The Hardest Position To Draft Is Not The One You Think

Fri Jul 10 10:14am ET
By JEFF PAUR
Sr Fantasy Writer

Every August the same argument breaks out: which position is the real minefield on draft day? The instinct is to go with the running back spot. There seems to be more injury risk and turnover at the position than any other. But “unpredictable” and “hard to draft” aren't the same thing. To find the position that actually costs you, I lined up three seasons of average draft position against where every player truly finished — and then looked only at the rounds where the damage is done.

For example, CeeDee Lamb went off the board as the sixth receiver in 2023 and finished as the WR1. That gap — drafted rank versus final rank — is the whole study, run across every drafted player at every position from 2023 through 2025, with injured washouts counted as the busts they were rather than quietly dropped.

Where the picks that matter go to die

Across a whole draft, receiver and quarterback both look messy. But you don't spend a second-round pick on a quarterback you can stream. Narrow the lens to the players you actually invest premium capital in — the top-60 overall picks, roughly Rounds 1–5 — and the picture snaps into focus. A “hit” returned top-12 value at its position; a “bust” fell out of the top 24 entirely, the startable range.

Position	Early picks	Hit rate (top-12)	Bust rate (past 24)
TE	11	82%	0%
QB	18	61%	17%
RB	75	41%	28%
WR	76	32%	41%

Read the bottom row twice: barely a third of the receivers drafted in the first five rounds returned the WR1-caliber production you paid for, and more than four in ten collapsed out of startable range. Tighten to Rounds 1–3 and WR is still worst (43 percent hit, 30 percent bust).

The quarterback mirage — and the tight end surprise

Across the full pool, draft-day quarterback order is nearly a coin flip: Dak Prescott, Jordan Love and Brock Purdy were all afterthoughts who finished top-seven in 2023. But that disorder is cheap. You start one quarterback, the startable tier is deep, and a bust gets patched off the waiver wire on Tuesday. The few quarterbacks taken early — the rushing archetypes — are actually safe.

Tight end runs the opposite way. It feels terrifying, yet the handful drafted early hit 82 percent of the time and never once busted out of the top 24. The reason is simple: only genuinely entrenched elites ever go that early. The danger at tight end isn't the Kelce-tier pick — it's the dart you throw two rounds later.

Which leaves wide receiver alone at the bottom. Deep pool, brutal target-and-efficiency variance, and heavy injury exposure — the one position where an early pick misses more often than it lands.

The busts and the steals

Below, by position: the players drafted inside the top 24 who fell furthest, and the ones taken outside the top 12 who finished as every-week starters. Watch the size of the swings — receivers move violently in both directions while quarterbacks and tight ends barely budge.

Quarterback

Biggest busts	Drafted → Finished	Biggest steals	Drafted → Finished
Jayden Daniels ('25)	QB3 → QB34 (−31)	Dak Prescott ('23)	QB14 → QB3 (+11)
Kyler Murray ('25)	QB10 → QB38 (−28)	Jordan Love ('23)	QB16 → QB5 (+11)
Anthony Richardson ('23)	QB11 → QB38 (−27)	Brock Purdy ('23)	QB18 → QB7 (+11)
Joe Burrow ('25)	QB5 → QB30 (−25)	Baker Mayfield ('24)	QB13 → QB3 (+10)
Dak Prescott ('24)	QB7 → QB30 (−23)	Jared Goff ('24)	QB15 → QB6 (+9)

Running back

Biggest busts	Drafted → Finished	Biggest steals	Drafted → Finished
Nick Chubb ('23)	RB4 → RB53 (−49)	Chase Brown ('24)	RB46 → RB10 (+36)
Christian McCaffrey ('24)	RB2 → RB50 (−48)	Kyren Williams ('23)	RB38 → RB7 (+31)
Isiah Pacheco ('24)	RB8 → RB50 (−42)	Raheem Mostert ('23)	RB34 → RB5 (+29)
James Conner ('25)	RB20 → RB56 (−36)	Bucky Irving ('24)	RB41 → RB12 (+29)
Miles Sanders ('23)	RB18 → RB52 (−34)	Rachaad White ('23)	RB22 → RB4 (+18)

Wide receiver

Biggest busts	Drafted → Finished	Biggest steals	Drafted → Finished
Rashee Rice ('24)	WR11 → WR84 (−73)	Puka Nacua ('23)	WR42 → WR4 (+38)
Malik Nabers ('25)	WR4 → WR74 (−70)	Jaxon Smith-Njigba ('24)	WR46 → WR10 (+36)
Chris Olave ('24)	WR19 → WR84 (−65)	Brian Thomas Jr. ('24)	WR39 → WR4 (+35)
Brandon Aiyuk ('24)	WR24 → WR84 (−60)	Nico Collins ('23)	WR45 → WR12 (+33)
Mike Evans ('25)	WR16 → WR74 (−58)	George Pickens ('25)	WR36 → WR5 (+31)

Tight end

Biggest busts	Drafted → Finished	Biggest steals	Drafted → Finished
Dalton Kincaid ('24)	TE5 → TE30 (−25)	Pat Freiermuth ('24)	TE15 → TE9 (+6)
Sam LaPorta ('25)	TE5 → TE27 (−22)	David Njoku ('24)	TE13 → TE11 (+2)
Evan Engram ('24)	TE10 → TE31 (−21)	Almost no mid-round value exists at tight end — the elite tier is known on draft day and gone.
T.J. Hockenson ('25)	TE6 → TE26 (−20)
Darren Waller ('23)	TE4 → TE22 (−18)

How this was built

Each player's pre-season positional ADP rank (WR1, WR2… by draft order) was matched against their actual positional finish, re-ranked by season-total fantasy points, for 2023, 2024 and 2025. Drafted players who missed most of the year to injury (Nick Chubb, Christian McCaffrey, Malik Nabers and others) were counted as busts rather than dropped from the sample, since injury exposure is part of a pick's risk. “Early rounds” means the top-60 overall picks (about rounds 1–5 in a 12-team league); a hit is a top-12 positional finish, a bust is a finish outside the top 24. Two caveats: the 2025 ADP board runs shallower than prior years, and 2025 was an unusually severe year for receiver injuries — though that risk is itself part of the case against the position.

Verdict

So what does all this mean? My big takeaway is that receiver carries a lot more risk than most owners think. The popular move is to hammer wideout early because it feels safer than running back — fewer injuries, more predictable production. The data doesn't back that up. Over the last three years, receivers drafted in the first five rounds hit less often than backs (32 percent to 41 percent) and busted more often (41 percent to 28 percent). If anything, the risk runs the other way.

So come draft day, don't treat loading up on early receivers as the safe play — it isn't. And that old-school approach everybody wrote off, attacking the running back position early and often? Based on this, it might be due for a comeback.

Jeff Paur is a two-time finalist for FSWA Fantasy Football Writer of the Year and won the FSWA award for Best Fantasy Football Article on the Web in 2011. He also was the most accurate expert in 2012, winning the FSTA Fantasy Football Accuracy Award. If you have any questions for Jeff, email him at jeff@rtsports.com. Follow Jeff on Twitter @jeffpaur.

The Hardest Position To Draft Is Not The One You Think

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