7 Breakout Running Backs to Target In Your Fantasy Drafts

in this video we'll be identifying seven running backs who might be a breakout or not this year and more importantly should you be targeting them in your fantasy drafts and we'll start with the Saints seconde running back kendre Miller who in his rookie year he had to deal with a lot of hardships and since then it's gotten a little bit better because first off this guy is actually healthy as we record this right now and this has been a big issue for him you can see right here the draft shark injury history in 2022 December the last day he ends up suffering a knee injury a knee MCL Sprain and what this does basically is keep him out the rest of the year and then he can't take part in the com and there's a lot of questions floating out about how healthy and athletic is he all that we got to know about him was that he's 5'1 and 215 lbs he only weighed in at the combine there are a lot of questions now that's talking from an athletic standpoint we obviously knew that in college this guy had a dominant season in 2022 at TCU as their main Workhorse running back over 220 carries 1,400 rushing yards you factor in him putting up a couple of receiving yards he had over, 1500 total yards in this year over 100 yards per game and we don't know exactly how fast he is based on the 40 time but if you look at his film it seems that he has good speed and this guy knows how to break break tackles and then we get to the NFL draft and the Saints take Kendra Miller right here out of TCU in the third round which was great news because there's a lot of questions people didn't know if he would fall to like the fourth or fifth round third round capital is legit but he did land on a team at the time that had Alvin Kamar and just signed Jamal Williams a beloved veteran that coaches trust it didn't seem like the best situation and then the injuries continue to pile on as in the beginning of August or middle of August right around the preseason he gets a knee injury again and then to start the year a couple weeks later he ends up having a hamstring injury which may causes him to miss a couple couple of games during the season none of this is good and then he would later suffer an injury an ankle injury in week 10 that kept him out for like another 5 to 6 to seven weeks so some people might think okay the young player he's just injury-prone but I don't think that's the case I think that his initial injury just never really healed properly because he was a young excited player going into the NFL just trying to rush things just a little bit and of course this is just me speculating but the fact that he ends up coming back in Camp and getting hurt not just once but then a couple of weeks later and then just like eight weeks after that kind of says okay maybe he rushed back like one to two weeks early from each of these injuries they never healed or the other parts of the muscle were never built back up and that's why you get these reoccurring injuries again I'm not a doctor or physical therapist I've just had a lot of lower body injuries myself as a runner and these are some of the things that I've experienced maybe these happened for him as well but the good news is if that is indeed the case now that he's healthy those injuries are behind him assuming that he properly rebuilt those muscles which I assume as a pro athlete that he did and now he has a new offensive coordinator in Clint kubak we've talked about him in previous videos he spent time with the San Francisco 49ers last year as a passing game coordinator and if we're going to expect him to bring over some of this Shanahan style we know if that's the case but probably will be if he brings over the Shanahan style then you're going to get a lot of benefits for Kendra Miller in the Run game specifically in the form of play action passing so it's going to keep linebackers just in general on their toes more during the Run game and these outside Zone runs which I think Kendra Miller is going to benefit from now that Alvin Kamar and Jamal Williams are a little bit older and let's talk about that competition Kamar last year was a top three fantasy producer but mostly because of the dump off passes he had a lot of targets he was good in that regard but as a runner not as efficient and Jamal Williams last year was just averaging like three yards per carry finally started to fall off he's now entering his age 29 season and I would assume that kendre Miller after some of the buzz coming out of camp that everything looks good for him they just want to see more consistency which makes sense because he was injured all of last year and is a seconde player but it seems like kendre Miller will get more opportunities this year and if that is the case it's hard not to like him because kendre Miller currently goes late like after round 10 right now in drafts and here's specifically where he goes you can see kendre Miller the 138th overall player depending on the platform as of right now as of this recording this can change is going in the 12th round of drafts which is like a six to s round difference actually more than that than when Alvin Kamar goes and I think that's late enough to the point where yeah this guy could be a breakout type of a player so I'm actually a fan of drafting Kendra Miller in that range and a couple other guys in that range that we'll talk about depending on who's there but let's get to another guy who goes a little bit earlier than that and that takes us to the Denver Broncos running back now this is a fourth year running back in javante Williams and yeah we're talking about a fourth year breakout here and technically you could say that he broke out in his first ever season because if you scroll down here he had 900 rushing yards as a rookie when you factor in the receiving yards of 300 1,200 yards yeah I would consider that a breakout season but he wasn't a top 20 running back that year could he do it this year because since that rookie year in 2021 it hasn't been as good in 2022 he had that gruesome injury that after four games he ended up missing the entire season with the knee injury and it wasn't just any knee injury you can see his injury history right here on player profiler it was an ACL an LCL and a PLC not a PCL a PLC a post lateral Corner in your knee these are ligaments he Tour all three meaning this was not a clean tear and a lot of the times this can take up to a year to come back from but gavon Williams was ahead of schedule he was ready in training camp in like August and he was ready week one and he actually played in 16 of 17 games which is credit and props to him a younger back that kind of helped him recover however when he returned he was clearly not as explosive ranking 53rd in running back yards per touch and averaging just 3.5 yards per carry now of course it didn't help that he didn't have the greatest quarterback situation with Russell Wilson and then the team decided to sit Russell Wilson towards the end of the year for contract issues making matters even worse so he was on an offense that ranked in the bottom half of the league but here's the problem heading into 2024 I don't really see that changing all that much and honestly things might have even gotten worse because the current quarterback room is s him Zack Wilson acquired from the Jets and then Bo Knicks a top 12 overall pick in the NFL draft the sixth quarterback off the board and yeah I do think that Bo Knicks could be a quality starter but we're talking like the 15th to 20th type of uh quarterback in the league at best is that really going to be a massive upgrade from Russell Wilson I don't think so and then in some other departments I would argue that the team actually got worse as well you could see they lose their Veteran Center Lloyd kushberry not like one of the most elite centers in the league but definitely they lost him they didn't resign anybody in free agency or add anybody I should say new in free agency to replace him they added a center in the draft later on in Nick garolo and then they lost Jerry judyan free agency replaced him with Josh reyolds and Troy Franklin okay we'll see what happens there but still not great so the offense might take a downgrade at least at the start a younger offense now a little bit less experiened so there might be some growing paints and another knock for javante Williams when we're questioning will he be a breakout running back this year or not is the backfield competition because right now you have audri ese taken in the fifth round and he's a guy out of Notre Dame who can break tackles who there's some concerns about his overall skill set in speed type topend speed but that doesn't really matter all that much in my opinion in the short areas fifth round pick he's there jalo mlin who every single day right now in Broncos Camp it seems like Johan pyton is gushing about him or now the undrafted free agent and Blake Watson is getting some head waves I don't really think that he'll turn into anything but who knows we shall see and you could even go further and say samaji perine the veterans there but as of right now looks like that he might actually be a cut candidate on this team unless they decide to like keep four to maybe even five running backs which I doubt now here is with the Broncos Insider Benjamin all right he's been an Insider for this team for a while has connections to the team he says if everything holds the same like all the other Shawn pton offenses backfields both with the Broncos last year and the Saints before that it roughly is looking like this type of a breakout as of right now at the start of camp and the end of OTAs 4540 and 15 so a three-headed backfield led by javante Williams and aldri Ese and then Jalia Molin who is getting that hype factor in again Blake Watson is an exciting player to talk about right now because he's an undera the free agent and Underdog type player but realistically at the end of the day barring an injury where does he slide into this offense I don't really know now the one Saving Grace for gavon Williams when you talk about the offense might be bad the competition might be a little bit tough there not get a lot of opportunities is the fact that this offensive line is still like a top five unit or so at least it was last year and yeah they lost Lloyd cushenberry but that's not going to drop them to being like a bottom half of the league offensive line they should still be good now despite everything we just talked about outside of the offensive line should be good this year everything else is not great for Javon Williams and despite this he goes as the 74th overall player in like round seven or eight of drafts right now and I have him currently as a 94th overall player I'm 20 spots about two rounds lower than him so I don't really see the breakout happening this year I see some people talking about potential breakout season I'm not there but I might be there on this next running back in Seattle who is interesting because I haven't really heard a lot of talk about the seconde player former second round pick last year by the Seahawks and Zack shanet and maybe this is an opportunity for us to get an edge on the field a little bit because like I said shanet was a second round pick for this team last year and it was kind of a question mark and a head scratcher because Kenneth Walker was taken in the second round a year prior to that and had really good results as a rookie now here's what you should know about Zack shanet according to player profile these are his workout metrics I would say pretty good above average speed his 40 yard dash and speed score anything above 50 percentiles above average the closer to 100 the better and he had some solid burst but then this is the big one right here shanet was just a mega producer in college you can see right here in 2022 he had over, 1300 rushing yards you factor in his receiving yards of over 300 this guy was almost at 1700 yards 37 catches had a solid season before that almost came out of the NFL draft at that time as a junior but went back for his senior year he can do a lot of things he has good athletic testing he has the mega production background as a Workhorse and can also catch passes and then he would go on to play 16 out of 17 games as a rookie and look pretty good on a limited sample but the big concern was Kenneth Walker was in this back field as well and Kenneth Walker in 2022 as a rookie had a good year he broke a, yards rushing you factor in the receiving yards he had over 1,200 total yards and 27 receptions isn't anything crazy but for Kenneth Walker who show no track record of that in college at Michigan State mostly because the team didn't use him there that was some good results so the fact that Walker had such a good rookie year again made this a head scratcher as to why would you drave Zack shanet but in shonet's defense when he actually got those opportunities in his rookie year like 140 total touches or so he was pretty good he averaged 3.8 yards created per uh per touch yards created per touch 14th overall in the NFL what does this basically mean it means independent of your offensive line what you can do what you can create from a broken tackle standpoint a yards after contact a Juke rate all of that it basically looks on an independent basis like how good of a running back you are top 15 in the NFL again a limited sample but 140 touches is a decent amount and we actually got to see sharan a start two games last year and then in another game he got extended run as Kenneth Walker was returning from injury so like three games seeing significant snaps and in those games he averaged 19 touches 75 yards and 13.2 Fantasy Point points per game now these are some pretty good numbers considering he was a rookie behind an offensive line that wasn't the greatest in the NFL and was banged up at that time so we know that there's upside to sharan game we've talked about some of them and the obvious Downs or Ken is Kenneth Walker there but now that there's a new coaching staff in place and new offensive coordinator Ryan grub maybe this benefits shanet because now this coaching staff has no connection to either player and you can see shonet right now goes 129th overall so whoever is playing the best or fits into the offense for that type of scheme maybe it's pass catching work and you get more of shanet out there with a pass first offensive coordinator in Ryan grub back starts to make uh Zack shonet look a little bit appealing as the 129th overall player in like round 11 of drafts when Kenneth Walker is going in like round four or five of drafts that's just a pretty wide Gap in my opinion I actually think Kenneth Walker's a great player might even be a slight value at that price point but I think this Gap is too wide for p Carol no longer being there and a new coach being in as you can see in my fantasy blueprint top 250 rankings this is one small piece of the blueprint in which you get thousands of people currently have it if you want to check it out it's a link down below we'll also talk about it a little bit later on but you can see right here the difference in my ADP I'm 13 spots higher right now my ranking K and ADP he's my 117th overall player goes around the 130th overall player so I'm about a round or so higher on Zack shanet and I think if anything he's only going to move up if we get some positive Camp reports so let's move from one secondy year running back to another seconde running back and we'll go back to the AFC here and this is where I want to look at Chase Brown who has a lot of similarities to Zack shanet as a second-year player but if anything his Outlook looks a little bit better in 2024 due to a couple of things now for starters the reason why he looks like shanet is he's that second-year player and he was extremely athletic coming out of college at Illinois and a mega producer just like shanet we can utilize player profilers a great site once again here to look at the workout metrics the closer these are to 100 percentile the better even more athletic than shonet one of the most athletic runningbacks in the League last year as a fifth round rookie uh 92nd percentile 40 time the burst is great the strength and the bench press is great and then you can scroll down here to what he actually did in college and the production is just insane he had over 300 carries in 2022 at Illinois you can see right here 328 a workor stayed healthy over, 1600 yards rushing and then his receiving yards of over 200 he had almost 1,900 total yards and 27 scores the dude was the definition of a Workhorse back with at least 20 plus carries in every single game that final year of college now he had some struggles at the Senior Bowl he had some fumbling issues there at the Senior Bowl so he falls and some other reasons of the film and things like that the competition he was facing so he falls to the fifth round and he lands in Cincinnati which again isn't like the greatest landing spot when you're thinking last year with Joe Mixon there and they had another rookie or not rookie younger player in Chris Evans also in the backfield that showed flashes in the past but despite this brown was still able to carve out a somewhat significant role for starting the year as the rb3 aif round running back and kind of taking that rb2 job from Chris Evans because in 2023 Brown averaged 5.8 yards per touch and broke 14 tackles on just 48 carries which is a very strong rate and a lot has changed in a year since then you're looking at a team that no longer has Joe Mixon it's pretty significant and clear now that chase Brown is ahead of Chris Evans on the depth chart and the biggest competition will be Zach Moss who signed a deal this off season nothing crazy like $4 million guaranteed they're going to have definitely a camp battle here but I wouldn't be shocked if Zach Moss starts the year as the starter as just kind of the veteran that they trust more to protect Joe Barrow who's been injured a lot in his career but you know what you're getting out of Zach Moss he was good to start the year last year at the Colts and maybe that's all that we remember but then he struggled towards the end of the year even when given more starting opportunities when Jonathan Taylor missed a few games in the middle of the season and what you're getting out of Zach Moss is right here his season stats let's focus on his yards per carry per season 4.3 4.9 3.6 4.3 you're basically getting a guy who can go out there and get you four yards per carry but he's probably not going to get you too many 10 to 15 to 20 plus yard runs he's also not going to get a lot of zero yard runs he's going to Le a lot to three to four yard carries not all that explosive or fast but a big running back who can pick up four yards now that's complet fine and honestly that's going to be preferred in a decent amount of situations but at the end of the day if Chase Brown is explosive like he was during times last year is he just going to steal the job away and there is a decent chance that that happens and look I get it Chase Brown he had a small sample so when he has these big screen receptions for like 20 plus yards it's going to skew his stats of getting 5.8 yards per touch but I would ask is that necessarily a bad thing we want to keep that context in mind we don't want to ere exaggerate it but what happens if he didn't have those big plays we want the big plays right we shouldn't knocked those against him so as of right now in the fantasy blueprint Chase Brown is my 102nd overall player flirting with my top 100 he's going as the 115th overall player so I'm about a round of heading him on the ADP which means yeah I do think that he could be a breakout player this year when his biggest competition is Zach Moss who got beat out in past Seasons By guys like Devon Singletary who were nowhere near as explosive or talented as this man right here in Chase Brown now before we move on to the next running back I got to let you know about the fantasy blueprint a couple thousand beautiful people already have access to this blueprint and it's growing by the day so if you want to win your fantasy league if that sounds like you just click this button right here and there's going to be a couple of ways for you to get the blueprint it'll help you with your draft and also every single week of the Season as well just follow the instructions that are laid out right here to get it through one of our two partners if it doesn't work for some reason there's another option down here and here's the thing this is completely risk-free if you don't make your fantasy playoffs you get a refund of your minimum deposit which is like a one-time payment of $5 or $10 depending on the site that you use for the entire year it's not monthly recurring it's just one payment for the entire year you get it back if you don't make your fantasy playoffs so to get access to your fantasy blueprint right now at a limited time price this offer is not going to last this risk-free offer just scan the QR code on the screen or click the link in the description below to join the team now we're going to move to a guy in the AFC who I honestly think is not just a breakout candidate but a potential League winner and maybe even a potential must have when the Summer's all said and done and that takes us to the Raiders running back and that's zamir white who now enters his third year in the NFL and he had one of the best off Seasons we've talked about him a couple times this off season for a few reasons both free agency and the draft for starters the only player that the guy the team added in Las Vegas in free agency was Alexander Madison who Antonio Pierce himself kind of poured cold water on this right after they signed the veteran Madison who struggled last year to even get like three and a half yards per carry with the Vikings these were the notes from Pearson you could see coach Peak index on Twitter posted this he basically goes out in this video and says that guys like madon he considered him a depth piece we were talking about depth here when asked about the signings recent signings at that point of Alexander Madison and now backup tight end Harrison Bryant former Cleveland Brown he was calling alexand Madison a depth piece and this is pretty obvious in my opinion based on how he played last year but it's good to get the coach kind of reinforcing that so you have zir white winning free agency because Josh Jacobs left and went to the Packers as well and then he also wins the draft because in the NFL draft they only took small school running back in the sixth round Dylan lob who's a pass catch and running back an elite one at that one of the best pass catchers in the entire draft not just at the running back position but here's a deal he has a better chance to actually not be active on Game Day game days maybe even get cut although I don't see that happening but he has a better chance of that happening than actually threatening for rb1 touches so you get white profiling out as this Workhorse running back for the Raiders who definitely want to run the ball Antonio Pierce has been adamant about defense and running the ball and old school football and he would get mad when Josh Jacobs didn't get 20 carries in a game last year and like I said Josh Jacobs is no longer with the team and we actually got to see a sample last year of what zamir white looks like as the starter when Jacobs was out white started four games in 2023 and averaged 114 yards per touch in 23 opportunities per game so everything is lining up for white to be the Workhorse running back on this team and as recent as this day today as I'm recording this Luke gety goes out in Camp and says the following he's a different type of cat that is a speed that none of me not many guys have he's always had speed that was the big calling card out of college even though he had some injuries and again to be paired with that size that he has he has the speed and the size and he can break tackles this is what we like he says I think Z zamir is just going to take off for sure when we get to training camp so as long as this guy stays healthy I'm just shocked that he's going in like the seventh or eighth round still I think he's going to get pushed up to the fourth or fifth round we hope not in your home leagues but this is where this guy's upside is definitely a breakout player and I mean you could even get more excited when you start to look at some of the other stuff going out on some of the coaches or some of the players on this team that are blocking for zamir white and some of the things that they're saying about him basically everything is fantastic right now he's going to be a focus of the running game as you can see right here it's looking great now one question is the offensive line was like average last year not good not great at run blocking at least but this offseason they did lose some pieces Brandon Parker and J Jermaine alumor two guys that they lost but they replaced them in the draft with Jackson Powers Johnson a center who's actually versatile and could play some other positions and they added Andrews Pete in free agency so we'll see what happens there if that's actually going to be a big addition or not I'm kind of skeptical but we'll see and not only that but I talked about Antonio Pierce being the head coach them wanting to run the ball a lot more they kind of have the Personnel on their moves are saying that that's what they're going to do because they spent their first round pick on Brock Bowers Brock Bowers was the best tight end in college football the last three years and the guy who was the second best tight end in college football the last three years was probably Michael Mayer Who they drafted last year in the second round so they're going to have a lot more two tight end sets is my guess on the field maybe Bowers acts as like a slot wide receiver sometimes but two tight ends on the field is usually setting up for some more beneficial and efficient Run game looks and it makes sense that they would lean on the run because they were like one of the only teams if not the only team this entire off season that just didn't get a quarterback upgrade in some way or another if it was the NFL draft I mean they signed Gardner mchu which a lot of people will say is an upgrade for Aden oconnell and I would tend to agree with that just based on what he's been able to do in the NFL but again this is not no major upgrade from Jimmy G who started the year last year it's not making us think that this team can now become a top 10 or top 15 passing offense by any means so some people might be concerned about the quarterback play but I think that's baked into his current ADP that we'll look at in a second but I think what's not baked into the ADP is the fact that zamir white can actually catch passes that's not being accounted for so when I see zamir white go as the 79th overall player right now in the seventh round of the draft so I'm a little bit uh I guess concerned or maybe not even concerned I'm just like heck yeah I'm going to get a lot more of this guy so are you if you're watching this and you believe these things and right now in the fantasy blueprint he is rising as of the latest update into somebody who I think should be taking definitely before this so in round seven or eight of drafts I think he's a breakout option he goes after guys like Jordan Addison right now and I'm looking here at DeAndre Swift who's in a three-headed backfield I'm just not sold on those guys compared to zamir white now next up let's talk about Devon aain and before you go all crazy with the Twitter fingers in the comments I do think that Devon a chain obviously broke out last season the guy had over a thousand yards and just 11 games if you want to come down here and look at his stats he had 800 rushing yards he had 200 receiving yards in just 11 games do he missed some time with injury more on that in a second the fella literally averaged 7.7 yards per touch we have to give him his flowers but this is where I'm a little bit concerned he goes to the 20th overall player right now he's going in the second round of drafts as of this recording right around guys like kyum Williams ahead of some other guys like Nico Collins and you can scroll even further down Travis ET and Jaylen Wadd Derrick Henry I'm a little bit questionable here and if you're one of the few thousand people that currently have the fantasy blueprint again you can get it linked down below or with the QR code on the screen right now you know that as of right now I don't think he's a top 20 player or even a top 30 player for this year now again aain was drafted by the Dolphins last year and he landed in the perfect spot they utilized his speed and what does he do he leads the NFL on Breakaway run rate the amount of runs that he had based on his total carries that went for 10 or more yards these were explosive runs he's an explosive player he uses his speed to get to the outside but the question becomes and at least my question becomes now is a second round pick when you're not getting that insane value like you did last year in drafts is he worth it in the second round in year two because it's not like his opportunities are going to go up last year he was averaging 12 carries per game and this off season it's team Reign Rim oart who when both guys healthy most start receiv receiving more touches per game and then they traded up in the fourth round to draft Jaylen Wright who if you're not familiar with him one of the best running backs in this year's draft class ran in the four threes at the NFL combine and led all of college football in explosive runs last year what Devon H was doing in college or in the NFL last year of these explosive runs of 10 plus yards Jaylen Wright was doing in college and there's some caveats you can put on that he saw the highest percentage of just three man boxes so you're like running against nobody or fourman boxes you're like running against nobody easier to get those bigger plays but he still had that explosiveness a raw runner for sure that's why he went in the fourth round now another question for me that comes up when you're trying to consider this second round pick outside of that added competition and rimo start still being there is what about his weight is that leading to more injuries for him and I just want you to bear with me on this one because as you can see right here he's just 5'9 and 188 lbs this was the concern for him coming out of the draft but his speed was supposed to kind of make up for that and it did and in college football he played like a bigger stronger player as well but you have bigger guys in the NFL so that's a concern but he landed in the perfect spot with the Miami Dolphins they let him get to the outside so the weight didn't matter as much until he started getting tackled up the middle by 200 80 lb NFL defensive lineman and 240 to 50lb NFL linebackers and the injuries started to pile on last year you can see in the preseason it was a shoulder sprain okay that happened in Camp not as big of a deal or in preseason game but then in week five he has a knee sprain that impacts him for a bunch of weeks seven weeks on the injury report you can see right here five games missed and then he has another three games on the injury report and potentially was going to miss sometimes towards the end of the year but he played through it with both a toe bruise and a bruised rip so we're looking at a guy last year who missed six games in this NFL season was on the injury report for 11 of them and this was the concern coming into the season could a smaller frame player running back kind of survive because they haven't all that much in the past running up the middle in the NFL and I honestly don't know the answer to this I'm just throwing it out there because when a guy gets put in the second round and there's some concerns we have to address them and I don't really know the answer to if this is a concern moving forward these injuries I'd like to know what you think maybe in the comments now as of right now I currently have aain as my 52nd overall player a fourth or a fifth round pick because I'm pretty high in Raheem most start as well this is not me saying aain isn't great it's just me saying I don't think he's a second round pick 20th or 23rd overall depending on the ADP that you look at maybe he'll rise a little bit into like the fourth round maybe even the third round for me depending on Camp reports but I'm just not going to get to this 23rd overall because when I scroll up I'd rather have these guys Devon Smith Josh Jacobs Isaiah Peko Drake London Marvin Harrison for sure definitely kyrion willames for sure definitely all these guys over one uh Mr Devon a you could even throw guys like saquon Barkley and if I didn't say Drake London into that mix as well now back to the breakout running backs are regularly scheduled programming here Taj J Spears is somebody one of those guys who I think has one of the best chances of breaking out we talked about him this offseason because he's getting a lot of hype right now in OTAs because the coaches are saying him and Tony po are interchangeable but the ADP doesn't reflect that because as of right now despite them being interchangeable Pard is still going one to two rounds earlier than Taj Spears and drafts and if you're not familiar with Taj Spears let me take you back to his final year of college in 2022 he was a rookie last year he was an absolute Menace his final year of college he had over, 1500 rushing yards almost 1,600 250 receiving yards this guy had nearly 18 or over 1,800 I believe total yards last last year and he had his final eight games of his college career 125 yards or more in each of them the dude averaged over seven yards per touch in college and he was like the Devon aain of college no I'm not comparing what aain did in the NFL to what uh T Spears did at T Lane obviously aain was much more impressive since he did it in the league but let me walk that back because I actually am comparing them I'm just not saying it's the exact same thing I'm saying that Taj Spears was the Devon a chain of his league in college at tan that's just to give you an idea of how good he was and then he enters the NFL and right here look at his snapshare he was like the first running back ever to actually take significant snaps away from Derrik Henry right away he's playing over 50% of the snaps okay then it drops but then basically every single week he's playing right around or over 50% of the snaps five of the first six weeks of the season and it only continues as the year goes on 58% 60% some of these weeks 65 67% over 50% 63 some of these weeks he's even playing more snaps than Derrick Henry and Spears ended his rookie year ranking sixth in yards per Touch fourth in broken tackle rate and fifth in Breakaway runs and for the Breakaway run stat that's on a per touch basis so a breakaway run percentage the rate of runs that he actually had 10 or more yards on so yeah I'm fully in on getting Taj Spears right now in round 10 even with Tony Pard there and you can see some of the other additions the team made they improved the offensive line they signed Lloyd kushberry who we talked about earlier as he left the Denver Broncos they signed him that's a good ad and then they drafted in the first round JC lean with a top 10 overall pick one of the best tackles in the NFL draft only Joe Al would probably be argued as a better tackle so this is going to obviously help the Run game and if you're not familiar yes Derrick Henry has gone and Tony Pard signed this off season Tony Pard off a down year last year where injury kind of affected him for part of that year but I still think he's a talented back he might even be a value in his own right in like round eight or nine but as of right now give me Taj Spears in round 10 and now let's talk about a guy who goes in like round 15 or 16 and honestly it's a little bit tough for me to get behind but then when we factor in the price point I think it's something that we at least have to try and break down and see through and it's Roshan Johnson as The 160th 168th overall player in round 15 or 16 of drafts right now now this is year two for Roshan Johnson last year was a fourth round pick by the Bears and he was somebody who was out of the University of Texas and he was actually a college back to start his career when he ended up going to Texas and immediately in 2019 he transfers to being a or transitions to being a running back he has over 100 carries over 650 yards he looks great and then bejan Robinson hops on the scene so he doesn't have any massive breakout years Roshan Johnson you can see here but every year he's still earning around 100 carries over 500 yards averaging over six yards per touch with beon there next to him and honestly if there was one thing that he did better than Bean it was breaking tackles on a per touch basis and he was a great pass protector and pass catcher and his ability to pass protect is what got got him on the field as a fourth round rookie last year despite it being a three-headed backfield with guys like Kio Herbert and Veteran Deontay Foreman there we saw the rookie still able to earn 31% of the snaps even though he was dealing with an injury last year and it was a terrible offense led by Justin Fields a team that just could not move the ball despite all of that individually on his own right or on his own by himself he was still efficient top 20 last year not just amongst rookies overall every running back in the league top 20 in yards per touch averaging 4.9 yards per touch you could basically call it five yards per touch continue to break tackles continue to pass protect and catch passes at a solid to Great level even though he was a rookie and now his offense should be much improved you have a new offensive coordinator who's going to pass the ball and Shane wal you have the quarterback in Caleb Williams the rookie and a couple of new wide receivers from the NFL draft now the offensive line is a little bit of a question for me heading into this year but overall the environment is definitely improved from last year for Roshan Johnson so you would think that that's a good thing but it's still a three-headed backfield because as of right now KH Herbert's still there even though some people thought he might get traded and DeAndre Swift was signed this off season and given a decent amount of guaranteed money and he was the first player not just running back first player signed in free agency which shows how much the Bears valued him and thought it was important to go out and get him right away and you can say what you want and think what you want about the Andre Swift but he's coming off of his healthiest and probably best season last year with the Philadelphia Eagles and this team showed with both their wallet and their urgency how much they value Swift now of course there's a big question that I have and many of you might have what does he look like when he's not behind the Eagles great offensive line well we're going to find out but this just has to hurt Roshan Johnson especially because khil Herbert is still there and K Herbert might actually be the best Pure Runner on this team even when you factor in Roshan Johnson and you factor in and DeAndre Swift so it's a little bit tough when it's still a three-head of backfield on a team that should pass the ball more they ranked second in Rush attempts last year should pass the ball more with the new offensive coordinator wide receivers and Caleb Williams now since Roshan goes in around 15 or 16 I mean you're not really taking on a lot of risks there but I do think there's a couple other guys I'd rather have maybe at the wide receiver position in this range or even the running back spot but if you wanted to take Roshan here I'm not going to blame you I just don't see him as a breakout at this point but one guy I definitely see as a breakout as Tai Chandler and we just recently talked about how much of a League winner potential I think he has this year and let's talk about some more because right now he is still going in round 12 as the 143rd overall player off the board as he enters his third season in the NFL and I believe that this could be considered his breakout campaign because as of right now there's only one real roadblock and that's the fact that unexpectedly they signed Aaron Jones because he was unexpectedly cut by the Green Bay Packers and Aaron Jones is indeed a talented player despite being 29 and coming off of a season where he missed six games with injury if he's healthy he's one of the best backs in the league Chandler is going to have to have things go his way for him to break out and win leagues of course Aaron Jones is either going to have to miss sometimes or just fall off which is the possible case we haven't really seen any indication of this but is the case since he is approaching that age 30 in December but if Chandler is given the opportunity to split this backfield even if it's 45 to 55% of the snaps and he's seeing 45% he's shown in the pass that he could be productive last year averaging five yards per touch top 20 in the NFL when he got opportunities he had games of 150 yards last year and even if Darron Jones stays healthy this could be the type of Back Field like we saw in the past with Zeke and Tony paard and jayen and Naji Harris where that second back and Tony Pard and jayen still had top 24 seasons even though they weren't the guy because they were just able to be so productive and efficient on their touches and earn even more touches during the season now this gets a little bit worrisome when you consider that Kurt Cousins is no longer there and the quarterbacks will be either rookie JJ McCarthy or Sam Donn which leads to a little bit more uncertainty in how often the drives will be sustained how often they'll get to the Red Zone but if we actually trust in the coach Kevin okano who has been great to this point to get the most out of his talent and put the quarterback in a beneficial spot to win which I do trust in that to a good extent I think this will still be a decent offense and if that's the case if we just get a decent offense where Tai Chandler is involved nearly 50% of the time well I think he's definitely going to beat his 12th round ADP and if the offense is better than decent or Tai Chandler she's a larger role than half the snaps and Aaron Jones misses some games or just falls off or just one of those even if he only misses like three games then I think Chandler does have the ability to break out and finish as a top 24 back so these have been the guys that I think we need to identify and break down deeper into seeing which guys are the breakouts and which ones aren't and I think we did a good job at that now these are the guys who can break out at the running back position but if you want to see the guys who I believe are League winners as of right now where they're being drafted across all positions we'll check out this video right here again these are the guys who can help you beat your friends and win your Elite and if for some reason you made it to the end and you're not subscribed just take two seconds if you're on your TV your phone your laptop hit that subscribe button it really helps the channel out and lets others find this channel

Channel: Sal Vetri

Views: 39,672

Keywords: fantasy football, 2024 fantasy football, fantasy football 2024, fantasy football 2024 tips, fantasy football 2024 draft, 2024 fantasy football draft, 2024 fantasy football tips, fantasy football tips, fantasy football draft, fantasy football breakouts, fantasy football breakout running backs, fantasy football 2024 breakouts, fantasy football 2024 breakout running backs, breakout running backs 2024 fantasy football, fantasy football running backs, running backs fantasy football

Id: lVr8dLik-HA

Length: 29min 40sec (1780 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 15 2024