In Defense of Ageism, Part II: The Undervalued Rookie Running Back You Want on All Your Teams
Image Credit: Leslie Plaza Johnson/Icon Sportswire. Pictured: Isaiah Spiller.

Blair Andrews turns to the running back position to examine the effects of draft age. How much of a difference does it make, if any?

Last week I detailed why I am an ageist about rookie wide receivers. It may come as no surprise to discover I’m an ageist about rookie running backs as well. While the benefits of declaring early and breaking out at a young age are not as clear or as well documented for RBs, younger RBs tend to outplay their older counterparts. But how much does this really matter? And is it already accounted for once we know draft position?

Measuring the Effects of Draft Age

For the purposes of this analysis, draft age is a player’s age on December 31 in the year of his final college season. It coincides with the Final College Age metric in the RB Prospect Lab. But how much does this metric really matter? The charts below give an indication of just how big a difference it makes for RBs.

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Blair Andrews

Managing Editor, Author of The Wrong Read, Occasional Fantasy Football League Winner. All opinions are someone else's.

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The Running Back Prospect Lab is one of my favorite tools on the site, but it’s not exactly a precision instrument. It uses a simple linear model to predict an RB’s early NFL career based on a few important college metrics. However, the simplicity ends up being a benefit — it knows what to look for and isn’t often fooled by outliers. Even in a…...

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Collegiate production is still among the most undervalued measurements for running back prospects. In large part this is because we lack many good ways to measure it. Both rushing and receiving numbers depend on scheme, personnel, offensive and defensive strength, and a host of other factors. This can make many of the raw counting stats misleading. The solution is to control for these factors as…...

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