Fantasy Football Stat of the Day: RBs when ahead or behind

Tyler Loechner

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(Leading up to the 2021 NFL season, FTN’s Tyler Loechner will dive into the fantasy football numbers to bring you his Fantasy Stat of the Day, five days a week.)

Gamescript is one of the most important things to pay attention to in fantasy football. Some of it is obvious: If a team is winning, they are more likely to run the ball to take time off the clock. If a team is losing, they are more likely to air it out to play catch up.

Today’s Stat of the Day will take a look at which RBs benefitted the most from positive game scripts. When the going is good, these RBs shine. But what will happen if their teams aren’t as good in 2021?

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J.K. Dobbins benefitted the most when the Ravens were winning

Of the top 24 RBs in total fantasy points last season, here are the five RBs who scored the highest percentage of their fantasy points while their team was winning:

Player	% Tied	% Winning	% Losing
J.K. Dobbins	8%	71%	21%
Aaron Jones	24%	58%	17%
Chris Carson	16%	55%	28%
Nick Chubb	17%	51%	33%
Ronald Jones	14%	51%	35%

And here are the five RBs who scored the highest percentage of their fantasy points while their team was losing:

Player	% Tied	% Winning	% Losing
James Robinson	11%	7%	82%
David Johnson	12%	11%	77%
Ezekiel Elliott	13%	18%	69%
Austin Ekeler	20%	16%	64%
Miles Sanders	19%	18%	63%

A few thoughts:

J.K. Dobbins may falter if the Ravens slip in 2021. Dobbins scored an extremely high 71% of his fantasy points when the Ravens were winning. No other RB scored more than 58% of their points while winning. Dobbins is being drafted as a high-end RB2, which seems fair, but if the Ravens take a step back in 2021, Dobbins may end up being hurt the most.
Nick Chubb carries some gamescript risk as a fantasy RB1. Chubb is obviously a fantastic rusher, having topped the chart in so many of our look at rushing advanced metrics in this series, but he does carry more risk of gamescript dependency as a fantasy RB1. He scored 51% of his points while winning and only 33% while losing, while Kareem Hunt scored a more balanced 47% winning and 45% losing. If the Browns don’t match their 2020 win total, Chubb will pay the price more than Hunt.
This mostly just separates the good teams form the bad teams. The top five RBs that scored the highest percentage of their points while winning were all on playoff teams. The RBs that scored most while losing were all on teams that missed the playoffs. It’s hard to find anything actionable in the “% of points scored while losing” chart, but I wanted to point it out.