Should you prioritize wide receivers or running backs in fantasy football? Here's the answer

New York Times

21 hours ago

Every year, I think I've written my last 'Flex 9 vs. Flex 10' article. I'm always convinced the market will have discovered that all this 'prioritizing RBs vs. prioritizing WRs' draft talk is strictly dependent on whether your league starts two WRs and a flex (Flex 9) or three WRs and a flex (Flex 10). We would then stop shouting at one another about the best draft strategy in fantasy football.
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The fewer receivers you can start, the more you have to fight your league for the best running back room. With the ability to start four WRs or more (including two WRs and two flexes, etc.), having the best receivers in your league becomes paramount, which is why overall rankings are pointless.
While we can customize rankings for half-point PPR or full-point PPR (no meaningful difference) formats or, god forbid, standard (meaningful, but a format played by an increasingly infinitesimal fraction of the market), I'm not aware of overall rankings that account for Flex 9 vs. Flex 10. Mention these terms to 95% of experts, writers, YouTubers, podcasters, and you'll get blank stares. Yet the difference between the two formats means everything, while the difference in draft strategies in half-point vs. full-point PPR leagues is so marginal that it's barely worth discussing.
So my rankings are positional only — the only way to rank. The overall rankings are a product of an algorithm by the hosting site, Sharpener. I tell everyone to ignore them. All you need to know is to prioritize RBs in Flex 9 and deemphasize them in favor of WRs in Flex 10.
It's basic math.
In 2024, there were 138 20-point games (PPR) for running backs and 205 for WRs. If we move the bar up to 25+ points, it's 84-65 in favor of WRs. At 30+, WRs take it by a margin of 30-23. The more WRs your format allows, the more chances you have for explosive, week-winning performers. The scoring will be higher because you can add another starter from the position with the highest ceiling in PPR scoring.
Last year, of the top-20 scorers in PPR points per game, 11 were receivers; of the top 25, 14 were WRs; and 15 WRs were among the top 30. It's not that the receivers score more points overall, but WR-scoring ceilings are higher each week.
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No matter the format, RB touches, and thus RB points, are more projectable. The team with the best RB room will get about 10 more points per week than a team with a middling room. And that's pretty much bankable. Making that up with WRs is tough when you can only play three total (including at the flex) because who breaks out is more random.
But in Flex 10, you start 33% more WRs, which is a massive additional opportunity to wash out a weekly deficit in your expected running back scoring with only one big WR game. And if you get two breakouts, forget it — you're likely to win no matter what your opponent's backs do. The bottom line: RB consistency is more of a winning edge in lineups with fewer starting receivers and less of one with more starting receivers.
And there are more viable scorers at WR, too. Each week, each team has two starting wide receivers who could get 10 targets each, but only one running back will likely get 20 touches. In 2024, on average, a target was worth 1.74 PPR points and an RB touch was worth 0.84 points, according to TruMedia.
While every RB who can conceivably get 20 touches in a week will be started in your league (including in flex spots, regardless of whether your league is Flex 9 or Flex 10), the pool of potential high-scoring WRs is larger. A Flex 9 league will start less than half of the potential top scorers (the 64 starting WRs in the real NFL, in weeks with no byes), and a Flex 10 league will start only about two-thirds. That's why if you're working with, say, three starting WRs and two flex spots (Flex 11), you should structure your draft to start five WRs.
ZeroRB (no RBs drafted in the first four or even five rounds) is only viable in Flex 10. If you spend your first four picks on WRs and get four top-25 WRs, not a Herculean task by any stretch, your team will be dangerous. You can start them all. Then you can start committee backs, receiving-RB specialists, and stream the waiver wire when inevitable RB attrition strikes to get at least near average at the position. Then the dominant WR room you spent all that draft capital to build becomes your winning edge.
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Robust RB is only a thing in Flex 9 formats. It makes sense in that setup that three of your first five picks are RBs. In Flex 10, however, that draft structure is madness.
In both Flex 9 and Flex 10 formats, having a top tight end dramatically increases your odds of winning your league. This year, there are only three that I project as equivalent of a top-20 WR: Brock Bowers, Trey McBride and George Kittle (in the order they're being drafted generally, though I have Kittle as my No. 1 TE). An elite TE is more important in Flex 9 because you have fewer starters and less scoring, so it's harder for the opponent to make up that difference.
So when do these differences matter most, and where are the inflection points in your drafts? In Flex 9, at least seven first-round picks should be running backs, and I can make a case for Chase Brown at No. 8. In Flex 10, it's four to five, at most.
There is no RB 'Dead Zone' in Flex 9. Hitting on multiple WRs early is less important because your league is drafting fewer of them early and starting way fewer WRs. So you should keep swinging at the RB position, even 16-to-25 RBs in. Backs like Kenneth Walker, Chuba Hubbard, James Conner and Tony Pollard are ghastly picks in Rounds 3-4 in Flex 10, but you have to empty the queue in Flex 9 inside the first 50 picks.
You only need to find one other top-25 receiver later in the draft in Flex 9, not two like in Flex 10. And everyone is pushing up the running backs, making a later hit more likely. The RB focus pushes down Courtland Sutton, Marvin Harrison and DK Metcalf, to name a few, probably outside Round 4. A Flex 9 draft will likely produce 25 RBs, 15 WRs, three TEs and three QBs through the first four rounds. A Flex 10 draft should generate 25 WRs, 15 RBs, three TEs and three QBs — a huge difference.
And a totally rational one that too few recognize.
(Photo of DK Metcalf, Kenneth Walker: Steven Bisig / Imagn Images)
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