There was a Mailbag question yesterday. In it, I kicked around some numbers about the reliability of top-10 players at each of the positions. Namely, what is the “safest” of the positions. Now that I’ve polished those up, let me present them in chart form.
In this study, I looked at the top-10 players at quarterback, running back and wide receiver since 2004. So 100 players at each position. (The 2014 players aren’t included, since they haven’t yet played their follow-up seasons.) Then I looked at how they performed, relative to the previous year.
In this little unscientific study, both quarterbacks and wide receivers (top 10 players at each position) tended to decline by about 48 fantasy points the next year. That’s using 6 points for TDs and 1 for every 10 yards (4 points for TD passes and 1 for every 20 passing yards). Running backs, on the other hand, dropped by an average of almost 73 points.
Two thirds of running backs, in fact, dropped by at least 20 percent. An even half (50 of 100) dropped by 30-plus percent.
Quarterbacks tended to be the most stable. They had the best rate of guys who came back and actually improved (31 percent), and over half of the quarterbacks came within 10 percent of their previous year’s production.
Here are all of the numbers …
| RELIABILITY OF TOP-10 PLAYERS SINCE 2004 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| (100 per position) | QB | RB | WR |
| Improved stats | 31% | 20% | 18% |
| 90+% as good | 51% | 28% | 31% |
| 20+% decline | 26% | 66% | 52% |
| 30+% decline | 17% | 50% | 37% |
| Top-10 avg | 349.0 | 246.4 | 195.4 |
| Next Yr avg | 301.2 | 173.7 | 147.5 |
| Avg Decline | 47.8 | 72.7 | 47.9 |
—Ian Allan