Shawn Siegele explains why the scariest RB Dead Zone profile is priced above the dead zone and threatens to torpedo your roster like Dalvin Cook in 2022 or Austin Ekeler in 2023.
My most notorious player-related article came right at the beginning. In June 2013 I argued that Adrian Peterson was not worth a top-five pick. This was six months after he came within 9 yards of breaking the single-season rushing record and five months before Zero RB, Antifragility, and the Myth of Value-Based Drafting recommended a contingency-based approach to roster construction.
This was also during the days of utter RB dominance at the top of the fantasy football drafts, and Peterson had led the position in scoring during his magical age-27 season. But he hadn’t finished in the top five on a per-game basis in either 2010 or 2011. He wouldn’t finish in the top five in 2013 either. In 2014 he suffered a serious injury during Week 1, and in 2015 he defied medical expectations by returning to lead the position in rushing yards . . . and still lost the RB1 title to Devonta Freeman by almost five PPG.
Profile matters, and fantasy managers understand that lesson better now, although Derrick Henry is still going in Round 2. (Don’t worry. This isn’t about Henry.)
A year ago, Austin Ekeler was coming off a string of ridiculous fantasy seasons. His 2022 campaign featured 107 receptions with 18 total touchdowns and culminated in a 32-point PPR performance in Week 17 that clinched leagues and tournaments everywhere.
That all changed in 2023.
Ekeler had ranked in the top five in fantasy points over expectation (FPOE) in three of the previous four seasons, but that playmaking vanished during his age-27 season (after an injury in Week 1). A haphazard offensive design hastened the collapse, and yet the breadcrumbs were present even during his otherwise sterling 2022 performance.
Of course, the much closer comp for our 2024 land mine probably comes in the form of Dalvin Cook’s 2022 season. I’ll explain why that’s the case and help you create a framework for avoiding roster-killing RB selections in today’s exercise.
New to the RB Dead Zone concept? Don’t miss my in-depth discussion with Ben Gretch, whose Dead Zone research helped revolutionize early-round drafting.
Want a deep dive into the RBs you should draft instead? 2023’s Best Player Hack Gives Us 4 Tournament-Winning RBs for 2024. Plus, don’t miss Mat Irby’s look at 1 Myth and 1 Key Metric for QB Evaluation.
