little bit undervalued anyway with those top 12 Christian McCaffrey down and cook

zero difference they are exactly where they should be in terms of this projected expected opportunity Derek Henry seven spots higher than we think he should be he has been the exception to the rule that you don't need receptions just realize people like as how you can run for over 2000 yards like he did not be the overall

R.B. 1 is messed up and then why is Nick Chubb never been hired and R.B. 8 and fancy football even though he's a consensus top five running back because full point perception scoring is stupid but again we play we need to get into it.

Number four we have Alvin Camara just one spot higher than his opportunity says he should be Zika is R.B. 5 ADP he should be R.B. 4 for looking at just the opportunities portion sake on bark Lee at R.B. 6 and ADP should be three spots higher in terms of opportunity.

Jonathan Taylor like Derek Henry seven spots higher than arguably he should be just based on ADP versus opportunity Nick Chubb 10 spots higher.

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