Consistency in fantasy football is an important thing when it comes to roster construction. While we can appreciate the volatile boom/bust weeks of players like DeSean Jackson and Will Fuller, having a starting roster full of these types of players can lead to some rough outings when they play to their floors.
End of season fantasy stats give you a reflection of how a player did over the year, but they don’t really tell the whole story. Fantasy football is played on a week-to-week basis. We want players that are consistently playing well to make up the core of our fantasy squads.
In order to find these consistent, week-to-week fantasy players, I calculated the coefficient of variation (CV) for each player. This is the player’s week-to-week standard deviation divided by his points per game average. By dividing it against PPG, we can create a level playing field for players on a per-game basis.
I took a look at all fantasy games from Weeks 1 – 16 over the past two seasons as the makeup of our data set. Week 17 was also excluded from this exercise due to how often teams deploy backups and don’t necessarily treat it the same as the other weeks. A two-year span gives us more data points to work with and what should be a greater degree of accuracy.
I also wanted to add a fantasy element to this exercise, by adding Top-12% weeks — RB1 performances — and top-24% weeks — RB2 performances — during this time frame. These values were calculated by averaging every RB12 and RB24 fantasy week from Weeks 1 – 16 during the 2017 and 2018 seasons. That number came out to be 17.8 PPR FPs for RB12’s and 12.1 for RB24’s. The respective Top-12% and Top-24% was the number of times that each running back surpassed that threshold divided by the number of games they played.
We’ve already tackled the quarterback position in this exercise, but now it’s time to see how the running backs fared.
| Player | Games | PPG | CV% | Top-12% | Top-24% |
| Saquon Barkley | 15 | 24.1 | 32.7% | 80.0% | 93.3% |
| LeVeon Bell | 15 | 22.8 | 37.3% | 73.3% | 93.3% |
| Todd Gurley | 29 | 26.0 | 39.5% | 79.3% | 93.1% |
| Kerryon Johnson | 10 | 13.9 | 40.5% | 20.0% | 60.0% |
| Ezekiel Elliott | 24 | 21.5 | 42.4% | 58.3% | 91.7% |
| Melvin Gordon | 26 | 20.6 | 42.7% | 61.5% | 84.6% |
| David Johnson | 16 | 15.5 | 45.9% | 25.0% | 75.0% |
| Ito Smith | 13 | 7.5 | 46.9% | 0.0% | 15.4% |
| Phillip Lindsay | 15 | 14.9 | 47.2% | 26.7% | 66.7% |
| Alvin Kamara | 30 | 21.5 | 47.3% | 56.7% | 80.0% |
| Leonard Fournette | 20 | 16.7 | 47.3% | 40.0% | 70.0% |
| Christian McCaffrey | 30 | 20.0 | 47.5% | 53.3% | 73.3% |
| Lamar Miller | 28 | 12.5 | 49.2% | 17.9% | 46.4% |
| Chris Carson | 17 | 13.0 | 52.5% | 23.5% | 58.8% |
| Dalvin Cook | 14 | 14.8 | 53.2% | 28.6% | 71.4% |
| Kareem Hunt | 26 | 19.8 | 53.4% | 60.0% | 73.1% |
| Joe Mixon | 26 | 14.0 | 53.9% | 30.8% | 42.3% |
| Mark Ingram | 26 | 15.6 | 54.7% | 38.5% | 57.7% |
| Tevin Coleman | 29 | 12.0 | 55.7% | 17.2% | 37.9% |
| James White | 29 | 13.6 | 59.3% | 20.7% | 55.2% |
| Nyheim Hines | 15 | 10.3 | 60.9% | 6.7% | 33.3% |
| Jordan Howard | 30 | 11.8 | 61.8% | 13.3% | 46.7% |
| LeSean McCoy | 28 | 13.3 | 62.6% | 28.6% | 53.6% |
| Devonta Freeman | 15 | 12.6 | 63.3% | 20.0% | 33.3% |
| Dion Lewis | 30 | 10.9 | 64.6% | 16.7% | 30.0% |
| Royce Freeman | 13 | 6.4 | 65.9% | 0.0% | 15.4% |
| Carlos Hyde | 28 | 10.9 | 67.2% | 14.3% | 50.0% |
| Sony Michel | 12 | 11.2 | 69.1% | 25.0% | 41.7% |
| Peyton Barber | 25 | 8.5 | 69.2% | 12.0% | 28.0% |
| Tarik Cohen | 30 | 12.1 | 71.4% | 23.3% | 46.7% |
| Chris Thompson | 19 | 12.4 | 71.5% | 26.3% | 47.4% |
| Adrian Peterson | 25 | 10.7 | 72.5% | 16.0% | 36.0% |
| Austin Ekeler | 26 | 10.2 | 72.5% | 11.5% | 38.5% |
| Malcolm Brown | 20 | 3.7 | 74.9% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Kenyan Drake | 28 | 11.5 | 75.2% | 25.0% | 42.9% |
| Jaylen Samuels | 8 | 9.8 | 75.6% | 12.5% | 37.5% |
| Jerick McKinnon | 15 | 11.6 | 78.6% | 26.7% | 33.3% |
| Rashaad Penny | 11 | 6.3 | 78.6% | 9.1% | 0.0% |
| Aaron Jones | 22 | 11.4 | 79.9% | 27.3% | 40.9% |
| Matt Breida | 29 | 8.8 | 80.7% | 6.9% | 34.5% |
| Latavius Murray | 30 | 8.8 | 82.2% | 13.3% | 33.3% |
| Nick Chubb | 15 | 12.7 | 83.7% | 26.7% | 53.3% |
| Marlon Mack | 24 | 10.9 | 85.3% | 12.5% | 25.0% |
| CJ Anderson | 23 | 9.2 | 95.2% | 13.0% | 26.1% |
| Derrick Henry | 30 | 10.2 | 96.0% | 13.3% | 30.0% |
| Donta Foreman | 10 | 6.8 | 98.7% | 10.0% | 10.0% |
| Ronald Jones II | 6 | 3.5 | 104.6% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Jamaal Williams | 28 | 8.5 | 106.8% | 17.9% | 21.4% |
| Damien Williams | 17 | 8.5 | 107.0% | 23.5% | 23.5% |
| James Conner | 24 | 11.8 | 110.2% | 29.2% | 37.5% |
| Kalen Ballage | 9 | 3.8 | 163.2% | 11.1% | 11.1% |
Fantasy Takeaways
- The table above produced some interesting results. Saquon Barkley’s 32.7 CV% leads the entire group, but he only played in 2018. Le’Veon Bell’s 37.3 CV% was the second-highest, but that rate was from just the 2017 season. Todd Gurley’s 39.5 CV% spanned both seasons (29 games) with remarkable consistency. All three of these players scores averaged over 22-plus PPR points per game, sporting the highest top-12% and top-24% marks.
- The most-surprising name here inside the top-five was Kerryon Johnson. Johnson’s 10 game sample averaged 13.9 PPG, and his CV% of 40.5% trailed only Barkley, Bell, and Gurley. Johnson now has C.J. Anderson (95.2 CV%) to contend with for touches in what should be a frustrating split for fantasy owners. Anderson’s history and size indicate a red zone role for him sapping away valuable touchdowns from Johnson. Anderson’s high CV% is most likely due to games where he’s scored and received the sporadic additional six-point bonus. I’d expect Anderson’s arrival to slide Johnson down this list in 2019.
- Other bellcows in Ezekiel Elliott (42.4 CV%), Melvin Gordon (42.7 CV%), and David Johnson (45.9 CV%) were the next group of most consistent fantasy options. All three contribute heavily in rushing, receiving, and red zone work as their team’s primary running back. Their consistent performances should keep them in this top-10 again for next season.
- Dalvin Cook (53.2 CV%) and Joe Mixon (53.9 CV%) find themselves outside the top-12. Both backs should be in for larger roles in 2019 if they can stay healthy. Both have an ADP as top-15 players. One player sandwiched in between these guys is Kareem Hunt (53.4 CV%). We don’t know how many touches and what kind of workload he’ll have when he returns from suspension midway into the season, but his past history in KC shows us that he was a rather consistent fantasy performer.
- Backing up Bell in 2017, James Conner’s CV% (110.2%) looks abnormally out of place. If we adjust the parameters to just his 2018 season, it drops to a staggering 46.5 CV% — right behind David Johnson. Conner’s had some wishy-washy statements about being the RB1 in Pittsburgh, but currently has the narrative set to him having a similar role in 2019. That’s an incredibly valuable fantasy role considering how high of a percentage of snaps, touches, and targets has been historically force-fed to Pittsburgh’s top running back.
- Damien Williams (107.0 CV%) also sports a wildly high coefficient of variation. His inconsistent role in Miami in 2017 and backing up Kareem Hunt to start the 2018 season are the primary reasons. Williams never saw greater than 50% of the team’s offensive snaps prior to Week 14 last season. He went on to finish the season (through the playoffs) with touch totals of 12, 16, 20, 12, 30, and 15. Entering his age-27 season, he’s one of the more controversial fantasy draft picks at the Round 2/3 turn.
- Inconsistent time in the limelight has led to both Aaron Jones (79.9 CV%) and Jamaal Williams (106.8 CV%) both having inconsistent fantasy outings over the past two years. HC Matt LaFleur intends on running a committee here, much to the chagrin of fantasy owners. Jones should get the lion’s share of work to start and hopefully put to bed this committee nonsense by simply outplaying and outperforming Williams.
