Finding the Value in Fantasy Football Positions

The Situation: You’re On The Clock.

You’re sitting in your draft room, and it’s your turn to pick. The clock is ticking, and you’re staring at the board trying to decide what to do. You really want to draft Kyle Pitts because, for some reason, this is the year you’re convinced he finally breaks out. But you also know there are safer picks on the board. A quarterback could give you consistent points. A running back might not make it back to you next round. A wide receiver feels like the smart play.

Now you’re stuck. Do you trust your gut and take your guy KP, or do you make the “right” pick? (for the sake of this assessment lets just assume that Kyle Pitts isn’t the clear #1… just bear with me)

You make your decision, hoping it works out, but in the back of your mind you’re wondering: which position actually gives you the most value?

This led me to explore how different positions perform in fantasy football, and whether certain positions consistently produce more value than others. I found this interesting because fantasy football decisions are often driven by hype, personal bias, and trends rather than clear data, and understanding which positions truly generate the most production can help players make smarter draft decisions to avoid that humbling, brutal, career-threatening last-place league punishment.

Data Collection

To answer this question, I collected player performance data of the last 10 NFL regular seasons from the FantasyData NFL Fantasy Football Leaders page. This dataset includes key variables such as player name, position, games played, passing yards, rushing yards, receiving yards, touchdowns, and fantasy points per game (PPG).

This data is well-suited for my analysis because it directly measures player performance and fantasy output, allowing for a clear comparison of how different positions contribute to overall value. In particular, fantasy points per game provides a standardized way to evaluate performance across positions, making it possible to determine which position is most valuable.

To gather this data, I used HTML scraping techniques in R to extract the table from the webpage using the html_table() function. The data was then cleaned by renaming columns, removing header rows, and converting relevant variables into numeric format. I also filtered the dataset to include only key fantasy positions: quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and kickers. This ensures that the analysis focuses on the most relevant positions for fantasy football decision-making.

Analysis

After wrangling and cleaning the data, it is now easy to use can it is time to move onto the analysis. I downloaded the data as a csv and uploaded it to my onedrive. For reference: fantasy_football_data.csv

First, I looked at the average fantasy points per game by position. To do this, I grouped by position then created a column chart with position on the X axis and PPG on the Y.

This chart makes things pretty clear: quarterbacks lead all positions in average fantasy points per game by a solid margin, showing they provide the most consistent value. Running backs and wide receivers still produce strong numbers but fall just behind, while tight ends drop off a bit more, which makes reaching for someone like Kyle Pitts feel a little riskier. And then there are kickers, who are just kind of there; not hurting you, but definitely not carrying your team either. Overall, quarterbacks look like the safest source of value, but this is just the starting point for thinking about draft strategy.

While the averages give a good starting point, they don’t tell the whole story. Looking at the distribution of fantasy points per game by position shows how consistent each position really is. A box and whisker plot is a perfect method to describe this distribution.

Quarterbacks not only score the most on average, but they also tend to be more consistent, with a tighter range of outcomes. In contrast, running backs and wide receivers show much more variability, with a wider spread between top and bottom performers. This means that while these positions can produce high upside, they also come with more risk depending on the player you draft. Tight ends and kickers remain more limited overall, reinforcing the idea that value isn’t just about averages, but also about reliability.

To take it a step further, I looked at the top 10 players by fantasy points per game to see which positions actually dominate at the elite level. Arranged from top to bottom of highest scorers and colored by position is the following bar chart:

This gives a clearer picture of who is truly winning you weeks, not just providing steady production. As expected, quarterbacks and running backs show up heavily here, reinforcing their ability to produce at a high level. This kind of data is especially helpful when thinking about draft strategy, because it shows the type of elite production you’re really trying to capture with an early pick. Overall, this chart highlights that while averages and consistency matter, having access to one of these top-tier players can make a huge difference, which is exactly what you’re chasing on draft day. I miss Todd Gurley :(

Putting that aside, I wanted to see if these differences hold up over time in the last ten seasons. A timeline of scoring by position to see how the scoring fluctuates is a great way to describe the data here.

Looking at average fantasy points per game by position across multiple seasons, quarterbacks consistently remain at the top, showing steady and reliable production year after year. Running backs and wide receivers fluctuate more, with some variation depending on the season, while tight ends and kickers stay relatively lower throughout. This reinforces the idea that quarterbacks provide not only high value, but also long-term consistency, which is something worth considering when building a draft strategy.

To wrap everything together, I summarized each position into a single table to compare overall value, consistency, and depth.

# A tibble: 5 × 5
  position avg_ppg sd_ppg max_ppg players
  <chr>      <dbl>  <dbl>   <dbl>   <int>
1 QB          17.5  3.23     27.7     255
2 RB          15.4  3.69     29.4     252
3 WR          14.8  3.09     25.9     380
4 TE          13.7  2.43     20.9      68
5 K           10.8  0.758    12.1       5

Quarterbacks clearly stand out with the highest average production and relatively strong consistency, reinforcing their reliability. Running backs and wide receivers follow, but running backs show more variability, meaning higher risk and reward, while wide receivers benefit from having much greater depth. Tight ends and kickers trail behind in both production and player pool, which highlights how limited those positions really are. Overall, this table makes it clear that while quarterbacks provide the strongest and most consistent value, draft strategy isn’t just about averages, it’s also about understanding depth and how quickly talent falls off at each position.

Takeaways

Overall, the data shows that quarterbacks provide the highest and most consistent fantasy production, while running backs and tight ends tend to have a sharper drop-off in talent, and wide receivers offer the most depth. Because of this, draft strategy really comes down to how aggressive you want to be. If you are drafting aggressively, the best move is to target a top-tier running back or tight end early, since those positions thin out quickly and having an elite option can give you a major advantage. Just be careful not to convince yourself that this is finally the year Kyle Pitts carries your team. If you are drafting more conservatively, prioritizing a quarterback is the safer route, as they consistently produce at a high level and provide a reliable foundation for your team. Ultimately, there is no single “right” strategy, but understanding the tradeoff between consistency and positional scarcity allows you to make smarter, more intentional decisions on draft day.