2018 Football Draft Kit: What Last Season Means for This Season

The 2017 season felt like a referendum of sorts for the fantasy football universe, following the "Year of the Wide Receiver" in 2015 and the "Running Back Revival" in 2016. Chalk it up as a decisive win for running backs, despite the best efforts of Antonio Brown and DeAndre Hopkins.

An increase in backfield receiving production allowed the position to dominate the fantasy landscape for a second straight year, even as league-wide scoring (43.4 points per game) dropped to its lowest level since 2009 and rushing efficiency (4.08 yards per carry) hit its lowest point since 2007. The dip in YPC didn't stop offenses from trading throws for carries, with passing volume hitting a six-year low of 68.3 attempts per game, a 4.4 percent drop from 2016.

Yard per pass attempt dropped from 7.15 to 7.01 and passing TDs from 781 to 746, backed by a dip in completion percentage (63.0 to 62.1). An increase in negative passing outcomes was another part of the low-scoring equation, with interception rate rising from 2.3 percent to 2.5 percent and sack rate from 5.8 to 6.4 percent (though both marks were similar to 2014-15 after hitting all-time lows in 2016).

It wasn't the year of the running back so much as the year of the defense, as a 3.3 percent uptick in carries wasn't enough to prevent a huge drop in rushing TDs, which fell from 443 in 2016 to 380 in 2017, moving back to what had been the normal range in 2010-2015.

The drop in total scoring was made all the more interesting by a tiny increase in field goals, along with a rebound from the unusually low total of 57 defensive touchdowns in 2016 to a more typical mark of 79 in 2017. Once the field goals and defensive scores are accounted for, the loss of 2.2 points per game from 2016 actually understates the decline of offensive production in the fantasy universe.

And yet, there was no shortage of big seasons from running backs, led by a 19-score effort from Todd Gurley, whose 21.4 points per game in standard scoring was the best by any non-QB since Chris Johnson ran for 2,000 yards in 2009. Despite sitting out the final week of the season, Gurley outscored every quarterback besides Russell Wilson, becoming the first non-QB to finish better than third in total scoring since Arian Foster led the league in 2010.

There is some good news for those who love high-flying football, as the offensive downturn in 2017 was largely a product of poor quarterback play, a surprising development brought on by a rare number of high-profile injuries. With a strong QB rookie class joining a league with no shortage of young stars or established veterans at the position, better injury luck may be all that's needed to push scoring back to its 2012-16 level.

How We Got Here

Our story really begins with the 2014 NFL Draft, where nine wideouts were selected before the first running back (remember Bishop Sankey?). It was the second draft since the AFL-NFL merger without a tailback in the first round, and the other had been the year before. Those classes produced Le'Veon Bell ('13) and Devonta Freeman ('14), but the duo was no match for the torrent of rookie receiving talent that swept the league away in 2014.

Odell Beckham Jr., Mike Evans and Kelvin Benjamin came out of the gates with at least 1,000 yards and nine touchdowns each, and fellow rookies Jarvis Landry, Brandin Cooks, Sammy Watkins, Allen Robinson, Jordan Matthews and Martavis Bryant also topped 11 PPR points per game.

That massive influx of talent entered the league when Antonio Brown and Julio Jones were already well established and a slew of wideouts in their late 20s were still playing at a high level. The hype train was headed straight to receivertown after 2014, and the 2015 season gave it the finishing touch of steam.

Brown and Jones both topped 1,800 yards in 2015 and four others had at least 1,400 and 11 TDs. The rest of the wideout scoring didn't look much different from the previous few years, but the impact of the outburst at the top was amplified by a complete collapse at running back, where four of the top-five per-game scorers suffered injuries that cost them more than half the season.

The reaction in summer 2016 was something we'd never seen before: fantasy drafts with wide receivers dominating the early picks. Brown, Jones and Beckham often went 1-2-3, and it was rare to see a draft with more RBs than WRs in Round 1.

So, what happened in 2016? The consensus top-three wideouts fell off some from their 2015 campaigns, and production was so spread out at the position that there wasn't much difference between a WR3 and a WR5 on the typical fantasy roster. A wideout who scored 14 PPR points per game was a locked-in starter and 12 per game was a decent WR3, but 10 per game could probably be found on waivers.

The league-winners were running backs, led by a mixture of rookies (Ezekiel Elliott, Jordan Howard), second-year breakouts (David Johnson, Melvin Gordon, Jay Ajayi) and veteran rebounds (Bell, LeSean McCoy, DeMarco Murray). In addition to what Johnson, Elliott and Bell did at the top, the difference between a mid-range RB1 and mid-range RB2 was about five PPR points per week, and the gap between a typical RB2 and waiver material was even more.

The revival of fantasy football's premier position was thorough, and so 2017 drafts brought a familiar sight – running backs dominating the early picks. Johnson and Bell almost always went 1-2 in some order, with Elliott only falling out of the top three due to suspension concerns.

Surviving the Scoring Drought

Despite Elliott's suspension and Johnson's injury, running backs dominated the fantasy landscape again, with rookies Kareem Hunt, Alvin Kamara, Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey compensating for the disappointment of top-20 picks Johnson, Ajayi and Murray. There were seven RBs among the top-10 PPR flex scorers, including the top three spots. In standard scoring it was eight of the top 10, including Nos. 1-6.

Unlike in 2016 when the WR fantasy decline had merely been a matter of production spreading out, 2017 saw a league-wide dip in stats for the position. Cumulative WR targets dropped 9.1 percent from 2016, contributing to losses of 11 percent in catches, 10.2 percent in receiving yards and 13 percent in receiving touchdowns. The number of 1,000-yard wideouts dipped to 13, the fewest since 2003, and only two scored double-digit touchdowns.

Wideouts weren't the only ones to suffer, as tight ends lost 4.6 percent of targets, 7.7 percent of catches and 7.0 percent of receiving yards from 2016, though they actually added eight TDs (a 4.3 percent bump). Only four tight ends reached 800 yards, following six consecutive seasons with at least six hitting that mark.

So where did all those passes go? You guessed it – to running backs. On top of the league-wide bump in run:pass ratio, RB receiving production increased across the board from 2016 to 2017 – a 10.2 percent bump in targets, 9.7 percent in catches, 11 percent for receiving yards and 13.8 percent for receiving touchdowns.

It wasn't nearly enough to save fantasy production at quarterback, where Wilson was the only player with 300 fantasy points and one of just 13 above 240 (15 per game over 16 weeks). Each of the previous three seasons had at least five QBs with 300 points and at least 17 with 240.

The Impact of Injured QBs

The first theory that comes to mind as an explanation for last year's changes is rather simplistic: 2017 featured a rare degree of high-profile QB injuries. Andrew Luck and Ryan Tannehill missed the whole season; Aaron Rodgers, Deshaun Watson and Carson Palmer played seven games apiece; Carson Wentz, Jameis Winston and Josh McCown each missed three games.

One might expect teams to throw just as often without their starting QBs while trying to erase frequent deficits, but the reality in 2017 was the Colts, Packers, Cardinals and Texans all increased their run:pass ratio from the previous year and threw at least 48 fewer passes. The Dolphins were the lone exception among the five teams hit hardest by QB injuries, and their passing game was so inefficient that an increase of 125 attempts yielded 76 more yards and three fewer TDs than the previous year.

We know it's terrible for offensive output when plays that would've been passes from Luck and Rodgers turn into carries for Frank Gore and Jamaal Williams, but that still doesn't give us an explanation for so many 2016 WR/TE targets turning into 2017 RB targets. None of the aforementioned teams had a significant increase in the target share going to tailbacks, contradicting the conventional wisdom that overmatched QBs will throw more dump-offs.

It isn't exactly breaking news that modern NFL offenses rely on short, high-percentage throws, nor is it a new development for running backs to enter the league with ample pass-catching experience due to the proliferation of spread attacks in the college game. Both points illuminate the general trend toward more passing to RBs over the last decade, but neither explains the jump between 2016 and 2017.

Part of our explanation lies in the fact that 2016 was a down year for backfield receiving production by modern standards, with cumulative targets dropping 8.0 percent from a record 3,656 in 2015, a season that had been painfully short on high-volume rushers and rich in pass-catching specialists (two developments that likely were connected). A rebound in 2017 was always likely, but what we got was something more – a record for RB targets (3,714) in a year with reduced league-wide passing volume.

Draft Distribution

A look at the last few NFL Drafts gives us another part of the solution, revealing how league-wide talent dispersion has changed the last five years. The instant success of the 2014 wideout class created a brief period of overlap between the new stars and the old guard at receiver, while lousy RB classes in both 2013 and 2014 allowed the position to dry up quickly once Jamaal Charles, Arian Foster, Adrian Peterson, Matt Forte, Marshawn Lynch and Alfred Morris fell off.

The roles then reversed in 2015 when a draft full of busts at wide receiver proved incapable of replacing all the talent lost through the retirement or decline of Calvin Johnson, Steve Smith, Dez Bryant, Brandon Marshall and Jeremy Maclin, among others. While the 2016 draft was a bit more balanced, Michael Thomas, Amari Cooper and Tyreek Hill are the only wideouts selected after 2014 to reach 1,000 yards in a season, and Evan Engram is the only tight end to hit 600.

Meanwhile, the 2017 draft alone produced four running backs with more than 1,000 scrimmage yards as rookies, adding to plentiful bounties from 2015 (Gurley, Gordon, David Johnson, Duke Johnson, Tevin Coleman, Ajayi) and 2016 (Elliott, Howard, Derrick Henry, Kenyan Drake).
Ajayi, Howard and Henry haven't shown much as pass catchers, but they've proven to be the exception rather than the rule in the modern game, with most of the league's successful young backs boasting receiving skills that demand offensive coordinators draw up plays for them.

What to Expect in 2018

Luck will be a mystery until he actually plays in a game, but even if things don't work out for the Colts' quarterback we can still expect a healthier season from the position as a whole. The top 10 per-game fantasy QBs last year combined for 23 absences, compared to no more than 10 in any of the previous three seasons. It was the same story looking deeper, as the top 20 accounted for 41 missed games in 2017, after no more than 25 the previous three years.

While quarterbacks take their fair share of vicious hits, it makes sense they tend to miss fewer games than players at other positions. With apologies to Wilson and Cam Newton, most signal callers avoid the repeated sprinting, cutting and thumping that's unavoidable for running backs and tight ends.

Improved health alone should help passing efficiency rebound, and it doesn't hurt to have a stellar incoming draft class that figures to take some of the starts that went to DeShone Kizer, Blaine Gabbert and Bryce Petty last year. Nearly all of the teams plagued by poor quarterback play in 2017 used a first-round pick on the position and/or paid big money to a free agent. Some of those franchises will inevitably end up disappointed, but there at least aren't any situations – besides maybe Buffalo – as blatantly hopeless as what we saw with the Browns, Broncos, Jets and 49ers entering last year.

Offseason investment largely went toward passing games, with only one free-agent running back (Jerick McKinnon) getting more than $5.1 million per year or $5.75 million guaranteed, marks topped by nine wideouts. The 2018 draft didn't have any uber-prospects at WR to match Saquon Barkley at RB, but there were four QBs taken in the first 10 picks and eight wideouts drafted between late in the first round and late in the second.

There's also still plenty of pass-game potential with the 2017 draft class, even if it will be impossible to match the early success of the running backs. There were a trio of top-10 picks at wide receiver last year – each saw his rookie campaign marred by injury. Corey Davis, John Ross and Mike Williams returned healthy this offseason, and a bunch of the Day 2 picks from last year (JuJu Smith-Schuster, Cooper Kupp, Kenny Golladay, Chris Godwin) flashed star potential as rookies.

The coaching changes around the league further point toward a general emphasis on passing over running, with greater commitment to the rushing attacks in Seattle and Detroit likely cancelled out (and then some) by the Tennessee and Chicago offenses opening things up under Matt LaFleur and Matt Nagy, respectively. The Titans and Bears both ranked in the top eight for run-play rate last season, with Chicago leading the league in neutral game situations.

The Jaguars and Cowboys are still committed to ground-and-pound and have the rosters to make the plan work, but it's otherwise difficult to find a team that can reasonably be projected for a run-play rate higher than 45 percent. While the Bills have that intention, their shaky O-line and defensive front seven could make it difficult to follow through. We'll inevitably see a couple major surprises in terms of run:pass ratio – the 2017 Saints and Colts come to mind – but only a few teams are truly angling for a run-heavy approach.

The RB-WR Battle Continues

Likely as it may be that we see a rebound from last season's six-year lows for scoring, passing efficiency and passing frequency, there's no denying that the current player pool is relatively strong on established upper-echelon talent at running back and relatively weak at wide receiver and tight end. This could create a situation similar to 2016, when passing remained prolific but was spread out more evenly across the player pool at wide receiver.

On the one hand, this gives us an argument for targeting RBs early in drafts, operating under the assumption that they'll tend to outscore the first/second-round alternatives at WR. On the other, it could just as easily be argued that the uncertainty among receivers increases the value of relative sure things like Brown, Hopkins, Jones, Beckham and Thomas. They won't beat the top RBs in terms of raw points, but they're safe bets for high-end production at a position where that's been tough to find the last couple years.

If recent history is any indication, a few of the running backs drafted in Round 3 or later will end up returning first-round value or close to it. Hunt and Kamara were the shining examples last season, preceded by Gordon, Murray, Howard and Ajayi in 2016. There have been far fewer instances of mid/late-round receivers returning early round value, with Thomas' rookie season standing out as the major exception. Keenan Allen, coming back from a torn ACL, was the only 1,000-yard wideout last year who didn't have at least 860 scrimmage yards in 2016.

It's been easy enough to unearth decent WR3s in the late rounds of recent drafts or even on waivers, but any hope for first- or second-round production has required a top-40 pick. There's a feeling of safety in drafting high-end running backs early and a slew of wideouts later on, but it also feels like a concession to accepting mediocrity, at best, with the latter position.

For those more inclined to shoot for the moon, consider that Brown, Hopkins, Rob Gronkowski and Travis Kelce have per-game floors higher than the ceilings of their position-mates drafted a couple rounds laters. That's not to say they should be drafted before the Gurleys and Bells of the world, but you'll know it's time to start focusing on receivers (or Gronkowski) when the remaining running backs all have some form of significant baggage.

QB & TE – The Leftovers

For all the change in how we view running backs and wideouts the last five seasons, the calculus at quarterback and tight end has largely remained the same – draft one early, or draft two late. The gap between the elite performers and the mid-range starters tends to be about three or four points per game, while the spread between the solid starters and bench/waiver players is often only two points (or a bit more for TEs in PPR).

Guys like Gronkowski and Rodgers offer enough upside to justify passing on a sure starter at RB or WR, but it's better to wait until the late rounds once the top few options are gone, as there's usually not much difference between, say, the No. 7 per-game scorer at QB/TE and No. 17. The gap at those two spots for QBs was 2.9 points last year, 1.8 in 2016, 1.5 in 2015 and 2.1 in 2014.

At tight end it was 1.4 in 2017 (2.9 in PPR), 1.9 in 2016 (3.2 PPR), 2.5 in 2015 (3.5 PPR) and 2.7 in 2014 (2.7 PPR). A strong 2017 draft class at TE – the position's first in years – should help stymie the pattern of decline in that gap, but it's still tough to justify a mid-range starting TE over an RB with upside in the middle portion of a draft. This is particularly true in non-PPR formats, where a mere seven or eight points per week is starter material at tight end.

Learning From Personal Experience

I fell victim to disregarding my own QB philosophy in my favorite league last season, getting a bit too excited when Drew Brees was available in the fifth round. My plan before the draft was to wait on the position unless I nabbed Rodgers or Tom Brady, but I had a change of heart when Brees on the board later than I'd expected.

I ended up playing matchups with Brees and Dak Prescott for much of the season, essentially getting the same production a pair of late-round picks would've provided. Meanwhile, my RB2 spot was a rotating cast of goons led by Ty Montgomery and Doug Martin – something that might've played out differently if the pick used on Brees had gone to a running back.

I still lean toward running back in the opening round, but expect I'll frequently draft my second receiver before my second RB this year. I nonetheless expect to have three or four backs rostered before turning my attention to the WR3 spot, which has essentially become the D/ST of offensive fantasy positions due to the wide dispersion of receiver production.

I operated with a similar strategy last year in my two Yahoo leagues and saw both sides of the coin, ending up with LeSean McCoy as my flex starter in one league and Montgomery/Martin as my RB2 in the other. My decision to secure just one back early in the draft worked out spectacularly when later shots at upside produced Kamara; less so when I got nothing but swings-and-misses. The first team cruised to a championship, while the second undeservingly snuck into the playoffs and took a beating in the title game.

Draft strategy does change a bit in leagues that start a flex instead of (or in addition to) a WR3, as drafting a second back early no longer entails the opportunity cost of keeping our favorite sleeper RB on the bench to start the year. But other drafters will also account for the upside of rostering three lead backs, thus pushing more RBs into the early rounds, followed by a heavy run on receivers later. This creates a nice opportunity to zig when our opponents zag – drafting a couple pass catchers fairly early, then loading up on backs after the first few rounds.

This article appears in the 2018 RotoWire Fantasy Football magazine. Order the magazine now.