Perhaps the most difficult part of drafting a fantasy football team is determining when to draft each position. It’s easy to simply take the player that you believe will score the most points, but it’s incredibly difficult to determine if one position’s points are worth more than another position’s. Is the running back 12 equivalent to the wide receiver 12? What if the wide receiver 8 is available, but the top 12 running backs are gone? Even tougher, you might know you need a wide receiver, but can you afford to wait, or do you need to take one now?

This, of course, is why it’s best to look at players in tiers when drafting rather than hard and fast rankings. The next logical question to ask would be, how are the tiers defined? If only we played a game with numerical values attached so that we could analyze the data.

Although tiered rankings are somewhat arbitrary, it’s beneficial to understand what the data is telling us. Is it beneficial to draft your second running back before your third wide receiver, or the other way around? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter unless you get the right guy, but I prefer drafting with as much information as possible.

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Positional Disparity in Fantasy Football

Top 12 PPG Scorers by Position

It should come as no surprise that last season’s quarterbacks were the highest scoring position group, but more importantly, the drop off from QB1 to QB 12 consists of 7.7 points per game. Only tight end had a greater drop off at 9.2 PPG. The top wide receivers in the game are lauded for their consistency as pass catchers, particularly in PPR scoring, but that also comes into play as we move down the board. Running back saw 7.3 points between the RB1 and RB12, while wide receiver only dipped by six points.

So, what does this tell us? Tight end is top heavy, for one, but we already knew that. It’s not a major shock that the running back drop-off is significant given that the top backs are target hogs. Despite so much emphasis on wide receiver these days, you are technically surrendering more PPG by passing on running backs at the very top of the draft. Context is important, however, and we know that running back is a volatile position. Of the top 12 running backs in 2022, seven of them were being drafted as a top 12 running back compared to nine of the top 12 wide receivers. In other words, three wide receivers being drafted as WR1s did not finish as one in terms of PPG, while five running backs drafted in the top 12 at the position slipped out of RB1 status.

Of course, injuries are more prevalent among running backs, but that’s also why we are utilizing PPG for this data and focusing on the performance when the player was available. Running backs are consistently banged up, however, even when they are suited up. We are also far better at projecting wide receivers. Their roles are more consistent in an offense, whereas running backs are more dependent on the offensive line and subject to the opponent’s game plan. That’s especially true as we start getting further down the list among running backs who don’t play as many third downs or simply see a smaller share of touches.

13 – 24 PPG Scorers by Position

As we get into the 13 through 24 scorers at each position, we continue to see running back fall off at a higher clip than wide receiver. Interestingly, the difference in the overall PPG average of RB1s to RB2s is a smaller gap than we see with wide receivers. In other words, a random RB2 will be closer in scoring to a random RB1 than a WR2 to a WR1. To be fair, the gap is very thin at just .08 PPG, and that’s likely due to the top wide receivers being so dominant.

Obviously, tight ends have experienced a steep dive, thanks to Travis Kelce blowing his peers out of the water. It is notable, however, that we are starting to see the scoring fall off at a much smaller rate. The difference between TE1 and TE12 was a whopping 9.2 PPG, but the difference between TE13 and TE24 was just 1.7 PPG. Even if we used George Kittle’s PPG rather than Kelce’s, the dip from him to the TE12 is 4 PPG, a much wider gap than the 1.7 that we see from TE13 to TE24.

This also exemplifies the increasing value of elite quarterbacks. The position displays the largest numbers in each category with a 4.81 difference in PPG from the QB1 to QB2 average. The difference from QB13 to QB24 is much thinner at 3.8 than the 7.7 we saw from QB1 to QB12, again highlighting the upside of the elite-level quarterbacks. The difference between QB1 and QB24 is obviously significant at 11.6 PPG, but we can see where the position begins to slip. If we remove the top six quarterbacks, we see a dip of just 4.9 PPG to the QB24. The top six quarterbacks return high-end production and are irreplaceable. Following that, the curve gets much flatter.

25 – 36 PPG Scorers by Position

Things get increasingly interesting as we enter the 25 – 36 range. Each position, outside of quarterback, is differentiated by less than 2 PPG from the 25^th scorer to the 36^th. It’s clear that wide receivers are separating from the pack in terms of overall scoring as the group of WR3s matched the scoring of QB3s, leaving running back and, of course, tight ends in the dust.

The most important thing to keep in mind here is that most leagues are now starting three wide receivers in addition to flex spots. Rather than simply comparing WR3s to RB3s, we should take into consideration how WR3s stack up against RB2s. The average PPG for WR3s came in at 12.6, about a half-point dip from the 13.18 PPG we saw from the RB2s. With that, the dip from WR2s to WR3s is the smallest of the bunch at 1.83. This shouldn’t be a surprise as teams are running more three-wide receiver sets than ever, and the guys on this list have consistent roles in an offense, while the same can’t be said for running back.

We are again seeing a minimal dip in tight end production, with a gap of 1.4 PPG from the TE25 to the TE36 and a 2.02 drop from the average of TE2s to the average of TE3s.

37 – 48 PPG Scorers by Position

At this point, we know that running backs and wide receivers are immensely more valuable than quarterbacks and tight ends, but still, we continue to see how wide receivers stand above the rest. The average PPG scoring of WR4s is just 2.18 lower than that of RB2s. Many running backs that we see in this bunch provided us with a productive stretch of games but did little else across the other weeks.

On the flip side, the difference between WR1 and WR48 was 11.9 points compared to 13.7 from RB1 to RB48. Wide receivers continue to produce as we get further down the list, but the top running backs still provide an advantage if you can snag the right one(s).

We’ve established that tight end is wildly top-heavy, falling 11 PPG from TE1 to TE24, but it continues to see a steady dip as we continue down the list. It’s far less significant but steady nonetheless. The TE4 average of 4.95 PPG is 1.42 PPG different than TE3s and 5.4 PPG different from TE2s. In other words, if you don’t have an elite tight end, the rest of the options are all very similar, but you’d still be better off snagging one of the top 24 than completely punting on the position.

Obviously, it’s important to remember that these guys were not drafted in this order. We aren’t THAT good at our jobs, so the upside and variance must be factored in when drafting. The data still tells us a story, however. Getting ahold of a top-performing running back, however that happens, still leads to a strong advantage. Elite quarterbacks are as valuable as ever before the position flattens out, similar to tight ends. The consistency of top wide receivers is unmatched, but the position is deep and flush with scoring further down the boards. There are many plug-and-play options in the WR4 range.

There’s no one way to draft or go about building a roster. Leagues can be won through various methods, and you can interpret this data in your own way, but having this data and drafting with as much information as possible already puts you one step ahead.

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