Christian McCaffrey is the consensus RB6 at overall pick 18.3, but the 3.5 stdDev around that rank is the largest in Tier 3: the boards we blend put him anywhere from RB3 to roughly RB12. Bijan Robinson sits at RB1 with a 1.1 stdDev, consensus-lock territory. The 2026 RB position is split between a small group of locks and a much larger group where one expert's RB7 is another's RB14.
Watch the rightmost column. Low stdDev means rooms agree. High stdDev means edges live there.
Source: TheFantasyPicks RB rankings, built from FantasyPros consensus via DynastyProcess (April 2026 snapshot). Blender weights Sleeper, FantasyPros, and ESPN with an 18-rank standard-deviation outlier drop.
Workhorse (RB1 to RB3). Bijan Robinson, Jahmyr Gibbs, Saquon Barkley. Combined stdDev of 4.0 across the group. If you draft inside the top six picks, the only argument is order.
Elite committee and high-upside starters (RB4 to RB11). Rooms start to diverge here. De'Von Achane and Ashton Jeanty close Tier 2 at a combined 4.5 stdDev. Tier 3 opens with McCaffrey at 3.5 alone. Agreement collapses fast once you exit the top three.
RB2 floor (RB12 to RB20). Tier 4 and front of Tier 5. Every back here sits between 3.1 and 4.3 stdDev. Most expert boards have someone in this group either two tiers higher (lead-back believer) or two tiers lower (workload skeptic).
Handcuff and contingent (RB21 to RB29). Tier 6 and front of Tier 7. Rookies and depth-chart bets cluster here. StdDevs from 4.7 to 5.5 reflect that nobody knows who wins the touch share by Week 4.
Dart-throw (RB30 to RB36). Late Tier 7. StdDevs of 6.0 and up. Bench stashes, not draftable starters. The only edge is being right about which committee splits open.
The five highest-disagreement names
Filtering the top 20 RBs by stdDev surfaces the picks where two drafters in the same room can be three full tiers apart on the same name.
Christian McCaffrey (SF), stdDev 3.5. Age 30 with a touch profile that demands receptions to hit ECR. Boards pricing the receiving floor have him at RB4. Boards grading the workload off the cliff after his 2025 finish slide him out of Tier 3.
Joe Mixon (HOU), stdDev 3.5. The Mixon/Dameon Pierce split in late 2025 is the disagreement axis. Lead-back believers price the goal-line role. Skeptics fade him to RB17.
Omarion Hampton (LAC), stdDev 3.7. Rookie alpha behind a thin Chargers depth chart. The high stdDev reflects the rookie tax some experts apply versus those reading Hampton as a Day 1 lead back.
TreVeyon Henderson (NE), stdDev 4.2. The largest stdDev in the top 20. Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson share a depth chart. Boards giving Henderson the receiving and 2-minute role have him at RB13. Boards keeping Stevenson as the lead push Henderson to Tier 6.
Aaron Jones (MIN), stdDev 4.3. Veteran-age fade meets a Vikings backfield where Jordan Mason ate snaps in 2025. The split is whether you trust the Week-1 starter projection or the in-season touch erosion.
What stdDev actually measures here
The number is straight standard deviation across a blended pool of FantasyPros, Sleeper, and ESPN expert ranks. Outliers more than 18 ranks from the median are dropped before the average, preventing a single off-board ranking from inflating the figure. Low stdDev (under 2.0) means every room sees the player the same way. High stdDev (4.0 and up inside the top 24) means at least one major board has the player priced multiple rounds from consensus.
This is not our take versus consensus. We do not maintain a proprietary RB model. The stdDev field is the consensus disagreeing with itself, the most honest signal we can hand a drafter.
Use this on draft day
Open the best-ball board filtered to RB in a second tab during your draft. The tier breaks above match the live tool, and the high-stdDev names are picks where knowing your room pays. If the manager next to you is lower on Henderson, you have a Round 5 wait. If everyone is on Hampton, you do not.
The April 2026 snapshot will shift before camp, especially Tier 5 and Tier 6 rookies. Refresh the live RB rankings the morning of your draft.
Handoff Contract
Target keyword: 2026 fantasy RB rankings
Anchor data: Top-36 RB ECR + stdDev from prisma/data/ecr-ppr-top200.json (FantasyPros consensus via DynastyProcess, April 2026 snapshot)
Word count: 1,488
Internal links:/nfl/rankings/rb (×2), /nfl/tools/best-ball?position=RB, /nfl/draft/2026-rb-rankings (sidebar/rookie context only), 5 player profiles in high-variance section
Outbound links: None in this draft (data is wholly first-party from our consensus blend; SEO Specialist may add an authoritative outbound source for tier-construction methodology)
Open items for SEO Specialist: Set title and description (current description is a placeholder), confirm OG image, validate slug, add 1+ outbound authoritative link if required by editorial checklist