With fantasy football, the tendency is to gravitate to what happened last year. A player gains a bunch of yards or scores a lot of touchdowns, and the natural inclination is to push him up draft boards the next summer.
But change is constant in the NFL. And the turnover is more severe that you might think.
As a general rule of thumb for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends, about half of the NFL teams will be lead in production by a player who didn’t lead that team the previous season. That’s through a combination of injuries, free agency, scheme changes, emerging players and whatnot. It’s a moving target were dealing with, with players constantly in flux.
In none of the last 20 years, for example, have more than 18 teams had the same wide receiver stat leader two years in a row. More commonly, slightly less than half of the teams have been led the production by the same player who led them the previous season.
There’s slightly more stability at running back, where it’s almost a 50-50 split, and a little stronger still at tight end, where an average of 17.4 teams per season over the last 20 years have had the same top tight end.
Quarterback is a different position, where most teams have a clearly defined No. 1 entering training camp. The stability rate at quarterback is just short of 20 (out of 32). In the 2022 season, 25 of the 32 teams had the same leading passer as the previous season, the highest number at any of these four positions in the last 20 years.
The largest turnover number of the last 20 years occurred at running back in 2015, with 27 of the 32 teams having a new team leader. That would never happen at quarterback.
To me, I take these stats as an indication a draft board should include some bold strokes. There will be some breakout players – more, in fact, than many are expecting. And winning a league generally involves being the person most willing to go after those guys before they become obvious to everyone.
If the upcoming season is anything like the last 20, there will be plenty of new faces putting up big numbers. If a player (like Rachaad White or Jameson Williams, perhaps) didn’t do much in his first season, that doesn’t mean he can’t be really good in Year 2.
| REPEATING TEAM LEADERS (PPR scoring) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | QB | RB | WR | TE |
| 2003 | 22 | 21 | 17 | 20 |
| 2004 | 19 | 18 | 17 | 22 |
| 2005 | 19 | 19 | 15 | 21 |
| 2006 | 16 | 18 | 16 | 19 |
| 2007 | 17 | 16 | 14 | 19 |
| 2008 | 15 | 15 | 17 | 21 |
| 2009 | 16 | 16 | 15 | 20 |
| 2010 | 22 | 19 | 11 | 22 |
| 2011 | 18 | 16 | 15 | 15 |
| 2012 | 22 | 18 | 14 | 20 |
| 2013 | 23 | 14 | 18 | 17 |
| 2014 | 21 | 13 | 12 | 21 |
| 2015 | 22 | 5 | 13 | 15 |
| 2016 | 23 | 13 | 16 | 17 |
| 2017 | 22 | 15 | 17 | 16 |
| 2018 | 19 | 11 | 14 | 9 |
| 2019 | 21 | 18 | 15 | 12 |
| 2020 | 21 | 14 | 11 | 14 |
| 2021 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 |
| 2022 | 25 | 17 | 13 | 14 |
| Avg | 19.9 | 15.6 | 14.7 | 17.4 |
—Ian Allan