If you've been researching as you prepare for your fantasy draft, you've probably come across a lot of advice from a lot of different sources, much of it contradictory. Zero-RB, Robust-RB, late-round QB, streaming defense... it can be hard to make sense of it all. So I wanted to go back to basics and talk about what positions are valuable in fantasy football, and more importantly, why.
Further, I wanted to discuss how the answer to that question changes as your league changes. Because the truth is that fantasy football advice is never one-size-fits-all. The number of teams in your league, the number of players you start at each position, these aren't minor details. They're vitally important factors that can radically change which positions matter the most.
The Laws of Supply and Demand
Oxygen is one of the most important resources in the known universe. If any human being is deprived of a steady supply for just ten minutes, he or she will almost certainly suffer irreparable brain damage or death. Gold, on the other hand, is relatively pretty but functionally unimportant; other metals are better at conducting heat or electricity or are more ductile or more malleable or more reflective. There are very few commercial applications for gold where another metal wouldn't serve as well or better.
So why is a bucketful of oxygen-free while a bucketful of gold is ruinously expensive? Because oxygen is abundant and gold is scarce. Virtually every room you'll ever enter is chock full of oxygen just waiting for your use, whereas if the world's entire supply of gold was melted into a cube it would be about the size of a baseball infield, and to get that meager supply we've had to scramble down hundreds of feet underground, smash it out of the surrounding rock, and haul it back to the surface.
The supply of oxygen in the atmosphere far outstrips the demand for that oxygen, so the cost of oxygen is zero. (In the case of oxygen tanks, you're not paying for the oxygen, you're paying for the cost of the tank and the process of filling it.) But the demand for gold far outstrips the supply, so gold is quite valuable.
Fantasy football is the same way. How valuable a position is has very little to do with how many points that position scores. Instead, it's largely a function of how scarce that position is.
On any given play, an NFL franchise is allowed to use one quarterback plus five other players who are eligible to receive and advance the football. (The other five players on the field are only permitted to block.) How teams distribute those eligible players varies from franchise to franchise, but let's say that teams use an average of 1.25 running backs, 2.5 wide receivers, and 1.25 tight ends. This means that across all 32 teams there is an average of 32 quarterbacks, 40 running backs, 80 wide receivers, and 40 tight ends who are involved in the game plan every week.
Depending on how many players your league starts, you will start a fraction of those available players at each position. In a 12-team league that requires 1 starting quarterback, for instance, you will start 12 of the 32 eligible quarterbacks, or about 38%. If we calculate that fraction for a variety of different league settings we can see the RAREST and MOST ABUNDANT positions.
This chart is based on a 12-team league, and I've made assumptions about how flex spots will be distributed. In a superflex league, I assume that 10 out of 12 eligible flex spots will be devoted to quarterbacks. In a league that starts 1 running back and 1 flex, I assume that at least eight of the eligible flex spots will go to running backs. In a league with two running backs, three wide receivers, and a flex, I assume the flexes will go to four running backs, six wide receivers, and two tight ends.
Now, you can quibble with the breakdown I've used for how many players at each position are involved in the weekly game plan. And you can quibble with how flex positions will usually be distributed. But the broad strokes of this analysis remains the same: most leagues start 1 quarterback, 2 running backs, 2-3 wide receivers, 1 tight end, and 0-1 flex positions. In those typical leagues, fantasy owners will start 60-70% of available running backs, but under 50% of available players at every other position.
And this only looks at starters; injuries are common in football, so every team would want quality depth behind their starters in case disaster strikes, which further winnows down the pool of available players.
Because running backs are so scarce, owners must prioritize acquiring players at the position or risk missing out entirely. If you wait at quarterback or tight end, odds are quite high that you'll still be able to find acceptable production. If you wait at running back or potentially wide receiver (in leagues with three starting receivers and possibly a flex), you run the risk of running out of viable players and being left gambling on players who are not even expected to be part of their team's weekly game plan.
But the most important takeaway from the chart should be that the exact numbers change as you change your league's parameters. Running back is almost always the scarcest position, and therefore the most valuable. This is reflected in average draft position; on average, 14 of the first 24 players selected in fantasy football leagues are running backs, compared to six wide receivers, two quarterbacks, and two tight ends.
But the relative value difference between running backs and wide receivers is much different when you start three wide receivers than it is when you only start two. Similarly, adding a superflex spot or requiring two starting quarterbacks makes the quarterback position roughly as scarce (and therefore as valuable) as the running back position.
Additionally, many people don't consider how league size impacts scarcity. In an 8-team league that starts 2 running backs with no flex, only 40% of the available running back pool will be used in any given week; because scarcity is so much lower, it becomes less important to prioritize the position quite so much. Instead, 8-team leagues tend to increase the value of top performers regardless of position.
Except, of course, for 8-team leagues with non-standard starting lineups. In an 8-team league that starts 2 quarterbacks, 3 running backs, 5 wide receivers, and 2 tight ends, which position would you expect to be scarcest? Running through the calculations, you'd expect the league to start 50% of available quarterbacks, 60% of running backs, 50% of wide receivers, and 40% of tight ends; this actually seems like a fairly balanced league.
As you can see, the beauty of scarcity is it's very easy to calculate for your specific league. And you can be almost certain that your leaguemates will not be taking this extra step, and will remain ignorant to one of the core components of player value.
