Apex Insider Blog

With dynasty fantasy football leagues continuing to grow in popularity, player age is an extremely important variable to analyze in order to succeed in fantasy football. When it comes to running backs, most players generally are not enjoying long careers with long stints as a top-performing back. Reading this article will help you gain a better understanding of when running back production is likely to drop off.

Defining A Peak Season

To start this study, we must define a peak season for an NFL running back. Generally, the 12th highest scoring running back each season (a low-end RB1) averages about 230 fantasy points.

To examine at what age top running backs are producing, we’ll include all running backs who finished with at least 230 PPR fantasy points. The list of 218 includes all individual running back seasons to meet the requirements since 2000 and was generated by Pro-Football-Reference.com.

The table includes total touches, yards from scrimmage, and touchdowns.

The average age of the running backs to meet the criteria is 25.57. Below is a distribution graph of the ages of the peak seasons.

Saquon Barkley is one of five running backs to score at least 230 fantasy points at age 21 since 2000. The oldest players to accomplish the feat were 32 – Ricky Williams, Fred Jackson, and DeAngelo Williams. The peak is from age 22 to 28 as 83.9 percent of the seasons fall within this range.

While 10 percent of the peak seasons have taken place at age 28, just 5.96 percent have taken place at age 29 – a noticeable drop-off. From there, just 3.21 percent of the seasons happen at age 30. Father time has a big impact after that as no running back since 2000 has scored at least 230 fantasy points at the age of 33 or older.

The age distribution of running backs confirms with our previous studies that wide receivers have longer careers than running backs.

Filtering For The Elite

From looking at these seasons, I’m beginning to believe that older players were producing more frequently in the early 2000s. Let’s remove all running back seasons that took place prior to 2010.

In addition, we’ll raise the floor of a peak season, to see how the age is impacted. Including all peak seasons since 2010 with at least 250 PPR fantasy points, the sample size of player seasons is 67.

The average age of this group drops significantly to 24.79. Below is a distribution graph of the ages of the elite peak seasons.

The peak of 23 to 25 includes 58.2 percent of the individual seasons. 92.5 percent of the seasons take place between the ages of 22 and 28. With the previous peak season, 86.2 percent of the seasons took place prior to the age-29 season. With the new peak, 95.5 percent of the seasons take place before the age-29 season. The two most common ages are 24 and 25 years old.

When searching for top-end production, the player is more likely to produce in his prime – which is typically prior to turning 29.

What does this mean for 2020?

12 running backs scored at least 230 fantasy points last season. The players are listed below.

Turning 31 next season, Mark Ingram is five years older than any of the other RB1’s. While he didn’t show any signs of slowing down last season, Ingram remains a shaky investment due to age concerns.

Derrick Henry, Aaron Jones, and Chris Carson will play the 2020 season at 26 years old. Recognize that when we filtered for the elite recent seasons, there were over twice as many seasons taking place at age 25 than 26. The sample size isn’t extremely large but it’s a good reminder that the decline is coming.

Half of the RB1’s from last season were 24 years old. That’s favorable for each player as the age-25 season remains directly in a running back’s prime.

All-world running backs Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley remain the best dynasty investments in terms of age. McCaffrey will be 24 this season, while Barkley turns 23 this February. Both likely have plenty of good football ahead of them.