As the NFL has changed, so has the landscape of fantasy football. The era of all running backs going in the first round of fantasy drafts is pretty much over.
There is a long way to go before owners start assembling their draft boards for the 2016 season, but early consensus rankings at Fantasy Pros have wide receivers holding an incredible 14 of the top 23 overall player spots.
This isn’t too much of a surprise. Fantasy football has been gradually shifting its focus towards receivers for several years.
For decades, the most basic draft strategy was to select two running backs as quickly as possible. Unless there is a dramatic change in these rankings, 2016 will mark the end of that tactic and the dawn of a new one heavily emphasizing wide receivers.
But not only do wideouts own a majority of the top 25 spots, they dominate the very top of the draft board too. Fantasy Pros ranks three of the top four players in this fall’s draft wide receivers.
At the No. 1 spot overall is none other than Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown.
The 27-year-old posted monster numbers again in 2015. He had 136 catches, 1,834 yards and 10 touchdowns. Brown finished tied for first in catches and second in yards.
Most incredibly, the Steelers’ top receiver recorded those numbers despite the fact quarterback Ben Roethlisberger missed four games. If Big Ben stayed healthy, we might be talking about a truly record-breaking season for Brown. In 2014, he led the league with 129 catches and 1,698 yards.
He has made the NFL All-Pro team in back-to-back seasons and was a yard shy back in 2013 of three straight years of 100-plus catches and 1,500-plus yards. In the last three years, Brown has averaged 125 receptions, 1,677 yards and 10.33 touchdowns per season.
It is pretty easy to see now why Brown is the early choice for the No. 1 pick. Ironically, his teammate, running back Le’Veon Bell, might be his biggest competition to the top overall spot. And actually, Bell is slightly ahead of Brown at the moment. While Fantasy Pros’ consensus rankings have Brown No. 1, Bell’s ADP is 1.0 while Brown’s is 2.0.
But the narrative of those two players’ careers over the last three years explains why Brown should go first and really why so many owners are switching their draft strategies to selecting wide receivers over running backs.
Over the last three years, Brown has missed one game, including the playoffs, and it took a ridiculously late, shot to the head from Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict to keep him out of even one contest.
Bell hasn’t been as fortunate. The Steelers elite running back has been sidelined for 14 games due to injury in his three-year career.
When the ceiling for two players is about the same, which is the case for Bell and Brown, owners might look at injury history as a way to choose between the two players. As wide receivers have become the focal point of nearly every NFL offense, their ceilings have become similar to the ceilings of running backs but with far less risk.
Granted, elite wide receivers aren’t immune to injuries. Dez Bryant, Jordy Nelson and Kelvin Benjamin were all heart-breaking losses for owners in 2015. But drafting running backs in the first round is still far riskier than selecting a wide receiver.
Ten years ago, the risk was worth the reward. If owners landed the correct running backs in the first two rounds (two that made it through the season healthy and produced), they had a great chance of winning.
But in today’s NFL, receivers produce just as much, if not, more than running backs. Twenty-two wide receivers had 1,000 yards in 2015 while only seven running backs eclipsed that total in rushing.
The risk of drafting a back is no longer worth the reward because receivers like Brown, Odell Beckham Jr., Julio Jones and many others are almost routinely putting together 1,400-plus yard seasons with 10-15 touchdowns.
In 2015, only two backs even reached 1,200 yards rushing, and no one scored more than 11 touchdowns on the ground. A decade ago, elite running backs were easily getting to 1,400 yards and 15 touchdowns. The best backs would sometimes score 25-plus touchdowns.
Not anymore. The game has changed and so should every owners’ draft strategy.
Grab those two stud wide receivers as quickly as possible, and for the owners lucky enough to have the No. 1 pick, Brown is the obvious slam dunk choice.
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