Is it Smart to Stack RBs Against Opposing QBs?
If you haven’t read my previous article evaluating whether stacking WRs against opposing QBs is worthwhile, check that out at this link!
Have you ever considered whether playing the RB on the same team as your opponent’s QB is a valuable strategy? Consider the following scenario: you are facing Josh Allen in your weekly matchup, and have both James Cook and Saquon Barkley, but can only start one – do you attempt to handcuff Allen by starting Cook, or do you go with the likely better back in Saquon? While this question is a difficult one to tackle, we can solve it with a deep analytical dive. In this article, I break down whether it is or isn’t worth it to stack RBs against your opponent. Let’s jump into things.
Approach
To answer this question, we must break QBs and RBs into different groupings – this is because we assume the strategic advantage of stacking might change depending on the quality of QB you are playing. The same goes for RB quality when considering your alternate RB option. With this, I split both QBs and RBs into three groups each: 1-10, 11-20, and 21-50, based on total fantasy points on the season. After gathering this information through the 2013-2024 seasons, I plotted matrices depicting the various combinations of receivers you would have to decide between for every tier of QBs. The matrices compare RB1, RB2, and RB3 for backs on the same team as the QB at hand (in this case the RB you would be using to stack against your opponent), to RBs 1-10, RBs 11-20, and RBs 21-50 overall on different teams than the QB at hand (these are the backs that would not be a stack against your opponent’s QB).
In comparison, I evaluated every grouping’s expected points above or below the opposing QB’s output. In other words, if you were to start one of the groupings, say the RB1 of the opposing QB’s team vs. any top-10 RB on a different team, which would perform better in comparison to the opposing QB? This approach is done so we can observe the effect of “canceling out” the opposing QB’s point total, as this is the primary goal of stacking.
Analysis
Let’s jump into our analysis. First, plotting the matrix for the top tier of QBs (the top 10 QBs), we can see a comparison of expected points relative to QB output between our handcuff backs and non-handcuff backs. The number on the left side of the split in each box is the handcuff back, while the number on the right is the non-handcuff back. We see that starting a QB’s RB1 against a top-10 back on any other team is not worth it. RB1s are expected to get 1.1 points less than their play-caller, while backs on different teams that are high performing are expected to outscore them by 2.2 points. This script flips when we observe the numbers between RB1s and non-top-10 backs. From here, the RB1 is expected to outperform backs on other teams relative to their QBs’ fantasy output. Looking at RB2s and RB3s, it doesn’t really seem worth it to use them as a handcuff as opposed to any other back on another team. In doing this, we can conclude that if you have the RB1 of your opposing QB’s team, you should start him over any back that is not a top-10 talent.
We can expand this analysis to look at the standard deviation of expected points scored above or below QB output, to see which type of RB may be more or less volatile. We see that when comparing against top-10 RBs on different teams, there is much greater variance, whereas this amount drops when looking at the lower tiers. Since standard deviation has a square in its calculation, we can’t for certain say whether this variance is in the positive or negative direction, however. In this, we can conclude the following: for top-10 RBs, there is less correlation between the number of points scored by the opposing QB and that player, as their performances are completely independent. In this, top-10 RBs are more likely to boom or bust (but more often boom) in comparison to your opponent’s QB. RBs on the same team are more closely related in performance to the QB’s output, as their play is correlated. We can use this knowledge to determine that starting the RB1 of your opponent’s QB may be the safer option in canceling out their performance, but you are less likely to gain any ground, or have that RB outperform the QB. This trend continues for all tiers of QBs, so I will only show or reference the standard deviation plot once, as seen below for the top QB tier.
Moving to the next tier of QBs, ranking 11-20, we see a drop in the effectiveness of handcuffing. It only seems to be worth it to handcuff with an RB1 when your other option is an RB 21-50, so a decision you likely would have made anyway. At every other decision point, it seems like it is at best a toss-up, essentially at a lower QB level where handcuffing becomes less effective. One interesting thing to note, however, is that at the RB1 level this time, every back is expected to outperform the opposing QBs. Hence, as the QB’s performance gets worse, it’s easier to combat their point total. Regardless, going with a back who isn’t on their team will be more effective.
Finally, if we look at the bottom tier of QBs, 21-50, we see nearly identical results to our previous graphic; however, every level of RB, even RB3s, are projected to outscore them. Essentially, handcuffing a bottom-tier QB will be easy, but again, it’s smartest to go with an RB from another team.
Conclusion
The one scenario in which handcuffing your opponent’s QB with an RB makes mathematical sense is when you have the option of handcuffing with the QB’s RB1, instead of using an RB outside the top 10 of all RBs that is on another team. In this scenario, you can expect a slight advantage in cancelling out the performance of your opponent’s QB fantasy output. In general, it might be less risky to use an RB of the same team as your opponent’s QB, as their performance is, of course, more correlated than RBs of another team. In this sense, if you already have a strong advantage against your opponent (say a 20 point projected advantage), and they have a top-10 QB, it might be smart to go with the safe bet and handcuff them if you have the RB1, as they will score a similar amount of points to the QB, without a high risk of a bust (compared to the QB). We can also conclude that outside RB1s, backs should not be used for stacking.