Bijan Robinson is not the dynasty rookie 1.01. At least, he shouldn’t be the 1.01 in fantasy football Superflex leagues. I’m not saying this to be unique or hot take-y. I’m saying this because I believe it is the best way to win and I’m putting it into practice.
I had the first overall pick in three fantasy leagues – two Superflex and one 1QB. In both of my SF leagues I took Anthony Richardson 1.01 over Bijan. In a Superflex league, quarterbacks are king. What I mean by that is quarterbacks have a premium value that other positions like running backs do not have. Historically, QBs are the best way to go in SF (Superflex) Rookie drafts.
Historical Trends
Let’s take a look at the history of rookie draft ADP according to Dynasty League Football and Fantasy Football Calculator. I made a a sheet of the top three QBs and RBs by ADP over the past four years (2019-2022). Let’s just look at the names in each year with their ADP. Just look at this list!
Looking at FantasyPros Dynasty SF ADP, we can see that the ADP now is far different than how it looked during rookie drafts. Looking at the ADP for the 2019 class:
- Kyler Murray is now the QB10 (22 overall)
- Daniel Jones is the QB16 (54 overall)
- Josh Jacobs is RB10 (39 overall)
- Miles Sanders is RB21 (76 overall)
- David Montgomery is RB28 (97 overall)
That means that their rookie draft should have been Murray, Jacobs, Jones, Sanders, Montgomery in that order.
The 2020 and 2021 classes are similar.
The 2020 class should have been Joe Burrow first overall followed by Justin Herbert, Jonathan Taylor, Tua Tagovailoa, JK Dobbins, and then CEH according to their current ADP.
2021 should have been Trevor Lawrence first overall followed by Justin Fields, Travis Etienne, Najee Harris, Javonte Williams, and then Trey Lance.
The 2022 class is the only one in a mostly correct order; but that’s because only one QB was drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft. Kenny Pickett is ranked above James Cook in dynasty startups, though. Overall, the QB1 (and usually the QB2) in most rookie classes are more valuable in SF leagues than the top running backs.
The Case for the Mobile QB
Over the past seven seasons (2016-2022), there have been five different quarterbacks to finish as the overall QB1 in fantasy football. Of those five, three of them did so with 500+ rushing yards. While that may not seem like much, it’s more than you think.
I took that same time range and found the average rushing yards of all 12 RB1’s in each season. Three of those are under 1,000 rushing yards. The average of a RB1 over the past seven seasons has been 1,085 rushing yards. One of the QB1 seasons had a QB rush for more than that (Lamar Jackson 2019: 1,206 rushing yards vs. RB1 average 2019: 1,146 rushing yards). A QB having over 500 rushing yards is an additional 50 points over the fantasy season that pocket passing QBs do not have!
With that in mind, the most mobile QB in this draft class also happens to be the most athletic QB to go to the NFL Combine in the last 25 years!
Anthony Richardson has a 10.00 Relative Athletic Score. If you don’t know what that means, it’s a metric used to measure how athletic a player is compared to everyone else to test at the combine at their position. That makes a 10.00 the highest possible score.
Prior to Richardson, the most athletic QB was Cam Newton a.k.a. ‘Superman’. Do you know how amazing of an athlete you have to be to get nicknamed Superman? Yet Richardson is a better athlete! Before Newton, the best was back in 1999 with Daunte Culpepper. Culpepper had five straight seasons with 400+ rushing yards in a time when QBs did not run as much as they do now.
Anthony Richardson as a Colt
The Indianapolis Colts have a new head coach this season. Shane Steichen has worked as the offensive coordinator the last four years in both Los Angeles (2019-2020) and Philadelphia (2021-2022) – working with Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts.
In those four years as OC, he had a Rookie Of The Year season with Herbert and a MVP-caliber season with Hurts in 2022. Steichen has already hinted at using Richardson in the same way he did Hurts. If I were to project what that means, I would say that Richardson will start off with easy passes, in a run-first offense. As he builds his confidence – like Hurts did – Steichen will open up the passing game. If Richardson can develop like Hurts, be prepared for a lot of rushing yards.
In college, Anthony Richardson averaged 6.93 yards per rush. That may not seem like much, but that was in the SEC which is one of the hardest college football conferences. If he averages close to that in the NFL, he could be one of the few QBs to break 1,000 yards rushing.
Looking at Hurts average yards per rush, you’d see that he has averaged 5.2 yards per attempt on 367 carries his first three years in the NFL. If AR keeps his 6.0+ YPA (yards per attempt), he could see the same 150+ carries – but for 1,200+ rushing yards. If he does that, he would net you 120 fantasy points with rushing yards alone. That’s more than some of the average RB1’s have given since 2016.
The Case for the Pocket Passer
If rushing quarterbacks aren’t your cup of tea, I would suggest you consider first pick of the 2023 NFL Draft, Bryce Young. The former Alabama QB has been compared to a younger, smaller Patrick Mahomes.
During his three season in Mobile, Young completed over 65.75% of his passes for 8,356 passing yards. His 27 collegiate starts does look a lot like Patrick Mahomes’ first two seasons as a starter for the Chiefs. Over those two season, Mahomes threw 9,128 yards in 30 regular season games.
Young’s college average of 309.5 passing yards per game in the SEC is five yards per game higher than Mahomes’ 304.3 yards per game to start his NFL career. If Young does play like Mahomes, his rookie year may not be 300+ yards per game. However, by Year 2, he could end up being a mid-QB1 for fantasy football every season.
Giving Young a playmaker like Jonathan Mingo (with his college average 15.6 yards per reception) to develop with was a great decision by the Panthers. We’ve seen in the past few years how important it is to give a young QB a young receiver to grow up with. I argued above why the mobile QB has been QB1 three of the last seven seasons, but in that same time there’s been an average of three pocket passers (under 200 rushing yards) per season.
Young’s best rushing season was last year where he rushed for 185 yards. That’s well below the 200-yard mark. The way those pocket passing QBs made their fantasy mark was through passing touchdowns. Those 21 pocket passer QBs averaged just shy of 31 passing TDs per season. If Young is going to be a franchise QB for the Panthers, he’ll need to hit that mark.
Conclusion
While Bijan Robinson is a generational talent at Running Back, he is not my 1.01 in SF Rookie drafts. In fact, I could argue that he shouldn’t be the 1.02 either. Chris Ballard took a swing on Richardson. He saw what is around him in the AFC and knew that if he was going to bring a Super Bowl trophy back to Indianapolis, he needed a game changer. He needs a home run. When it comes to fantasy football rookie drafts, I always try to hit a home run. That’s why to me, Anthony Richardson is the rookie 1.01 over Bijan Robinson.
Hunter Greene
Hunter started writing for The League Winners in the summer of 2021. Hunter has been playing fantasy football for about a decade, starting in middle school. Now he’s a professional landscaper and avid Colts and Purdue fan.