Ashton Jeanty leaves practice with an injury that probably will affect him in the regular season. Jeremiyah Love limps away from his first preseason game with an ankle injury. And I am reminded of the risks of the running back position.
It’s the position that involves the most physical contact, with high-speed collisions the norm. So for our fantasy purposes, it’s tough (foolish, some would say) to assume the running backs you selected early will be playing in 17 games. And that line of thinking looks sound, after Jeanty went down at practice Sunday. Early reports are that it’s an ankle injury of some sort; if it’s of the high-ankle variety, he could be out until October.
But are injury concerns with running backs actually valid? I pulled out some big-picture stats this morning, figuring I’d document the magnitude of increased injury risk we’re looking at, and the numbers don’t really support the notion that it’s a high-risk position.
Instead (and I kid you not) running backs of late have been more durable than their counterparts at other positions.
For this mini-study, I looked at 100 players each at the four notable fantasy positions – QB, RB, WR and TE. I went with the top 20 prospects from each of the last five years. I worried that ADP might vary from year to year and across sources, so I instead went with the top 20 players on the final Fantasy Index draft board prior to the start of the regular season (PPR scoring).
Then, I took those 400 players and looked at who missed games. If running back is notably more dangerous, you would reason, there should be more players from that position missing games. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, running backs for this subset graded out as the most durable. Really.
With perfect durability, those 100 running backs (the top 20s from five different years) would play in 1,700 games. They instead played in 1,445 games – 85 percent of perfection (and an average of 14.5 per season). That’s not all that surprising; perhaps about what you’d expect.
But look at the other three positions; they all come in slightly lower: Quarterbacks (1,426 games), tight ends (1,436) and wide receivers (1,422). These numbers suggest that those who use early picks on running backs AREN’T taking on additional injury risk.
| Participation, top-20 prospects | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pos | Games | Pct |
| Running backs | 1,445 | 85.0% |
| Tight ends | 1,436 | 84.5% |
| Quarterbacks | 1,426 | 83.9% |
| Wide receivers | 1,422 | 83.6% |
The numbers cited, of course, involve not only injuries but benchings and suspensions. But how a player misses games doesn’t really matter for our purposes.
In the last five seasons, it’s been at QB and WR where more players have tended to run into huge issues with missing games. Looking at prospects (from this group) who’ve played in fewer than 10 games, I see 13 quarterbacks and 11 wide receivers, but only 9 players each at running backs and tight end.
In the chart below, you’re seeing the 42 prospects of note who’ve failed to play 10 games. Games are shown in the final column. Included in there also is where we ranked them (at their position) on our draft board.
| TOP-20 PROSPECTS APPEARING IN SINGLE-DIGIT GAMES | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Pos | Player | Rk | G |
| 2023 | QB | Aaron Rodgers | 14 | 1 |
| 2022 | QB | Trey Lance | 15 | 2 |
| 2023 | RB | Nick Chubb | 3 | 2 |
| 2024 | RB | Christian McCaffrey | 1 | 4 |
| 2022 | RB | Javonte Williams | 10 | 4 |
| 2021 | RB | Chris Carson | 13 | 4 |
| 2025 | WR | Malik Nabers | 8 | 4 |
| 2025 | WR | Tyreek Hill | 18 | 4 |
| 2024 | WR | Rashee Rice | 11 | 4 |
| 2025 | QB | Kyler Murray | 8 | 5 |
| 2021 | WR | Calvin Ridley | 14 | 5 |
| 2023 | QB | Deshaun Watson | 8 | 6 |
| 2023 | QB | Daniel Jones | 12 | 6 |
| 2021 | QB | Trey Lance | 19 | 6 |
| 2021 | TE | Logan Thomas | 8 | 6 |
| 2022 | WR | Rashod Bateman | 17 | 6 |
| 2025 | QB | Jayden Daniels | 4 | 7 |
| 2024 | QB | Deshaun Watson | 18 | 7 |
| 2024 | RB | Isiah Pacheco | 10 | 7 |
| 2021 | RB | Christian McCaffrey | 1 | 7 |
| 2025 | QB | Joe Burrow | 1 | 8 |
| 2024 | QB | Dak Prescott | 8 | 8 |
| 2023 | QB | Kirk Cousins | 9 | 8 |
| 2024 | RB | Zamir White | 18 | 8 |
| 2021 | RB | Derrick Henry | 2 | 8 |
| 2025 | TE | Tucker Kraft | 12 | 8 |
| 2022 | TE | Irv Smith | 13 | 8 |
| 2022 | TE | Albert Okwuegbunam | 18 | 8 |
| 2021 | TE | Robert Tonyan | 7 | 8 |
| 2025 | WR | Mike Evans | 13 | 8 |
| 2024 | WR | Chris Olave | 10 | 8 |
| 2025 | QB | Brock Purdy | 9 | 9 |
| 2022 | QB | Matthew Stafford | 9 | 9 |
| 2025 | RB | Omarion Hampton | 19 | 9 |
| 2025 | TE | Sam LaPorta | 5 | 9 |
| 2025 | TE | Darren Waller | 19 | 9 |
| 2024 | TE | Evan Engram | 4 | 9 |
| 2022 | TE | Darren Waller | 8 | 9 |
| 2023 | WR | Christian Watson | 15 | 9 |
| 2022 | WR | Cooper Kupp | 1 | 9 |
| 2021 | WR | Robert Woods | 13 | 9 |
| 2021 | WR | Corey Davis | 19 | 9 |
—Ian Allan
