NBA Postseason Best Bets (5/3)
Alex Christenson
Every fantasy player loves when their RB pounds the rock into the end zone. It’s a quick six points for their fantasy squad and the primary reason we love RBs in fantasy to begin with.
In our most recent Stat of the Day article, we looked at which RBs saw the most carries from inside the five. In today’s article, we’ll take a look at which RBs were most dependent on TDs for their fantasy production. (Tomorrow, we’ll look at which RBs were least dependent on TDs.)
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Nick Chubb was the most TD-dependent RB in 2020, and Antonio Gibson was not far behind
| Player | Rank | Rank Based on non-TD Points | Total FPs | FPs from TDs | % of FPs from TDs |
| Nick Chubb | 12 | 27 | 201 | 72 | 36% |
| Todd Gurley | 28 | 30 | 162 | 54 | 33% |
| Alvin Kamara | 1 | 1 | 378 | 120 | 32% |
| J.K. Dobbins | 30 | 32 | 153 | 48 | 31% |
| Antonio Gibson | 16 | 24 | 193 | 60 | 31% |
| Derrick Henry | 3 | 3 | 316 | 96 | 30% |
| D'Andre Swift | 13 | 20 | 200 | 60 | 30% |
| Dalvin Cook | 2 | 2 | 326 | 96 | 29% |
| Kenyan Drake | 20 | 25 | 187 | 54 | 29% |
| Josh Jacobs | 9 | 10 | 230 | 66 | 29% |
| Jonathan Taylor | 5 | 7 | 252 | 72 | 29% |
| Kareem Hunt | 10 | 13 | 214 | 60 | 28% |
First, we looked at the top 30 RBs in terms of total fantasy scoring last season. Then we looked at which ones scored the highest percentage of their points from TDs alone. The above chart shows the 12 RBs most dependent on TDs for fantasy production last season.
The Browns RB duo of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt both crack the top 12 most TD-dependent RBs from 2020. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Chubb was significantly more TD-dependent than Hunt when you look at the data a different way.
Chubb earned nearly 36% of his fantasy points from TDs. That rate isn’t too much higher than some of the other RBs near the top, but the concerning part is that if all RBs scored zero TDs, Chubb would be the RB27 instead of the RB12. On the other hand, Hunt would have been the RB13 in our make-believe no-TD world (he was the RB10 in reality).
Antonio Gibson is another name who Gibson-truthers won’t love seeing on this list. He scored 31% of his points on TDs, and in our non-TD world, he would have been the RB24 instead of the RB16.
Why is that of note for players like Gibson and Chubb? Because this data shows that the true alpha fantasy RBs are dominant in both reality and in our make-believe no-TD world. Alvin Kamara, Dalvin Cook,and Derrick Henry would have still been the top three RBs in a TD-less world. (Related: Jonathan Taylor would still have been a top RB in the TD-less alternate reality, a good sign for his staying power moving forward.)
Do not take this article to mean you should not draft Chubb or Gibson, or that they are not long for fantasy football relevancy. However, they will need to become a little less reliant on TDs — which are notoriously fickle from year to year — to become top dogs.
