In this article, I will take a closer look at whether certain positions along the offensive line are more impactful towards RB fantasy performance than others. If certain positions on the line were more crucial to RB success, it would give fantasy managers a massive edge in finding breakout RB candidates. On the flip side, if O-lines don’t matter in regard to fantasy success, owners can disregard poor line play when playing fantasy football. Let’s jump into things.
Our best way to measure the effectiveness of O-linemen is to calculate the average fantasy points per rush gained when they are the lead block. When we plot this against the total fantasy points for each lineman’s lead back, by position, we can see if there are any trends that could clue us in on a more important piece of the line.
The results shown in the plot below are pretty uninteresting. We see there is essentially no correlation over the past four seasons between a particular blocker’s success and the overall success of an RB. Hence, no piece of the puzzle appears to be more important…yet.
Following this analysis, I simply plotted the average fantasy points per lead block by position. Over the past four seasons, the most evident takeaway is that the least impactful blocker in terms of fantasy RB success is the center. Per lead block, rushers average between 0.1 and 0.2 points less behind centers than other linemen. It appears backs have been slightly better at running left over the past four years, but this difference isn’t enough to draw significant conclusions.
The next piece I looked at was the O-line performance as a unit. If it wasn’t so important to know which linemen were best, would it matter if larger portions of the line performed well? As you might have guessed, yes! There is a moderate correlation (R score = 0.32) between the percent of linemen who produce higher fantasy points per rush on lead blocks than average (x axis), and the total fantasy points scored by their lead blocker (y axis). This tells us that while small, there is a clear advantage to having a strong unit blocking for your back.
Does blocking by unit have to be all five linemen? What if it only required one side of the line for optimal performance? I plotted a matrix showing the mean fantasy points per rush behind both the right and left side of the line, split by the percent of linemen on the side who block above average. We see that there is a clear increase in RB performance when the entirety of one side of the line is high-performing. This increase amounts to about 0.1 points per touch. Of course, the optimal performance comes when all exterior linemen are performing above average; we see an average fantasy points per rush of 0.804 when this occurs. Another thing to note is the middle number of the matrix – it shows that when you have one (50%) of the linemen performing above average on each side of the line, there is higher production (0.657 fantasy points per rush) than when you have both linemen of one side and none on the other outperforming the average. With this, we can conclude that balance is more important than overloading one side of the line when it comes to fantasy success (by a small margin).
In conclusion, the more high-performing linemen an RB has, the better they will perform. While individual positions aren’t important on the line, the idea of a unit is. Having a balanced O-line, with strong performers on either side of the center, is key. If your back has this, you can expect solid performance. Without it, they might struggle.
from Fantasy Footballers Podcast https://ift.tt/QuJ7Sz2
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