Win Daily presents our 2019 Fantasy Football Running Back Rankings for PPR formats in 2019. Our staff came together for a consensus that should help you in Best Ball and seasonal drafts. Use this as your cheat sheet, as our experts are experienced league winners in many high level formats.
Of course, our Fantasy Football Running Back Rankings begin with nine RBs that are surefire No. 1 guys . They should mostly go off the board in the first round. Todd Gurley is an obvious risk at No. 10, so there are only nine RBs you can truly feel good about drafting as your RB1.
You will want to make sure to get two of the Top 20 or so RBs this year to feel content with your two starters. By the time you get outside of the Top 25 or so, you won’t be too comfortable with your RB2 options. You can choose to feature up to 50 RBs below in our Fantasy Football Running Back Rankings.
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More Win Daily 2019 Rankings: Quarterbacks
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Win Daily not only delivers great DFS advice for you, we also break open our seasonal coverage with our Fantasy Football Quarterback Rankings for the new season. The Win Daily staff came together to present our combined positional ranks for the new season. Of course, this year’s class is deep, but the top two choices offer a lot of upside.
Patrick Mahomes tops our Fantasy Football Quarterback Rankings, as it seems he will now have Tyreek Hill for a full season, but Andrew Luck may have the best receiving crew in rhe league this year. Baker Mayfield is getting a lot of hype, but if you are willing to wait at the position you could end up with solid choices like Jared Goff and Philip Rivers.
Make sure you register for our Premium Gold package now to get all of our great preseason and regular season DFS NFL Picks. We are just getting you started here with our Fantasy Football Quarterback Rankings.
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“Theonly place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” –Vince Lombardi
One-week fantasy football has grown in popularity over the last few years and for good reason. The money being awarded to the winners of NFL DFS tournaments has exploded, reaching its peak when DraftKings hosted their Daily Fantasy Football World Championship, with a $15 million prize pool that awarded $5 million to the lucky first-place winner. DraftKings and FanDuel are now running weekly Millionaire Makers awarding $1 million to first-place finishers every week this season. What better way to enjoy the NFL season than to go after a million-dollar prize. It’s more appealing, too, because you can draft a new team each week and not have to worry about shuffling around injured players and draft busts.
Many DFS players consider NFL DFS preferable to MLB and NBA DFS because fantasy players get multiple days between games to research their teams. In addition, there are many great resources out there to break down players’ performances from the previous week and to project their success moving forward. For the casual player who wants to dabble in DFS, I always starting with the NFL. It’s the same advice I give to family and friends. There are plenty of statistical considerations to get into, but first let’s break down the differences between DraftKings and FanDuel’s scoring systems.
| Offensive Scoring | DraftKings | FanDuel |
| Passing TD | +4 Pts | +4 Pts |
| Passing Yards | +0.04 Pts/Yard | +0.04 Pts/Yard |
| 300 Yards Passing | +3 Pts | |
| Interception Allowed | -1 Pt | -1 Pt |
| Rushing TD | +6 Pts | +6 Pts |
| Rushing Yards | +0.1 Pts/Yard | +0.1 Pts/Yard |
| 100 Yards Rushing | +3 Pts | |
| Receiving TD | +6 Pts | +6 Pts |
| Receiving Yards | +0.1 Pts/Yard | +0.1 Pts/Yard |
| Reception | +1 Pt | +0.5 Pts |
| 100 Yards Receiving | +3 Pts | |
| Punt/Kickoff/FG Return for TD | +6 Pts | +6 Pts |
| Fumble Lost | -1 Pt | -2 Pts |
| 2 Pt Conversion (Pass, Run, or Catch) | +2 Pts | +2 Pts |
| Offensive Fumble Recovery TD | +6 Pts | +6 Pts |
Something that immediately stands out here is that the two NFL DFS systems are very similar, down to the points per yard on passing, receiving, and rushing yards. However, you’ll see that DraftKings awards a full point per reception, while FanDuel gives 0.5 points, a seemingly small distinction but one that may play into your roster construction, as your high-volume receivers, running backs, and tight ends are twice as valuable on DraftKings.
Another key distinction here is that DraftKings awards an extra three points for the milestones of three hundred passing yards, one hundred receiving yards, and one hundred rushing yards. This should definitely factor into your NFL DFS lineup construction, as you’re looking for players on DraftKings who are likely to have a huge breakout game, so you can get those NFL DFS bonus points on top of all the points they’ve already accumulated for you with their raw yardage.
The defensive scoring is as follows:
| Defensive Scoring | DraftKings | FanDuel |
| Sack | +1 Pts | +1 Pt |
| Interception | +2 Pts | +2 Pts |
| Fumble Recovery | +2 Pts | +2 Pts |
| Interception Return for TD | +6 Pts | +6 Pts |
| Fumble Recovery for TD | +6 Pts | +6 Pts |
| Blocked Punt or FG Return for TD | +6 Pts | +6 Pts |
| Safety | +2 Pts | +2 Pts |
| Blocked Punt or FG | +2 Pts | +2 Pts |
| 2 Pt Conversion/Extra Point Return | +2 Pts | +2 Pts |
| 0 Points Allowed | +10 Pts | +10 Pts |
| 1-6 Points Allowed | +7 Pts | +7 Pts |
| 7-13 Points Allowed | +4 Pts | +4 Pts |
| 14-20 Points Allowed | +1 Pt | +1 Pt |
| 21-27 Points Allowed | +0 Pts | +0 Pts |
| 28-34 Points Allowed | -1 Pt | -1 Pt |
| 35+ Points Allowed | -4 Pts | -4 Pts |
Defensive scoring is exactly the same. You’ll get big NFL DFS points from defenses who don’t give up many points and get a lot of turnovers. This shouldn’t be all that surprising for you, though, so let’s take a look at roster construction for the two sites.
As we get into NFL DFS rosters, it’s important to note that neither league includes kickers anymore, a change that went into effect for FanDuel in 2018. The positions you must fill on each site are:
| DraftKings | FanDuel |
| QB | QB |
| RB | RB |
| RB | RB |
| WR | WR |
| WR | WR |
| WR | WR |
| TE | TE |
| FLEX | FLEX |
| DEFENSE | DEFENSE |
The NFL DFS lineup construction has changed over the years, so now the two leagues are exactly the same in this regard. If you’re familiar with football, you should recognize all these positions.
Except one, that is. Let’s talk about the FLEX. The FLEX spot for both sites can be filled with either an RB, WR, or TE. This gives you the opportunity to have 3 RBs in your lineup, something that may pay off for you if you identify backs who are lining up against weak run defenses in NFL DFS, especially in games their teams are favored to win, likely resulting in heavy second-half touches during garbage time to run the clock down and preserve the win.
If you remember the NFL DFS scoring breakdown, though, DraftKings awards a full point per reception while FanDuel gives only 0.5 and DraftKings gives bonuses for yardage milestones, so the way you use this FLEX position should differ between the two leagues. When you’re on DraftKings, you should strongly consider using the FLEX for pass-catching running backs and highly-targeted receivers and tight ends.
We often talk about DFS Stacks in MLB, and you can stack in football as well. Stacking your QB with your receiving core is a great idea, as you’ll get points on both ends. In 2017, QB/WR stacks earned 20+ points fifty-two times, or 3.05 times per week. This is a tried-and-true strategy for racking up big points.
DFS Stacks of QB/RB is a little more complicated. If the RB on the team catches the ball well out of the backfield, something players like Alvin Kamara do on a consistent basis, you can stack the QB with the RB. This is especially true if the defense they’re facing that day runs a scheme that leaves RBs out of the backfield uncovered or left to a slower linebacker. You can uncover a great matchup by researching little tidbits like this. However, the only time you’d want to stack a QB with an RB is if he catches the ball out of the backfield a lot. In 2017, there were only twenty-five occurrences of twenty-point QB/RB stacks, or 1.47 per week. There just aren’t that many Alvin Kamaras and Christian McCaffreys out there.
You’re looking for an accumulation of points. So you don’t want to take a QB and an RB out of a balanced offense and get a marginal return from both in your DFS Stacks. It would be better for you to take a QB from a pass-heavy offense and an RB from a run-heavy one. That way, you’re taking the biggest producers from each offensive scheme.
You can also stack the entire game, just like with baseball DFS Stacks. If you take a look at the Vegas line and the game is projected to be close and high-scoring, you might have a shootout on your hands. As long as you don’t pick either of the defenses, this situation could really pay off for you. You’ll get points from both offenses as they go back and forth throughout the game. The longer defenses stay on the field, the more tired they get. So that production is only going to increase as you head into the second half.
Think about DFS Stacks as a series of correlations. If you stack your QB and WR, you’re betting that they’re going to connect for a lot of passing yards and a couple TDs. You want these sorts of dependent relationships. Look at how good the two future Hall of Famers Tom Brady and Randy Moss were when they were in New England together. If you took Brady and Moss, not only were you getting two players at the top of their game. Every time they connected, you would rack up points with a compounding effect.
You can think about correlations for defenses, too. If you pick a defense to hold their opponent to a few points, the correlation strategy would be to pick that team’s RB as well in your DFS Stacks. If the defense does what it’s supposed to, the team will likely maintain a lead throughout the game. They will run the ball a lot to wind down the clock.
You’ll also want to examine Vegas lines to look for potential full game stacks, to note games to avoid, and to predict game flow. If the over/under for the game is in the mid to high 50s and the spread is minimal, the betting world is expecting a back-and-forth shootout. That is an ideal situation for DFS and full game DFS Stacks. Vegas is only a prediction tool, though, and games with lower totals could provide the same high scoring shootout with the added bonus of low ownership. So don’t be afraid to full game stack a lower Vegas total game.
You can also take a look at the games with a low over/under and pick up one of those defenses in your DFS Stacks. Use the over/under as a reference point for the players you already have penciled into your lineups, too, because if you have an offensive player on one of the teams with an over/under at twenty or fewer points, it’s highly unlikely that they will be the only player who racks up good offensive points in the game.
Check out the spreads as well. If a team is heavily favored, you can use that information to your advantage. Pick up the RB that will get a lot of touches late in the game to run down the clock. Likewise, if a team is expected to lose big, that would be a good sign that you should target their QB or top WR.
For full game DFS stacks to pay off, though, you want the game where two bad defenses are squaring off. Then the plan is to stack four to six players with proper correlations. A good combination would be two to four QB-WR-TE from your predicted trailing team along with one to three RB-WR-TE from your predicted leading team. Combine whoever you think will come out on top with an RB and some receivers, along with the trailing team’s QB and WRs. Then, to round out your team, you can sprinkle in some value plays or high-end guys from other games.
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There have been quite a few NFL rule changes over the past few years that benefit offensive players and play into Daily Fantasy Football Strategy. Defensive backs aren’t allowed to hand-check and hold nearly as much as they used to, and pass rushers basically can’t touch the quarterback at all. Both of these changes have made passing easier. Rule changes to protect receivers, making it illegal to hit defenseless receivers or hit them in the neck/head region, have resulted in more missed tackles and bigger windows for receptions, too. These changes have raised the stakes on your offensive drafting. Offense in NFL DFS has always been important, but these rule changes have made it even more so.
When putting together your team, choosing the right defense will also be important. Because you get points for sacks and turnovers as well as for holding opposing offenses to fewer points, it’s a smart Daily Fantasy Football Strategy to target teams who get great pressure on the quarterback to force turnovers and hold offenses to low point output.
Taking a look at DVOA (Defense Value Over Average) is a good place to start when researching defenses as part of your Daily Fantasy Football Strategy approach. DVOA calculates a team’s success each play during the season and how successful they are compared to the league average for that down and distance. A defense that ranks near the top in DVOA is better on average week in and week out than the rest of the league. Go after the defense that has proven to be able to game plan against their opponents to hold them to fewer points than other defenses.
Also check out what they defendagainst well and what they don’t. Some teams are really good against the runbut have a weak secondary, and vice versa. A team may have a great DVOA becauseof their secondary, but if they have an average defensive line and linebacking coreand are facing off against a team that’s averaging well over one hundred yardsin rushing each week, they’re likely to see that DVOA ranking drop after givingup a lot of points on the ground. The same is true with passing defense numbers.Remember that the game is skewed toward the offense now, and the best offensiveteams in each category will beat the best defensive teams in that category.
The best way to target your defense, though, isn’t really about the defense at all. It’s most important to pick your defense based on their opponent. Low-scoring offenses rarely have breakout performances, no matter who they’re up against. So, as you pick your defense and consider your Daily Fantasy Football Strategy approach here, start your research by taking a look at the worst-performing offenses and who they’re playing that week. Especially look to target teams missing their starting QB, key pieces of their offensive line, or their stud RB. It’s a savvy Daily Fantasy Football Strategy.
As you identify good matchups, beaware that weather can have an effect—although not as much as you might think.Light rain, snow, or wind doesn’t have much of an effect on offensive players. However,heavy snow and rain can make it more difficult for quarterbacks to throw well,for running backs to hold on to the ball, and for receivers to completereceptions. During snowy games, the amount of accumulation on the ground isvery important: while offensive players may be slowed down a bit, defensiveplayers are too, which can open up some great opportunities for long catch-and-runTD’s.
Heavy winds over 20 mph are rare but do occur several times throughout each season. Strong wind will have the worst effect on the offense, affecting quarterbacks and the receiving core most. Be sure to check out the weather reports the day of the games to see if any weather threats are affecting the players you have chosen and your Daily Fantasy Football Strategy.
Games played in domes are typicallygood for offenses, as players will be able to play faster with more surefooting. Identifying offenses with fast skill players who are playing insidethat week is a good plan: their speedy guys might be able to break through forbig gains during the winter months when other teams’ offenses will be sloweddown by heavy snow, rain, and frigid temperatures.
Something else to keep in mind as is that injuries are common in the NFL. Reading the practice reports as they come out during the week will be crucial to your success and Daily Fantasy Football Strategy. If a player is inactive or if he’s questionable, take a look at his replacement, especially if it’s an RB in a run-heavy offense or a WR in a pass-heavy one. Teams won’t change their entire offensive structure just because a player is out that week. They will plug the next guy in and keep right on going. These players will typically be flying under the radar, as low-owned backups. However, be careful about reading too much into these reports, as teams are deceptive in their approach and disclose as little as possible about their players’ injuries so that their upcoming opponents don’t catch wind of a crucial injury.
Byeweeks are crucial for players who are battling nagging injuries. If there’s aplayer who’s been listed on his team’s practice report as questionable for acouple weeks due to a minor injury, but he gets a full bye week to rest, he couldbe a good buy-low candidate if the team goes into a matchup that will favorthem. After an extra week of rest and treatment, he might be lined up for abreakout performance.
The converse of that is when players are coming off a short week or flying cross-country, getting less rest between games. Be especially aware of which direction teams are flying each week when considering this in Daily Fantasy Football Strategy. If one of the players you’re considering is on a West Coast team and is heading East to play an early game in the 1:00 p.m. slot, you may want to slide down his projection a tad. That’s a tough adjustment for the player to make, and if you’re considering two players side by side, that might make the difference for you.
Low-owned players in general should be a place for you to look for value picks. If somebody is struggling early on in a new system or battling injuries but is facing off against a weak defense or other conditions that favor him, it would be a good bet to take a flyer on him as a value pick who may break out. This is especially true when players face off against defenses with certain weaknesses. Maybe an RB is having a tough season but is playing a team with a weak defensive line. That’s a great opportunity to get some value out of a cheaper pick. Similarly, using middling receivers versus banged-up secondaries is a good Daily Fantasy Football strategy.
“Ifwinning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?” –VinceLombardi
NFL DFS is a shorter season than other sports, with each team only playing sixteen games, so you have plenty of time for research, but every game counts quite a bit more than in baseball. There are certain statistics you should focus on to be successful. First, take a look at a player’s fantasy points per game. You can see how many fantasy points players average and what their totals are from week to week. If you’re looking for a place to start, here you go. This is where you’ll begin to get a feel for who the top performers are. As you get into your research, you can make the distinction between them and your value picks that may be less obvious.
Sites like RotoGrinders also provide NFL DFS projection models that estimate weekly scoring for each player on the slate. There are a bunch of sites out there with different projections, so I do my best to import as many projections as I can to see where all the experts and optimizers stand on each player in the player pool. I make my own personal adjustments based on my research and update that daily as the week goes on.
My goal is to narrow the playerpool down by Saturday night. Of course, the more time I have on a given weekaffects the number of players I may have to choose from. Football is a sportwith a great amount of variance, so I try to be selective with my player pool.At the same time, though, I want to add in potential low-owned high-value playersthat could be in line for a breakout game.
To get a sense of a NFL DFS player’s consistency, take a look at their variation from week to week, which is usually represented by standard deviation. When you draft a high-priced player, you want to be sure that even if they have a down week, they’ll bring you at least fifteen to twenty points and won’t kill the rest of your lineup.
Quarterbacks (QB’s) are essentialand less volatile than other positions in your lineup because they get so manyopportunities to succeed each week. Not all QB’s are consistent, of course, butyou won’t see many QB’s get pulled out of games at halftime or see theirattempts fluctuate too wildly from one start to another. Typically,quarterbacks on losing teams perform better in fantasy than quarterbacks onwinning ones. This makes sense because when teams are losing, they are going toadopt a more pass-heavy game plan in order to score as quickly as possible, andwhen they are winning, they will turn to the running game to drain the clock.
However, this fact doesn’t mean you should target every underdog quarterback over the favored ones. If the NFL DFS matchup looks great for a certain quarterback, you should take him even if he’s favored to win the game. The team may shut down the passing game with a lead later on, but they likely will have built that lead with a strong aerial attack. Game script matters, but not so much to keep you from taking a great matchup.
Ideally, you want a good QB on ateam with a weak defense and no good RB’s. That way, the team will be downfrequently in games and have to throw more often. Because fantasy points areall about accumulation, it doesn’t matter if his completion percentage isterrible, as long as he’s racking up yards and TD’s for you.
Mobile quarterbacks are great picks for NFL DFS because they can rack up points for you in multiple ways. Passing yards are worth 0.04 pts/yard, but rushing yards are worth 2.5 times more at 0.1 pts/yard. So, if you’re choosing between two QB’s, you should take the one who might be able to get outside the pocket and break out for fifty yards rushing at some point during the game—if he does, that scramble would be worth five points for you. On good days, a dual-threat QB like Cam Newton will rush for eighty yards with a rushing TD, giving you a fourteen-point boost in addition to all his passing yards and TD’s.
Touchdowns are hard to predict on a week-to-week basis but there are certain factors we can look at with QB’s to help us predict who’s going to rack up TD’s that week. First, you can look at scoring rates. What percentage of the team’s scores come from the passing game? What percentage of the red-zone scores are through the air? Looking at scoring rates of both the quarterback’s offense and the defense he’s facing that week can give you an idea of how often he’ll get into the end zone.
As you choose your NFL DFS RB’s, WR’s, and TE’s, take a look at snap counts, touches, and targets per game. You want guys who are on the field, get handed the ball, and get thrown the ball a lot.
Snap totals are really importantfor offensive players. If a player is in a timeshare situation or is battlingan injury that’s affecting his snaps each week, he may not be out there whenthe defense shows a weakness and the offensive coordinator figures out how toexploit it. You might have a guy in a new system who hasn’t won over hiscoaches yet, or is dealing with a nagging injury, or is just getting outplayedby somebody else at his position.
You can also see how those snap totals are trending. If a player is staying on the field more and more in recent weeks, that’s great, as he’s keeping himself in a position to rack up DFS NFL points. However, if he’s seeing less and less time, you should fade that player, even if he’s a big name. Go with the guys who are going to be in the middle of things all the time.
Remember that fantasy points aren’tbased on averages. If a certain back is averaging four yards per carry, that’sgreat, but doesn’t do much for your fantasy team if he only gets ten touches ina game. Avoid these kinds of timeshare players who split their action withanother guy in their position. A bell cow-type RB who gets closer to threeyards per carry but gets the ball thirty times a game is the type of guy youwant to target. Volume, volume, volume. Take a look at those touches per gameand target those guys week in and week out.
Something to remember as you look at your NFL DFS options, though, is that just like with QB’s, many factors can affect a back’s touches throughout the game. If a team is up a lot of points early in the game, even the most pass-heavy offenses will pull back in their offensive approach and start handing the ball off more frequently to their running backs. The converse is true, as well. If you target an RB who usually gets thirty touches a game but his team is down twenty-one points heading into the second half, it’s unlikely that the player will get many rushes. His teams will likely try to make up the difference with downfield passing plays, leaving him out of the offensive scheme unless the team has dual-threat receiving backs.
The same is true for receivers: go after the guys who get targeted a lot. The number of targets a particular receiver totals indicates how useful he is to the team. With receivers, you should consider Receiver Air Yards (RAY). The statistic adds up the total number of yards thrown toward a receiver on plays in which he’s targeted—both completed passes and incomplete ones. Basically, it gives you a raw number of what would happen if all his targets had turned into catches. This gives you a sense of how much a receiver is a part of his offense’s scheme and helps you compare value between different types of receivers.
An important thing to note about choosing a NFL DFS receiver, though, is that the two systems reward different types of receivers. With the yardage milestone bonuses and a full point per reception, DraftKings rewards possession receivers who get targeted a lot. For instance, a guy who gets ten catches for one hundred yards, basically just moving the chains, would rack up twenty-three points on DraftKings compared to fifteen on FanDuel. So, on DraftKings, the better pick isn’t the exciting player who can stretch the field on long passing plays once or twice per game, tempting as they might be to add to your squad.
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