Kevin Szafraniec analyzes the last five years of historical best ball data in the Win the Flex App to decide whether drafters are better off filling their flex spots with running backs or wide receivers.
Running backs versus wide receivers: the great fantasy football debate of our time.
The Win the Flex App (WTF) is one of the many tools we offer here at RotoViz that can help settle this debate.
For those unfamiliar with this tool, here is Blair’s breakdown of the WTF from its unveiling in 2019:
The basic idea behind the tool is to get a sense of how many fantasy points we should expect a player to score based purely on positional ADP. How much does the first running back drafted typically score? How much does the 10th RB drafted typically score? By looking at historical fantasy points scored based on ADP we automatically account for projection error while also taking advantage of the wisdom of crowds. The projections aren’t what you’d expect to see for the top-ranked players at each position, but that’s because they’re aware of how often we get things wrong. These projections don’t assume ADP is a perfect predictor. Rather, they only assume that the future is going to look roughly like the past.
Unlike many best ball platforms that feature three starting WR spots and a single flex, FFPC Best Ball Tournament starting lineups opt for a two-WR, two-flex configuration that gives RBs and WRs equal distance to travel to reach the flex spots. This balance allows for a true apples-to-apples comparison in our quest to determine which position gives us the best chance to win the flex in the current fantasy landscape.
For this exercise, we will focus on the past five years of data in the WTF for the FFPC’s single-QB best ball contests. We will begin by looking at the aggregate data before taking a closer look at how trends across the NFL over the past two seasons have affected how we should approach filling our flex spots in 2026.
For those who are unfamiliar with the FFPC’s single-QB format, it features 20-round drafts, tight-end premium scoring (1.5 points per TE reception and 1.0 PPR for all other positions), and starting lineups consisting of one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, and two standard flex spots.
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