Thread by @FFRobot7, At long last I give you a thread on players no one [...]

At long last I give you a thread on players no one is talking about - The SF backfield. This recently peaked my interest so I thought I’d take a bit of a deeper look at the data on:

- Should we care?
- Who do we care about?
- Redraft & Dynasty implications!

Let’s dive in

Part 1 - Look I get it. This isn’t a sexy backfield. There’s not a highly touted young gun or a bonafide stud. It was an injury plagued backfield in 2020. A circus of RBs we didn’t know who to start (or did we?) So why oh why Andy did you choose to make your first thread on this?

If you take the lead RB from the last two years, that would total to be:

2019 - 181 att, 992 yds, 14 TDs, 37 targets, 28 rec, 306 yds, 5 TDs

2020 - 228 att, 1,038 yds, 12 TDs, 56 targets, 37 rec, 344 yds, 4 TDs

2019 = 257.8 Fpts or RB7
2020 = 252.7 Fpts or RB4

*All in 1/2 PPR

The average stat line for the RB1 on a per game basis:

12.8 att, 63.4 yds, 0.8 TDs, 2.9 targets, 2.0 rec, 20.3 yds, 0.3 TDs

Or 16.0 average fantasy points per game

Home/Road splits = 15.7/16.2

Win/Loss splits = 17.3/13.9

The lead SF back would have produced:

40.6% RB1 games (including 25% top five weekly finishes)
28.1% RB2 games
28.1% RB3 games

Who were the QBs again?

Jimmy G - 24 starts
Nick Mullens - 10 starts
CJ Beathard - 6 starts

To me, fantasy football is about capitalizing on value and that’s what the SF backfield is. Their backs are never high in ADP or can usually be claimed off of waivers and when you get consistent RB2 production with RB1 ceiling weeks, I’ll take that every day and twice on Sunday.

“But Andy! That backfield is too hard to predict and injury prone!”

I went back over the season and would argue the fantasy community predicted the lead RB in 81% of games.

This is also personal for me as Raheem Must-start almost won me a 2019 ship (darn week 16 Mike Boone) and

Jeff Wilson was my redemption, helping me and many other owners win a 2020 championship. Bottom line - this backfield produces, consistently and we should care about it.

Now let’s turn to the second question - who matters (going forward) in this backfield?

Part 2 - Current status of the backfield:

Mostert - Age 28, On contract through 2021 earning $3.7M

#MyNameIsJeff Wilson - Age 26, Restricted FA who I expect will resign, but for less than what SF is paying Mostert

JaMycal Hasty - Age 24, On contract through 2021 earning $780K

Jerick McKinnon - Age 29, contract ended last year and I expect not to be resigned

Tevin Coleman - Age 28, UFA & won’t be resigned

SF has a lot of other players and positions that need $$ so while I do think they will add another via draft or FA, it’s the Mostert / Wilson show.

Kernel Mostert vs My Name Is Jeff - let’s look at their careers in SF:

Mostert - 45 games, 5.6 YPA, 10 YPC, 25.6 touches / TD, 0.93 Fpts / touch

Wilson - 28 games, 4.4 YPA, 9.5 YPC, 19.9 touches / TD, 0.92 Fpts / touch

W/o TDs:
Mostert - 0.67 pts per touch
Wilson - 0.56 pts

Look they’re pretty close, but Mostert has the edge. Wilson ended the year strong but Mostert has always started and lead the backfield when healthy & probably carries the bigger

so he’s who I’m betting on.

Part 3 - Finally, what the hell do we do for dynasty and redraft?

For the moment, NOTHING! We get caught up with always wanting to trade and move players around in the offseason. A huge part for me is just simply getting educated about teams and situations. So many variables could change the outlook on SF next year but knowing info like this...

Gets us prepared to make educated decisions quickly when players get resigned, drafted, etc.

For now, this is how I see it.

Dynasty:

Mostert has a 1 year shelf life. If he’s on your team I would keep him as his trade return value doesn’t equal his production value for 2021.

Wilson - If you’re like me and you think he resigns, I think it’s worth trying to buy right now. He’s young, proven and the next man up after Mostert. Worth a later round pick for me.

Redraft:

Mostert - ECR is RB27
Wilson - ECR is RB56

I’m drafting both of them at that price.

Remember, the RB1 the last two years has only needed 14-15 touches per game to produce. Don’t treat this backfield like the rest of the NFL. Shanahan gets it done. This community is generally smart enough to know which guy is going to get the rock each week.

Trust the process.

Thanks for reading my novel! This is my first thread so would love to get feedback! Let me know what you think!

@WarsenFF @DynastyBrad @F1__17 @DynastyBrad @JtTruther @DynastyJacobian @MunderDifflinFF @ZackFFB @Fantasyfballpr0 @Matt2FrostyFF @DynastyZoltanFF @DynastyPretzel

PS - this thread was for you @WeavyFF aka West Coast Weavy

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