I get it. It’s “Zero RB Season”. The best ball bros have told us so. But that doesn’t actually mean that we literally only draft wide receivers. We have to draft SOME running backs at some point. Which means we need to dig through our Best Ball Cheat Sheet rankings and then comb through all the RB ADP on the different sites to find the best value. 

Yes, believe it or not, strategies like zero RB and hero RB require MORE work at the position, not less. You need to find those fantasy sleepers, breakouts and handcuffs to maximize the strategy.  

As we discussed in our article on wide receiver best ball ADP, running backs are going earlier on RT Sports than they are on some of the other platforms. That means it’s easier to get value on wide receivers early but it’s harder to identify the value RB plays. What we’re going to do here is use the Fantasy Alarm’s ADP Tool to look at the running back ADP for PPR best ball on RTSports and compare it to ADPs and sentiment around the industry. 

Then, armed with our own tiered fantasy football rankings from the best ball guide, we’ll figure out what the best ADP values are on that platform. And, if you want to take advantage of them yourself, you can use promo code ALARM23 at RT Sports to sign up and get a $200 deposit match bonus!

 

 

 

David Montgomery, RB, Detroit Lions

Virtually every other running back on RT Sports is going 10, 20 or sometimes even 30 spots earlier than they are on platforms like Underdog or FFPC. But that’s not the case with David Montgomery. In fact, on Yahoo, he actually goes at pick ~47 on average vs. pick 73 on RT Sports. Our goal here is to generate value and, if we are already taking advantage of the insane wide receiver discounts you can get, then we need to find the sweet spots for RBs.

Now, this is full PPR and that isn’t the ideal format for Montgomery. But I think folks are underestimating how forgiving best ball is for “touchdown-dependent” RBs. You don’t need to play the guessing game of where or when they will score when setting a lineup because there are no lineups – anytime they reach paydirt, you get those points. 

In 2022, Jamaal Williams playing in this same role scored 17 touchdowns in 17 games. And the fantasy community responded by saying that was a complete outlier and wouldn’t happen again. Yet the Lions decided to upgrade to David Montgomery for that role who turned around and scored 13 touchdowns in 14 games while racking up over 1,000 yards rushing. So, I guess it can happen again.

The key thing to remember is this: liking Jahmyr Gibbs doesn’t mean you need to hate David Montgomery. We want good players on great offenses. We’ve seen Alvin Kamara finish as the RB3 in the same year Mark Ingram finished as the RB7. And we always talk about what the upside for Gibbs would be if Monty gets hurt, but the same can be said for David Montgomery if Jahmyr Gibbs goes down. At RB25 off the board, Montgomery is a solid value on RT Sports.

 

 

 

MarShawn Lloyd, RB, Green Bay Packers

The ADP on RT Sports for this one doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for a couple of reasons. We’ve talked about how running backs in general go earlier on RT Sports than other sites, but that doesn’t hold true for Lloyd as the only site where he goes later than RT Sports is NFFC. Even then, it’s only by four spots. And what makes that even more peculiar is that sites like Underdog are half PPR vs. full PPR on RT Sports despite PPR being the best format for Lloyd.

I personally believe that Josh Jacobs is a good player. I think the concerns about his 3.5 yards per carry last year in Las Vegas might be overblown following his 2022 season that saw him have over 2,000 yards from scrimmage on 4.9 yards per carry. But those questions do leave the door open a crack so we can’t ignore it. 

We also won’t ignore that the weakest part of his game has been the passing game. Not only has Jacobs had lapses in the pass blocking scheme, but he just had a drop rate of 11.9% last year which is the third season now that’s been in double digits. Despite being the sole bell cow back, he’s never racked up 80+ target seasons the way guys like Kamara, Ekeler, McCaffrey, Robinson, Hall, etc. have. He’s more of a bruiser.

So, in walks rookie MarShawn Lloyd as a third round NFL draft pick. You’re already seeing his pass-blocking abilities praised and beat writers like Ross Uglem saying he can do “anything and everything that Jahmyr Gibbs can do for Detroit”. 

We obviously need to be careful with clips and comments from this time of the year but that’s at least painting the picture of what his role might be. Not to mention, Lloyd had an insane 57% breakaway run rate last year and a 52.1% rate for his entire college career meaning that he can hit home runs. RT Sports is a full PPR best ball format, so a pass down back that can rip off big chunk plays is exactly the kind of guy we want.

Jaleel McLaughlin, RB, Denver Broncos

There is no doubt that different types of fantasy gamers play on different platforms. For instance, you’ll notice that a lot of the players that are getting hype on social media go a lot earlier on the newer sites like Underdog. My theory is that there are demographics at play with some of the legacy sites vs. newer, app-based sites, which is why you see some older philosophies at play on RT Sports (like RBs being drafted earlier, for instance). 

And that seems to be the case with Twitter darlings like Jaleel McLaughlin going a full round higher on Underdog than he does on RT Sports, despite RBs in general going earlier on RT. In fact, McLaughlin goes at least a round earlier on every other platform besides NFFC (where his ADP is the same pick ~167 that it is on RT Sports). So, if you are in on McLaughlin, one of those sites gives you a distinct discount that you can take advantage of. 

And we are in on McLaughlin. Last year he was by far the most efficient back in Denver. His 5.4 yards per carry dusted the 4.5 set by Samaje Perine and was lightyears better than Javonte Williams at 3.6. And there’s a ton of hype for him between Sean Payton talking about McLaughlin being the first player to work at 5:15 AM or rumors that Samaje Perine could be released or even that Javonte Williams could be cut.

The way I see it though, Joe Lombardi’s offense have been top five in passes to the RB for a decade straight, including last year where they led the league, so there should be touches to go around regardless. And Jaleel McLaughlin certainly made the most of his last year.

Maybe the rumors don’t amount to anything, but I like the sound of an efficient player making a good impression on a coaching staff that is known to play favorites. There is a reason they got rid of Russell Wilson, Brandon McManus, Jerry Jeudy, etc. and replaced them with an influx of their own guys.