Sometimes those first-round running backs are too good to turn your back on, and rather than fading the likes of Christian McCaffrey or Austin Ekeler with your early picks, it makes sense to throw your anchor overboard in round one or two and feel safe in the knowledge that your ship is attached to a high-upside, high floor player. After these first selections, an Anchor RB drafter will favor wide receivers in the first six rounds but typically end up with one more running back around rounds five to seven.

• Introduction to Best Ball Leagues
• Erickson’s Best Ball Positional Primers
• Best Ball Roster Construction Strategy

Best Ball: Hero RB Strategy (2023 Fantasy Football)

While Zero RB and Robust RB are extreme strategies and can be polarising topics producing extreme results in one way or another, Hero RB sounds cool for a start and appeals to the masses more often because it allows for more balanced starts to drafts. Zero RB requires a wide-receiver-heavy start, and Robust RB focuses heavily on running backs, strategies that can put fear amongst the uninitiated. Meanwhile, with Hero RB, you’re free to grab a stud running back and build out your roster with wide receivers and even elite tight ends and quarterbacks.

Hero RB sometimes has its definition eased slightly to suit the builds people are working with, occasionally being renamed as Anchor RB or Modified-Hero RB and occasionally loosening the constraints of when certain players are taken. Still, for this article and the definition we’re following, we’re talking about a running back taken within the first two rounds and then no more until Round 6.

One of my favorite benefits of taking this approach is that it allows us to bypass the running back dead zone of Rounds 3-6 for the most part. Backs in this range have a habit of disappointing, and Jack Miller has written extensively on how running backs in this section had a below-expectation win rate in best ball formats over the last six years. Once the draft progresses past the sixth round, the difference in wide receiver and running back scoring becomes much closer.

In 2022 as the fantasy community became more aware of the running dead zone as a concept, many running backs were pushed above it or below, with only ten running backs drafted from the start of Round 3 to the end of Round 6 in Underdog average draft position (ADP), in contrast to the 14 drafted there in 2021. Of those 10, only four had positive advance rates, and two of the positive advance rates came from round 3 players, who, in hindsight, were perhaps priced incorrectly.

Meanwhile, in Rounds 7 and 8, Josh Jacobs, Tony Pollard, Dameon Pierce and Miles Sanders all crushed their expectations. Furthermore, in 2021, Round 7 onwards was an area of the draft where you could pick up James Conner and Leonard Fournette, who were standout league winners when all was said and done. So we can see that routinely, good value running backs can be found in that range. The Two images below show how running back scoring and advance rate dipped in rounds five and six in particular before becoming more fruitful in rounds 7 through 9. With a Hero RB build, we stand a good chance of avoiding this tricky area.

(RB Dead Zone Data via The Fantasy Sanctuary)

Through six rounds, you should now have a roster made up of a stud running back, who is a three-down pass-catching point-scoring machine, and then a bunch of great wide receivers along with the flexibility to add an elite tight end or quarterback without breaking from the strategy at hand. If you’re unable to draft a running back who plays three downs and is used near the goal line, then they’re likely not the type of running back we want to build this strategy around. Now that we’re past the dead zone and running backs have become more attractive again, it’s time to grab a couple quickly.

Thanks to FFPC Classic’s best ball data, which goes back to 2017, we can better understand how this strategy has paid off over time. For example, the table below shows that taking a running back in the first two rounds, then a second one after round five, and a third before round eight would give our rosters a bigger chance to succeed than if we waited until past round eight to select a third.

Hero RB Builds 2017-2021

(Data via Rotoviz)

While the difference between 8.80% and 10.60% might seem small when the average win rate is 8.30%, we’re seeing an increase of almost 25%.

This data also correlates with Underdog data combining 2021 and 2022 data using these construction tactics.

The table below shows the advance rates on Underdog in 2022 when taking a single running back in the first two rounds and then waiting until after round six for your second. Playoff advance rate is 16.7%.

(Data Via Rotoviz’s Roster Construction Explorer)

As we can see from this data, taking a Hero RB in one of the first two rounds, waiting till after Round 6 and then selecting between five and six running backs total resulted in a very successful advance rate. This isn’t a fluke, either. If we expand the parameters to include Best Ball Mania II data from 2021, the advance rates jump from 19.10% to 19.50% for five running back builds and from 18.6% to 19.2% for six running back builds.

It is worth pointing out that the later we try and push taking our second running back, the worse the advance rates get, which suggests the sweet spot for that RB2 is right around Round 7-8. And as mentioned earlier, getting an RB3 soon after your RB2 has led to strong advance rates.

In 2022, many different builds worked in best ball drafts, with the Underdog regular season $1,000,000 winner utilizing Zero RB and the overall winner using a Dual/Super-Hero RB approach. One thing remains clear, though. Using micro strategies such as Hero RB gives us an advantage over the field, which is 65% of drafts opt for no recognized strategy or a Robust RB approach, which has been proven to have poor win rates. A good draft structure can make up for missing on players, and if you’re building a large portfolio of best ball rosters, it’s good practice to try more than one type of strategy.

When entering drafts, it’s best to remain open-minded about how we navigate the draft board and be ready to hoover up players who drop to us. As a strategy, Hero RB will be one that I look to utilize often in 2023, based on its history of a strong win rate. If I can leave half of my drafts with a roster fitting this theory, then I’ll be satisfied, but as ever, all drafts are different, and by staying cognizant of what works best within strategy structures, we can increase our chances of winning.

Much of the raw data in this article has come from Rotoviz’s FFPC Roster Construction Explorer or 4for4’s Underdog Roster Construction Explorer and will be updated as 2022’s best ball data becomes available.

Check out all of our 2023 NFL Draft Scouting Reports & Prospect Profiles

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