WR or RB: Which is the Safer Play at the Top of Your Fantasy Football Draft?

While sitting around wondering what the future will hold with the NFL, I started thinking about ways to squash narratives about positional value. What positions are easiest to predict production? Before going any further, which position do you believe has more predictability: Running back or wide receiver?

This study is more for the top of the draft, as that’s the area where rankings don’t differ very much. There are many who debate who to take in the first-round. Do you take the running back with a guaranteed workload because it’s the “safe” pick, or do you take the wide receiver who’s locked into elite targets?

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In order to help decide which pick would actually be safer, we need to look at the history to determine what’s most likely. To do that, I’ve gone through the last five years to see which position had more randomness, as well as which position is more likely to repeat results.

Top-Six at Their Position

Over the last five years, there have been 23 different running backs who can say they’ve finished as a top-six running back. By comparison, there are just 17 wide receivers who can say that. While it may not seem like much on the surface, that’s a 26 percent difference, which is rather large.

There hasn’t been a running back who’s finished top-six in each of the five years. In fact, none have done it in four of the five years, either. The only running back who can say they’ve finished top-six in three of the last five years is Ezekiel Elliott, though he’s never finished No. 1.

With wide receivers, we have watched Julio Jones finish as a top-six performer in each of the last five years, while DeAndre Hopkins and Antonio Brown each achieved that four times, and Michael Thomas three times.

It’s safe to say that wide receivers have had much better repeat performances inside the top six at their position. So, when someone tells you they want to select Michael Thomas at No. 3 overall, it’s likely a safer pick than if they wanted to draft Alvin Kamara. We can argue about position scarcity, but that’s not what we’re doing this article for. The idea was to find out which position is safer to draft in the first round (six running backs, six wide receivers), and the receivers have shown the ability to finish there more consistently.

Here’s a list of the players who’ve posted multiple top-six finishes over the last five years.

Top-12 at Their Position

There are only so many spots in the first round and let’s be honest, it’s tough to finish inside the top-six at any position, year-in and year-out. But how about top-12? That’s the RB1 and WR1 range most are looking for when drafting a player inside the top two rounds.

Things get a lot closer for running backs in this area, as there have been 37 different running backs who’ve finished as a top-12 running back over the last five years. Meanwhile, there have been 32 different wide receivers who can say they have finished top-12 at year’s end. That’s a 13.5 percent difference, which is still a gap, though smaller than the 26 percent difference in top-six performers.

There have been seven different running backs who’ve tallied top-12 finishes in at least three of the last five years, which is the exact same as the number of wide receivers. The difference, however, is that there have been 23 running backs who’ve hit the top-12 exactly one time in the last five years, while wide receivers have just 16 such players. Again, it highlights that receivers are a bit more predictable.

Here’s the list of players who’ve posted multiple top-12 finishes over the last five years.

Top-24 at Their Position

This study was really meant for the top of drafts, as rankings differ so much once you get outside the first few rounds, it will skew the choice of picking a running back or wide receiver. But what the heck, let’s look at the results, anyway.

Over the last five years, there have been 63 different running backs who can claim they’ve had a top-24 finish (RB2 territory) in at least one season. The gap shrinks once again for wide receivers, as there’ve been 59 of them who can put in the top-24 claim. The difference is down from 26 percent in top-six performers, 13.5 percent in top-12 performers, and all the way down to 6.3 percent in top-24 performers.

Through the five years, there have been six running backs who’ve finished top-24 or better in at least four of the seasons. Those running backs were Todd Gurley, Ezekiel Elliott, Mark Ingram, Melvin Gordon, Devonta Freeman, and Lamar Miller. There were 10 others who finished top-24 on three occasions.

Wide receivers showed up in a big way here, as there were nine of them who posted top-24 numbers in at least four seasons, with three of them (Julio Jones, Mike Evans, Jarvis Landry) hitting that mark in all five seasons. The other six were Michael Thomas, Deandre Hopkins, Antonio Brown, Davante Adams, Amari Cooper, and Brandin Cooks. There were nine other wide receivers who finished top-24 on three occasions.

In order to shorten the list a bit, here’s the list of players who’ve had at least three top-24 finishes over the last five years.

Overview

Anyone who tells you that running backs are safer, particularly at the top of drafts, is incorrect. Again, I’m not going to argue position scarcity, as it absolutely matters and needs to be factored in. The question remains: What is the scarcity worth? We’ll dissect that in articles as we move through the offseason, but if you want to take a wide receiver in the first round, don’t let anyone talk you out of that idea because they’re less likely to be the reason you lose your fantasy draft/season.

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Mike Tagliere is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeTagliereNFL.