Previously, I wrote how the age of RBs when they were drafted affected their future fantasy success. That piece was a follow-up on Russell Clay’s interesting article on running back and wide receiver draft position and the “probability“1 of fantasy success. He defined RB “success” as over 1000 yards from scrimmage (YFS). Now, I’m going to use that success metric and look at both factors, RB draft age2 and draft position, together to see what they tell us about future RB fantasy success.
Here’s the chart for RBs taken in the first 1st round:
The first column is the number of seasons the RBs in this study gained 1000+ YFS. The percentages in the subsequent columns tell us how frequently RBs of a particular draft age met the 1000+ YFS criteria compared to the total number of RBs that age drafted from 2000-2018. For example, 84.2% of all 21-year-old backs drafted in the first round in that period had at least one 1000 YFS season.
The “Zero” row is the percentage of backs at a given draft age who NEVER (or not yet, for RBs taken recently), gained 1000 YFS in a season. Logically, you could figure this out by subtracting the “1” row percentage from 100%, but I think it’s more telling to actually see the percentage broken out separately.
The last row tells you how many RBs in each age group were drafted from 2000-2018. Note that the samples aren’t huge, especially for 23-year-olds. Not only is that oldest age group the smallest of the three shown, but no RB over age 23 has been taken in the first round in this century. Right there we see that the NFL recognizes that most RBs good enough to merit a top pick are younger – and that most college RBs good enough to go in the first round don’t wait around to get hurt in unpaid football.
There is not a lot of difference among the three age groups in the first two rows: over two-thirds of all first round RBs of any age are going to produce at least one season of 1000+ YFS; over half will do it twice.
But as we go down the chart, 1st round RBs who entered the league younger have more and more likelihood of producing more successful seasons. There is one exception to this rule: starting at the 6-seasons level, the 22-year-old draftees edge ahead of the 21-year-olds, and then roughly hold their own, again out-pacing the younger backs when it comes to 9 successful seasons.
This is all Adrian Peterson. He’s the 22-year-old draftee who appears at the 9-year mark and boosts all the percentages for his age group from 6 seasons on. As mentioned last time, Peterson’s entry into the draft was probably delayed by his college injuries: if he’d stayed healthy, he almost certainly would have come into the league younger. If I take Peterson out, the 22-year-olds look worse at every level.
In part, the “Peterson effect” points out how small these sample sizes are and how just one player skews the results. So while I think these percentages are meaningful, they are not statistically significant.
I think that 22-year-olds are something of a “trap” age: about a third of the time they don’t even produce a single successful fantasy season despite their lofty draft position. That “age trap” is even more apparent in the 2nd round:
Second-round, 22-year-old RBs have a much higher failure rate (percentage of RBs with zero seasons over 1000 YFS) than their older or younger counterparts. For whatever reason, NFL teams seem to have overrated the potential of some backs entering the draft at that age. Remember from my last article that as a whole, RBs drafted at age 22 outperformed older backs – it’s just in these early draft rounds that runners at this age seem to underachieve.
Again, we have one 22-year-old draft pick who boosts the whole group. In this case, it’s Matt Forte. He’s the only 2nd round RB at this age to have more than 3 successful seasons. In fact, he’s the only RB over the age of 21 taken in the 2nd round to pass that benchmark. While you might get a year or two of production from 23-year-olds, history has shown that if you want more than that from an NFL 2nd-round back, you should stick to 21-year-olds.
One back taken in the 2nd round didn’t make this chart. Kenny Irons was drafted by the Bengals in 2007 at age 24. He tore an ACL in his first preseason game and never appeared in a regular season contest.
In the third round, we start to see youth being less important. 21-year-olds have a high failure rate. I didn’t look at all 10 RBs in this sample, but my guess is that these players probably came out too soon or had other flaws that NFL teams over-looked, thinking that, due to their youth, these backs had more potential than they really had.
22-year-olds were slightly better than 23-year-olds in generating one or two seasons of 1000+ YFS; the older backs were a little better after that. Frank Gore is the 22-year-old that shows up as the 4.5% from the 3rd season on (in fact, he had 12 such seasons even though I cut off the chart at 9). But it’s not like there were a LOT of 23-year-old 3rd round picks with 3 or more productive seasons. David Johnson has had three – and presumably will have another – while DeMarco Murray and Brian Westbrook each had five. And Jamaal Charles was the exceptional 21-year-old to have 5 successful seasons after being a 3rd round pick. So again, we’re dealing with small samples in which one or two players can really affect these percentages.
A few outliers not on the chart: Shonn Greene, a third-round pick at age 24, had two 1000+ YFS years. Ronnie Hillman (20), Vernand Morency (25) and James Jackson (25) never broke the 1000 YFS barrier.
The bottom line is third-round backs of any age seldom have more than two good years. You are more likely to get that limited amount of production from 22 or 23-year-olds than younger backs.
After the third round, NFL success for RBs is very sporadic. The vast majority of RBs taken this late never have a season with over 1000 YFS. You’re a little more likely to get a winning lottery ticket if you play the 21-year-olds.
I threw the 24-year-olds into this last chart because there were a significant number of them, unlike in the earlier rounds. There were also eight RBs in the age 25 group, none of whom had a successful season. And there were one each drafted at age 20 and 26. Dion Lewis (20) has had one 1000+ YFS year, and Mike Anderson (26) had two such seasons.
To sum up:
- RBs aged 21 through 23 are the only significant age groups in this study; all further comments apply only to those ages.
- 21-year-olds taken in Round 1 out-perform older backs drafted in the same round over the course of their career; the same is true for 2nd round backs.
- 21-year-olds picked in Round 3 generally under-perform older RBs in that round.
- 22-year-olds taken in Rounds 1 and 2 generally do worse than 23-year-old RBs drafted in the same round.
- 22 and 23-year-olds drafted in Round 3 perform about the same but third-round backs of any age seldom have more than two good years.
- The vast majority of RBs taken after Round 3 never have a season with over 1000 YFS but you’re a little more likely to get a winning lottery ticket if you play the 21-year-olds.
- Exceptional players (Adrian Peterson, Matt Forte, Frank Gore, and others) can appear at any age or any round so take these points as general guidelines, not hard rules.
Caveats: all these percentages are based on small samples and could be affected by RBs like David Johnson, who haven’t yet finished their careers.
1It’s not exactly right to call this probability, as Russell acknowledges, since these aren’t random number selections with defined chances of appearing. It’s still a useful way of thinking about his results.
2“Draft age” in this study is the age the player was at the start of the season (September 1st) in the year he was drafted. Of course, it’s arbitrary to say a player born on August 31st is “older” than one born on September 1st.
