Fantasy News & Analysis

Premium Content Sign Up

2021's Fantasy Breakout Running Back: Antonio Gibson

Arlington, Texas, USA; Washington Football Team running back Antonio Gibson (24) in action during the game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Football Team at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

In this series of articles, I’m looking at the fantasy football breakout potential of running backs heading into the 2021 NFL season. (Find the entire series on breakout running backs here.)

This builds off of my recent breakout receiver articles that profiled each of the second-year wide receivers. My research on 10 years of historical data points to second- and third-year backs as the most likely to break out and also most likely to generate the most excess value.

Editor's Note: PFF's 2021 Fantasy Football Draft Guide and 2021 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets are LIVE!

This article will focus on Washington Football Team running back Antonio Gibson. One of the best ways to determine the range of outcomes and the probability of success for fantasy players is comparing them to similar historical players. In this analysis, I’ll compare the potential breakout running backs to hundreds of running backs drafted since 2006 and project the likelihood of his breakout based on those who had the most similar size, speed, draft position, college production and rookie metrics.  

Subscribe to

I’ll be especially focused on the receiving potential for these backs, as the outperformance in receiving volume and efficiency has been the most common trait for breakout running backs in the past.

METHODOLOGY

The matching methodology is similar to what we used to focus on 2021 wide receiver and running back prospect comps, where I found the closest statistically comparable players using principal component analysis (PCA) and the euclidean distance between the players' components, and then gave each a “Similarity” score based on percentile of distance. 

The metrics for PCA are draft position, weight, 40-yard dash time, best-season collegiate market share of total team yards, rookie rushing attempts, rookie rushing yards and rookie targets per game. We'll also look at rookie PPR fantasy points per game and top-24 weekly finishes.

ANTONIO GIBSON COMPS

DOMINATE FANTASY FOOTBALL & BETTING WITH AI-POWERED DATA & TOOLS TRUSTED BY ALL 32

Unlimited Fantasy League Sync
Fantasy Start/Sit Line-Up Optimizer & Waiver Wire
WR-CB & OL-DL Matchups, PFF Player Grades, & Premium Stats 2.0 Tools
Nathan Jahnkes Rankings - #1 Most Accurate Last 70 Weeks
PFF Best Bets, Player Props, & Power Ranking Tools
NFL Mock Draft Sim with Trades & Draft Grades

Already have a subscription? Log In

Subscriptions

Unlock the 2023 Fantasy Draft Kit, with League Sync, Live Draft Assistant, PFF Grades & Data Platform that powers all 32 Pro Teams

$31 Draft Kit Fee + $8.99/mo
OR
$89.88/yr + FREE Draft Kit