When preparing for your fantasy football draft it's easy to find rankings. It's easy to find sleeper picks. It's even easy to find recommendations for players to avoid. But there aren't a lot of resources out there telling you who the best picks are at a given position.
Rankings tell you the "best" running backs in a vacuum, of course, but that doesn't help you with who the best players to target are. Of course you'd draft Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson and Breece Hal if you could. But there's that pesky wrinkle of you not being the only drafter in your league.
So here's a look at the best running back you can draft in 2024 fantasy football drafts from five different angles.
Best Overall: Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers
This one is almost a free square — I promise the picks will get more unexpected from here. Christian McCaffrey's preseason injury is something to have your eye on, but it doesn't change the makeup of the top-end running back rankings this year.
There have been no indications that McCaffrey is at risk of missing even one game to start the year for the 49ers, and minor bumps and bruises happen in football. McCaffrey has played through them before and still been an absolutely dominant fantasy football force.
I don't even want to waste too much of your time going through just how good he is, because you probably don't need me to tell you that he led the NFL in both rushing (1,459) and yards from scrimmage (2,023) as well as all-purpose touchdowns (21) in 2023. His 24.5 PPR fantasy points per game blew every other running back out of the water, and his 391.3 total fantasy points were the most any running back has posted in a season since 2019 — when McCaffrey himself had 471.2. The last time a player not named Christian McCaffrey topped 390 was David Johnson back in 2016.
Best Value Pick: Joe Mixon, Houston Texans
Joe Mixon has been a solid, if unspectacular, fantasy football RB option for years, and it feels like drafters in 2024 are wildly underrating how good this change in scenery could be for him.
As things stand, Mixon is coming off three straight top-10 finishes (RB4 in 2021, RB10 in 2022 and RB6 in 2023). So already his average draft position (ADP, per FantasyPros) of RB15 should catch your eye.
Last year the Bengals were the second-most pass-heavy team in the NFL, with a 36.6% run play rate. They were also tied for fourth-most pass-heavy in 2022 (37.7% runs). Even in C.J. Stroud's breakout season, the Houston Texans ran the ball on 40.9% of their snaps.
That should lead to some increased rushing volume for Mixon, especially with the lack of competition in the Texans' backfield. Dameon Pierce has looked terrible in the preseason, and his 2.9 yards per carry from 2023 are exactly why the Texans replaced him. Mixon, on the other hand, has never averaged fewer than 3.5 yards per attempt (which he did as a rookie) and has a career average of 4.1.
He's also more than capable of being an every-down contributor, having racked up 42, 60 and 52 receptions over his last three seasons. Even if the Texans get even more pass-happy in Stroud's sophomore season, Mixon should remain heavily involved like he was in Cincinnati.
Best Sleeper Pick: Jerome Ford, Cleveland Browns
Nick Chubb is guaranteed to miss four games this season. Chubb tore his ACL, MCL and meniscus less than one year ago. Chubb is also about to be turning 29 years old — not an ancient age by any stretch, but old for a modern NFL running back. Consider how quick the NFL world was to write Ezekiel Elliott off as washed up heading into last season — when he was 28.
What I'm saying is: people are way overrating the chances of Jerome Ford losing the RB1 job this year. Chubb is far from a lock to return in Week 5, he'll probably take some time to get back up to speed, and his new level of "up to speed" after the injury is not guaranteed to be anything like the way he used to play. It's sad to see, of course, but it also makes Jerome Ford an incredible value.
Starting in Week 2 (when Chubb went down), Ford was the RB23 in per-game fantasy production. And that came while Kareem Hunt was taking 10 touches per game (9.0 carries, 1.0 reception) from Ford. It's clearly his backfield until Chubb returns now, as Pierre Strong and D'Onta Foreman (who the Browns were willing to risk losing by releasing briefly) are his only competition for looks.
Nick Chubb has returned from a catastrophic injury once in his career, but people are overrating the odds of him doing it again.
Best Deep Sleeper Pick: Zach Charbonnet, Seattle Seahawks
Speaking of things people seem to be overrating — the fantasy football world is acting like Kenneth Walker completely owns the Seattle Seahawks backfield.
That's the same Seattle Seahawks backfield that saw Charbonnet play more snaps than Walker in four of the last seven games in which they both suited up. The backfield on the same Seahawks team that decided to spend a second-round pick on Charbonnet the year after spending one on Walker. The backfield in the same Seahawks offense that gave Charbonnet a 351-265 edge in snaps on passing plays.
I'm not saying Walker won't lead the backfield — he will, and barring injury he'll have significantly more carries than Charbonnet. But "barring injury" is always a big caveat for a high-volume rusher, and even if Walker stays healthy Charbonnet may well be a viable PPR asset.
Rookies are notoriously unreliable in the passing game because teams worry about their quarterbacks getting hurt due to pass protection issues. So Charbonnet having already carved out the lead role on receiving downs in 2023 is not something that should be overlooked — he could become a high-volume receiving threat, and any increase in rushing volume would suddenly make him a very interesting fantasy option on a weekly basis.
That's not too bad for a guy who is typically being drafted in the 12th round or later.
Best Breakout Upside Pick: De'Von Achane, Miami Dolphins
Here let's remove any worrying about downside. Every player has red flags, but who is the best breakout running back pick in a "if everything goes according to plan" world? It's gotta be De'Von Achane.
Durability is a concern for Achane. I get it. Touchdown regression is a concern. Volume is a concern while he shares the backfield with Raheem Mostert. But what if Achane stays healthy? What if the 22-year-old is better prepared for an NFL season then he was at 21 years old?
Achane's per-game numbers (72.7 rushing yards, 17.9 receiving yards, 1.0 touchdowns) had him as the RB5, with an average of 17.3 PPR fantasy points per game. Both also wildly under-sell his efficiency. That includes Week 2, when he played just 6 snaps in his debut, and Week 11, when injuries limited him to 3 snaps. If we remove those "games," Achane averaged 20.8 fantasy points per game. That would have ranked No. 3 at the position.
Achane is going off the board as the RB11, at pick 25 overall. His chances of finishing as the overall RB1, however, are probably better than any RB outside of the top three (McCaffrey, Robinson, Hall). The bust potential is there, for sure, but he's also someone who could be a genuine league-winner.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Top 5 Best Running Backs to Draft in 2024 Fantasy Football.
