3rd and Brown | Running Back preview

We here at SuperCoach insight want to publish articles and Brownie did some great work at the back end of NBA season! Enjoy his RB article free of charge!

Looking at the Running Back position, there is a few different ways to chop your 6 spots up. Based on Supercoach pricing, I have ranked them into 3 tiers - 

Tier 1 - $18,000,000 and over - 11 total players

Tier 2 - $17,999,999 and under - Lots of players

Tier 3 - The rookies 

You need to decide on what your make up looks like, with a few different options looking like this - 

OPTION 1 - 2 x tier 1, 2 x tier 2, 2 x rookies

OPTION 2 - 3 x tier 1, 1 x tier 2, 2 x rookies

OPTION 3 - 4 x tier 1, 2 x rookies

OPTION 4 - 3 x tier 1, 3 x rookies

I started this exercise with OPTION 1 as my RB core - Gibbs, Robinson, Jeanty, Walker III, and the rookies Love and Price. I thought this was a pretty vanilla selection, and looking at the top ownership numbers, this confirmed that, as I am owning the top 5 guys that are owned by the rest of Supercoach’s - 

1. Jeremyah Love - 64.5% owned

2. Jadarian Price - 60.2% owned

3. Jahmyr Gibbs - 57.8% owned

4. Bijan Robinson - 50.5% owned

5. Kenneth Walker III - 39.9% owned

6. Bhayshul Tuten - 30.3% owned

7. Saquon Barkley - 25.7% owned

8. Christian McCaffrey - 23.9% owned

9. Jonathon Brooks - 20.9% owned

10. Chase Brown - 12.3% owned

11. Omarion Hampton - 10.8% owned

12. Jonathan Taylor - 9.9% owned

13. Ashton Jeanty - 9.8% owned

14. James Cook III - 9.2% owned

15. David Montgomery - 7.4% owned

16. Marshawn Lloyd - 6.9% owned

17. Derrick Henry - 6.5% owned

18. Kyren Williams - 5.9% owned

19. Jonah Coleman - 5.4% owned

20. Cam Skattebo - 5.1% owned

Looking at the rookies on this list, and where Sleeper is projecting them to finish in PPR scoring - 

Jeremiah Love - 14th highest scoring RB

Jadarian Price - 26th 

Mike Washington - 45th 

Emmet Johnson - 57th 

Jonah Coleman - 59th 

Based on this, and barring injury, only Love and Price are going to make us money in the first couple of price rises. That tells me the 3 x rookie running back option is a hard avoid.

OPTION 3 with 4 x Tier 1 RB’s seems crazy right? But hear me out - Looking at last year’s Supercoach scores and removing QB’s, 13 of the top 20 scores were by RB’s (6 x WR and 1 x TE).

With news that Mendoza will not be starting week 1, there isn’t a rookie QB that is going to generate us quick cash. The goal needs to be to get to 4 x Tier 1 guys as quickly as possible, but what if we sacrificed elsewhere and started with 4 Tier 1’s???

The overall rookie class for Supercoach scoring looks weak compared to last year. So based on that how many premium guys can you get into your team elsewhere, if you load up at Running back? That is the multi million dollar question.

Or can you make some money on some Tier 2 options at RB? How do we find a Tier 2 money making option though? Don’t worry I have done the work to help with this. The below is a list of the top 30 projected RB scorers on Sleeper, PPR league scoring. Not an exact like for like, but until SC improves its scoring system, I will continue to use Sleeper projections.

PLAYER

SLEEPER RANKING

SC PRICE RANKING

SC OWNERSHIP RANKING

Jahymr Gibbs

1

4

3

Bijan Robinson

2

3

4

Christian McCaffrey

3

1

8

Jonathan Taylor

4

2

12

James Cook

5

6

14

De'Von Achane

6

5

21

Chase Brown

7

8

10

Derrick Henry

8

7

17

Saquon Barkley

9

14

7

Kenneth Walker

10

29

5

Omarion Hampton

11

15

11

Ashton Jeanty

12

17

13

Javonte Williams

13

12

23

Jeremyah Love

14

ROOKIE

1

Breece Hall

15

20

25

Kyren Williams

16

11

18

D'Andre Swift

17

16

39

Travis Etienne

18

13

33

David Montgomery

19

34

15

Cam Skattebo

20

10

20

Bucky Irving

21

18

29

Qhinson Judkins

22

23

34

Bayshul Tuten

23

62

6

TreVeyon Henderson

24

25

28

Jaylen Warren

25

19

66

Jadarian Price

26

ROOKIE

2

Rhamondre Stevenson

27

21

36

Rico Dowdle

28

22

32

JK Dobbins

29

24

69

Tony Pollard

30

30

46

Looking at Sleeper ranking vs SC price ranking, there is a couple of standouts for value - 

Saquon Barkley - 14th in SC price |  9th in Sleeper projections

Kenneth Walker III - 29th in SC price | 10th in Sleeper projections

Ashton Jeanty - 17th in SC price | 12th in Sleeper projections

David Montgomery - 34th in SC price | 19th in Sleeper projections 

Saquon is a year older, and a year closer to falling off the inevitable cliff that RB’s fall off. Montgomery and Walker III are on new teams in new offenses, so they might start a little slow, although beware the Patrick Mahomes comeback season.

Jeanty, well Jeanty will be starting the season with Kirk Cousins as his QB, so he will be leaving my team, dismissed immediately today.

The clear standout here is Bayshul Tuten, who is priced at 62nd in SC, and projected 23rd in Sleeper projections, as the new RB1 for the high powered Jaguars offense.

I don’t know if I have helped or muddied the waters, but can confirm I have made changes to my RB core, and in the process created an OPTION 5 for how to chop up this part of your team - 

3 x Tier 1 - Robinson, Gibbs and welcome to the 4th and 4 inches team for the first time this off season Chase Brown

2 x Tier 2 - Kenneth Walker III and new recruit Bashuyl Tuten

1 x Rookie - Jeremyah Love - Jadarian Price an unfortunate casualty of the sweeping changes to the team.

This could change at any moment.

Back Fence Brown