Anybody who has followed me on Twitter or read any of my previous works will know that I take a lot of unsolicited jabs at the Zero-RB crowd. As one of the true old-schoolers in fantasy football (I’m embarking on my 4^th decade playing the game) I’ve always held those stud running backs in high regard and never saw the real advantage of grabbing the elite wideouts in the first round. That all changed of course with the advent of points per reception scoring methods. All of a sudden middling wideouts were worthy of a start every Sunday, and those truly elite pass catchers can break fantasy matchups wide open. Even more miraculous was the emergence of the scat back in fantasy football due to their added value in the PPR format making the RB position far deeper than ever before, a fantasy wrinkle from which the Zero-RB strategy had it’s genesis.

What is it?

Obviously the strategy doesn’t imply you’re taking zero running backs in your draft, quixotically, zero-RB actually means you’re probably taking a greater number of RBs than you might otherwise were you not pursuing such a specific draft strategy. No Zero-RB doesn’t mean you take none, it means you expend none of your high-end draft capital at the position. This means fading the Jonathon Taylor’s and Austin Ekeler’s of the world in favor of the Davante Adams’ and Tyreek Hill’s. In fact, in that Zero-RB strategy, you’ll probably be fading the RB position for at least the first half-dozen rounds, particularly in a superflex setting.

Proponents of the Zero-RB concept point to the season-ending injuries, of which running backs are seemingly prone. And I have to admit, having drafted a few leagues early this year, it really sucks to have lost Dobbins, Akers, and Etienne before the starting gun. This is compared to the other positions at least, where injuries also occur, but are generally perceived as less-severe and less often are they of the season-ending variety.

This means a safer investment of high-end draft capital, and relying on elite players at the receiver, tight end, and potentially even quarterback positions, rather than building your team around one or two elite runners (which it’s claimed are inherently riskier bets.)

When should you employ it?

First, never walk into your draft with a specific plan in mind. In other words, don’t project that you’re going to take player A, then B, then C in that prescribed order. You’re just as likely to find yourself on tilt  in the middle of the first round (which is a terrible place to be, fwiw) as you are to grab all three of those players…no wait, that tilt thing is far more likely, especially in the veritable home league where literally anything can happen.

Decoding what kind of draft strategy to employ is the kind of decision you will need to be able to make on the fly, depending largely on who falls to you in the first few rounds as well as the tendencies of the group that you’re dutifully observing (or at least you should be.)

I think it’s fairly safe to say that if you have the 1.01 of your draft, you are going to take Christian McCaffery in most all single-QB formats, in superflex the first overall is generally Pat Mahomes. No big controversy there, right? But what about at the 1.09? In single QB formats Travis Kelce, and the tremendous positional advantage he offers, is going to start to look really good in comparison to a runner linked to contextual baggage. Perhaps it’s Ekeler’s lack of goal-line touches, maybe Jonathon Taylor’s injured left guard, left tackle, AND quarterback, that have you shying away from the risk at their acquisition costs.

Maybe you’d prefer to go with WR1 overall Davante Adams instead, who was first in the league in team target share as well as target share inside the red zone in 2020, accounting for his league-best 20 red-zone targets on the year as well. Or, perhaps Adams is a slam-dunk league-winner due to  his ridiculous release off the line that produced the second-most open-receptions (receptions with at least 3-yards of separation), second only to DeAndre Hopkins, who would also be an excellent pass catcher attainable with an upper-half second-round pick. Sounds better than a risky Jonathon Taylor to me.

The back end of the first round has several great pass-catchers you can grab, as does much of that second round. But if you pass on RBs in the first two rounds, chances are most of the best RBs will be off the board by the time you get to your next pick at roughly that 30^th overall spot. I think David Montgomery will be a fine RB2, but I’m not passing on George Kittle or Darren Waller to select him. Chris Carson would be a fine RB2, but the prospect of having a Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, or Josh Allen on my roster are very appealing as well.

I can see is little benefit to getting multiple RB2-3s to fill your RB slots when WR1-2s, QB1s, or one of the top 3 TEs are still available. This is especially true in PPR or TE-premium leagues which add bonus points for TE receptions. Think about it this way, in terms of value-based drafting, the difference between an RB3 and an RB4 is not as great as the difference of a WR1 to an WR3-4.

Additionally, another tenet of the Zero-RB strategy is that out of nowhere an unheralded RB will “pop” for fantasy, a prediction that is as reliably accurate as the weather forecast (good but not perfect). The problem is knowing where that breakout will come from. Is it that undrafted free agent nobody has ever heard of? Or is it that post-hype sleeper veteran that “nobody is talking about”?

Rather than investing in those backup quality backs in rounds three through six, it can certainly be advantageous to pad the depth on your receiving core or even grab one of the elite mobile quarterbacks before grabbing a runner. This will give you great depth at the WR position as well as elite positional advantage at QB or TE, and allow you to throw multiple darts at the RB position after the pass-catchers options with truly elite upside in your draft start to dry up.

Startup Strategery

Another place I’ll often find myself falling into a Zero-RB draft strategy is during dynasty startups. What the kids are calling “productive struggle” I used to call my “2-3 year plan.” It involves allowing your team to be lousy in the first year while you load up on appreciable assets, like young wide receivers in particular. Players who hold value (because WRs have inherently longer careers than RBs) for a long duration of time and stand the greatest chance of appreciating in fantasy value.

As a devout Agist, I have a natural tendency to fall into this draft strategy in my startups as I’m forever appalled at the concept of buying into a fantasy RB’s production after signing their second contract. Not only are you buying at their price peak, which is always a no-no in prudent dynasty strategy, but you’re also then obviously procuring a depreciating asset. That’s all fine and dandy if you see your team in a win-now situation, or there’ll be a window to sell off your asset later if need be. But the further you get from that veteran player’s prime, the less that asset will be worth after you drive it off the lot, metaphorically speaking of course.

Potential downfalls of Zero-RB

One of the biggest challenges in trying to assemble a competitive Zero-RB roster is navigating the RB Dead Zone. The premise of the RB Dead Zone is that WR scoring falls much less precipitously than does RB fantasy scoring over the first 4-5 rounds, with this phenomenon most prominent in the middle rounds (rounds 4-6, give or take). It’s in this region of the draft that some Zero-RB drafters turn their attention to the RB position in earnest for the first time, and despite positional needs this may be the absolute worst place to do so.

Sure, Mike Davis and Myles Gaskin could smash this year. But what if they don’t? You’re missing out on the opportunity to draft Cooper Kupp, DJ Moore, or Kyle Pitts in that range, all of whom I’d rather have than a runner with a middling probability of success. You can get that same middling probability of success later for cheaper. DJ Moore’s upside will be tough to find in later rounds.

Another potential issue with the Z-RB strategy is that players at other positions get injured too, Joe Burrow, George Kittle, and Odell Beckham Jr. all proved that it’s not only RBs that sustain season-ending injuries. Kenny Golladay and Michael Thomas proved that you don’t need a season-ending injury for that player’s health to have a season-derailing impact on your fantasy season.

Imagine creating a roster that is as inherently imbalanced (heavy at WR/TE for instance), then losing one (or two) of those players even after sacrificing RB acquisition capital at those “safer” positions, only to find yourself suddenly weak in both areas. The truth may be difficult for some to accept, but the reality is that those receiver positions are just as likely to yield time missed due to injury as the running back position, as you can see in this excellent piece by Football Outsiders, the time missed due to injury for the three positions was equivalent in their data set. Thus, the real advantage of the Z-RB strategy may truly lie with the value-based drafting concepts we touched on earlier.