- In our sample of games over the past 10 seasons, 60.1% of the backs to receive 20 or more touches in a game have posted an RB1 scoring week with those backs averaging 19.9 PPR points and 18.3 half-PPR points per game.
- It is hard to crack the top 12 in leagues that reward catches without a touchdown. Just 13.8% of all top 12 weekly scorers over that span have gotten there without a touchdown in the game.
- On average running backs score a touchdown on 3.1% of their touches. Both Raheem Mostert (8.9%) and De’Von Achane (8.5%) were over 8.0% last season.
We are pushing into August and further downhill towards the 2024 fantasy season.
With most fantasy drafts approaching these final weeks before the season, we have one last series to run this week before laying out the positional draft plans next week.
This week, we will dive into the stats that matter the most for weekly fantasy output and which have the largest rollover year over year.
Running Back Fantasy Related Articles:
- Running Back Tiers
- Running Back Rankings
- Running Back Trends
- Red Zone Points vs Expectation: Running Backs
- What We Can Learn From ADP: Running Backs
Highest Correlation to Weekly Fantasy Points Scored For Running Backs
| CATEGORY | PPR PTS | 0.5 PPR |
|---|---|---|
| Touches | 0.6964 | 0.6887 |
| Tot. TD | 0.6115 | 0.6592 |
| RuAtt | 0.4285 | 0.4365 |
| Snaps | 0.5739 | 0.4365 |
| Receptions | 0.4767 | 0.4365 |
| RuTD | 0.4681 | 0.4685 |
| ReYds | 0.4623 | 0.4365 |
| Targets | 0.4537 | 0.4365 |
| RuYd | 0.4167 | 0.4365 |
| ReTD | 0.1712 | 0.1682 |
This one is largely obvious, but nothing correlates to scoring (or not scoring) fantasy points in both PPR and 0.5-PPR formats rather than touching or not touching the football.
You cannot accrue counting stats without first touching the ball.
Volume is everything.
Opportunity is the name of the game at running back, which is why gamers get downright giddy when there is a DFS slate with a backup running back elevated into a lead role during the week after pricing has already been posted.
Touchdowns can be fickle and tough to predict, but we are largely good at predicting where the football is going within a backfield on a given week.
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In our sample of games over the past 10 seasons, 60.1% of the backs to receive 20 or more touches in a game have posted an RB1 scoring week with those backs averaging 19.9 PPR points and 18.3 half-PPR points per game.
In 2023, that rate was even higher.
65.8% of all running backs who touched the ball 20 or more times in a game turned in an RB1 scoring week.
Of the 18 running backs to lead the position in weekly scoring over the season, those backs averaged 25.6 touches per game. Every single one of them touched the ball 20 or more times in that game.
Even if you run hot in the touchdown department, you still need a lot of touches to take down the weekly crown.
When we went under the hood dissecting running back trends across the league, we highlighted that running back touches are at a premium now more than ever.
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