How to Draft Running Backs in Fantasy Football, 2024

Everything this offseason has built up to this point.

From our player tiers, positional rankings, and all of the 2024 off-season content you can find in one place on the site in the full Draft Kit we have fully prepared for fantasy drafts.

With that content in place as a North Star in how to play the game of fantasy football, I also know some of you are here because you want to know how I am playing drafts out myself this summer.

I want to dive into how I approach drafts this year at each position this week, continuing with the running back position.

I will also update this throughout the remaining time in the offseason if we get any significant news that impacts draft approaches.

Even those with the draft kit may not have read every word written this offseason.

At this stage of the offseason, I am operating under the assumption you have at minimum checked out the player rankings page and the individual player writeups in the positional tiers posts.

With that in mind, these pieces will not be as statistically centric and fully into the weeds on the pros or cons of each player and focus on the approach to drafting the positions.

If you want further analysis on each player, I encourage you to read the player writeups in the Tiers post.

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How to Draft Running Backs in Fantasy Football Leagues

The most important thing to account for entering any draft is your league settings.

The number of points your league rewards for receptions and the number of required starting spots for each position (including FLEX positions) impacts the top-down strategy you should be approaching your league with more than anything else.

In leagues that do not reward full points per reception and reduce the required starting wide receivers, running backs (particularly depth) gain more traction as your draft progresses than the receivers.

In 0.5 PPR formats, running backs gain ground in non-best ball formats.

Think about this.

Last season, Saquon Barkley and Jonathan Taylor each averaged more points per game in 0.5 PPR formats than Puka Nacua.

James Conner averaged more points per game than Mike Evans.

Joe Mixon averaged more points per game than D.J. Moore.

I have touched on this in the past covering high scorers, replacement value, and starting weeks. Still, the wide receiver position runs down the running back position extremely quickly in 0.5 PPR and full-PPR leagues while running backs hold more of their ground in leagues that do not score receptions.

If you are playing full-PPR formats and have to start three wide receivers (before even accounting for FLEX spots), wide receivers gain a significant point of emphasis in drafts.

In those formats, Nico Collins outscored De’Von Achane per game.

Whereas both Barkley and Taylor outscored Nacua per game in 0.5 PPR leagues, Nacua outscored both backs by over 2.0 points per game in full-PPR formats.

DK Metcalf outscored James Cook per game.

You get the picture.

You can win your league in a lot of ways.

While it is great to have a plan before entering a draft, you still have to be able to adapt as things progress.

Especially at the running back position, things are fluid during the season.

We will have injuries, busts, and depth charts we were wrong in projecting.

Whether building a roster with a Zero-RB, anchor/hero RB, or RB-heavy approach, you can win.

This article will be about a top-down philosophy to the position with draft targets to aid you in guiding any of those approaches.

Early Round Strategy

This one is an oldie but is still true today and worth remembering this time of the offseason.

No position has consistently provided greater positional leverage from a seasonal and weekly fantasy standpoint than landing an elite running back.

This was off the rails in 2023 when Christian McCaffrey provided one of the best seasons ever at the position in terms of leverage over the field.

The catch is that there are very few elite running backs per season.

Old-school, three-down, do-it-all fantasy backs are as finite a fantasy resource as ever.

The tides have turned and elite fantasy backs are a dying breed.

It is not just due to committees, either.

Running backs as a group continue to lose touches across the league.

Their rate of leaguewide rushes, targets, and touchdowns has dwindled in recent seasons.

This is the primary reason we have seen the draft meta shift this offseason with gamers being aggressive at the receiver position.

If you have done a draft on Underdog this offseason, then you already are aware of how aggressive gamers are selecting wideouts compared to running backs.

While not as pronounced on other sites, there has been a consistent shift towards selecting wide receivers earlier.

You have to pay top dollar to acquire the players that have the best odds of becoming a league-defining running back because there just aren’t very many of them.

Front-end running backs have more fragility than high-priced wide receivers, but that is the area of the draft where the margins between the two positions historically have been the tightest.

That is the gift and the curse of the position.

I subscribe to wanting to land as many running backs early as possible that check off our required requirements to be considered a workhorse back.

A back that pushes 300-plus touches in a season, stays on the field near the goal line, and remains involved in the passing game so they can thrive in all game scripts for fantasy football.

We want to chase opportunity firsthand.

After that, we can factor in things such as offensive environment into tie breakers within tiers of similar backs in types of usage.

This season, the front-end of the running back player pool feels shallower than ever.

McCaffrey has a clear gap over the field, with a mini-tier of Breece Hall and Bijan Robinson having McCaffrey-esque traits.

Immediately after those two backs, however, things widen at the position.

We jump into players either sharing a backfield with another viable back (Jahmyr Gibbs) or backs playing with mobile quarterbacks (Jonathan Taylor and Saquon Barkley).

I have no issues double-tapping two backs that fit the criteria of legendary upside seasons to open drafts, but as mentioned, the list of those types is thin, and it is tough to do based on ADP.

I have drafted one team this offseason with both Hall and Robinson on it, and that outcome came in a Superflex league in which I had pick 12.

When I am opening a draft with a running back, it has to be one of those players.

Because my list of alpha backs is only McCaffrey, Robinson, and Hall, I do not have much pushback aggressively drafting those backs in the first round.

You can make a strong case for taking Hall or Robinson as early as 1.02 based on the upside they can provide in a ceiling outcome.

If my league is 0.5 PPR with only 2WR required as starters, I would push for one of those backs as early as possible.

In full-PPR formats which require 3WR starters or with added FLEX spots, things are more nuanced.

Because the running back position is being pushed down this summer, there are values within the position that would not have existed in previous seasons.

This year, you can add players such as Isiah Pacheco, Kyren Williams, Travis Etienne, and De’Von Achane at the 2-3 turn if you opened your draft up with an elite wideout such as CeeDee Lamb or Tyreek Hill.

Because of that, I do not often press the issue on Hall or Robinson before 1.05 (I would include Amon-Ra St. Brown as a firewall) in full-PPR formats that are asking me to invest heavily at wide receiver from the start.

If you have followed my work here for years, you already know I love the Anchor-RB/Hero-RB approach (or whatever other moniker you want to label it),

I am most often looking to get one of those elite backs and then hammer pass catchers for several rounds before circling back to the position.

This year, there are multiple paths to an Anchor-Hero build.

The first one is just grabbing one of CMC, Hall, or Robinson.

But in leagues where the running back market is suppressed, you can open up a draft with 3-4 wide receivers and still land a workhorse back such as Travis Etienne, Joe Mixon, Rachaad White or Alvin Kamara (full-PPR only).

You are dependent on the draft room setting that scenario up, but those drafts do happen this season.

Especially when comparing the running back tier breaks to wide receiver.

In leagues that are not full-PPR and have limited starting requirements at wide receiver, I want to aggressively play the running back position this summer.

We already highlighted how strong running backs are in those formats compared to back-end WR1 options.

Players such as Pacheco, Etienne, Kyren, and Achane are players that I want to select in those formats over that secondary wide receiver tier such as Chris Olave, Drake London, or Marvin Harrison Jr.

Middle & Late Round Strategy

Remember, that we have been strong at setting the market at running back while high-end seasons at the position come from players with top-12 ADP.

After that, however, things historically taper off.

Factoring in how poor we have been historically at selecting running backs in this area of the position provides even greater concern for paying up for those backs.

The “dead zone” has a sprinkle of yearly hits despite the lowered odds.

While being cautious overall in this area, we also identified the archetype of backs who have carried the best odds of besting the dead zone.

We want to focus on rookie-contract players or those who can catch passes (preferably both) if selecting running backs in that area of the draft.

James Cook and Rachaad White check off both boxes.

Kenneth Walker is a rookie contract player.

Alvin Kamara is older, but still factors heavily in the passing game. In non-PPR formats, Kamara is not particularly appealing.

I also feel similarly about Aaron Jones as a potential arbitrage on Kamara but want to keep him in play for full-PPR formats largely.

We still could see Jordan Addison suspended this season, and we know T.J. Hockenson will not be active to open the year.

Paired with Minnesota lacking a viable WR3 option, Jones could see a lot of work as a pass catcher.

If he ends up getting touchdown opportunities, that is icing on the cake.

But we also need to account for his age and the potential that Ty Chandler could stay involved near the end zone.

In non-PPR formats, I am also looking at Najee Harris and James Conner.

We have to project Conner missing time, so he is someone to only take when the room is leaving him past ADP.

If there are tier breaks at wide receiver that align with any of those backs, those are the types of swings to take in the traditional dead zone.

When we get later in the draft, we want to focus on backs who are either on rookie contracts or are attached to dead-zone profiles to bet against.

We also have nebulous RB1 draft picks in Tony Pollard, Zack Moss, Devin Singletary, Javonte Williams, Brian Robinson, Gus Edwards, Nick Chubb, Jonathon Brooks, Ezekiel Elliott, and Gus Edwards.

Those are backfields we can highlight as having the most value potential.

Tyjae Spears, Tyrone Tracy, Chase Brown, Austin Ekeler, Rico Dowdle, Jaleel McLaughlin, Kimani Vidal or JK Dobbins, and Chuba Hubbard are among the names that should be circled as drafts progress and rosters get filled out.

Auctions and Opportunity Costs

A lot of the same core principles above translate over to my auction approach.

But in an auction, I am far less risk-averse than I am in snake drafts.

I am inherently a more cautious drafter in the early rounds of serpentine drafts as mentioned with the quarterbacks.

I know I am going to get a lot of binary player choices wrong in those leagues, so I want to spend my top dollars on the players that I have the most confidence in.

But in auctions, we are removing that apples or oranges player selection process to a degree.

I am more apt to remove a large portion of rounds 5-8 from my auction process since many players later carry the same risk and bust rates while accruing as many players as I can from the opening 3-4 rounds.

With that approach, I am more comfortable taking on some of the players I view as having the larger risks not fully baked into the cost of their upside.

If you are in an auction, you have the freedom to aggressively pursue any player you may have some doubts about early on over bypassing surrounding players that may offer more safety.

Auction formats are the spots where I am most interested in guys such as De’Von Achane and Jahmyr Gibbs since they have such strong ceiling outcomes, but also do have some red flags at premium draft capital.

Kyren Williams is also in that same bucket.

I will also include Derrick Henry if the pricing lines up as well as James Conner, past the age apex, but still has solid cases for upside outcomes.

Jonathon Brooks and Nick Chubb as injury discounts, but the league must have IR spots.

The Blueprint

You do not have to draft only the players listed here, but I want to put everything mentioned so far into a more compact and linear layout:

PRIMARY EARLY TARGETS TO OPEN WITH (Alpha Anchor RB): Christian McCaffrey, Breece Hall, Bijan Robinson — In 0.5 PPR formats, Robinson and Hall can be elevated over any WR
WANT TO DRAFT THIS RB AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT BEING GREEDY: Isiah Pacheco
DRAFTING AT THE 1-2 TURN: Jonathan Taylor and Saquon Barkley as part splitting RB/WR — In 0.5 PPR elevating both over WRs. Take both if available in those formats.
DRAFTING AT THE 2-3 TURN: Pacheco, Kyren Williams, De’Von Achane
Mid-Range Anchor Targets (Anchor RB after 3-4 WRs if room allows): Travis Etienne, Joe Mixon, Rachaad White, Alvin Kamara (full-PPR only), and Aaron Jones (full-PPR only) — These are all backs I am looking to catch falling past ADP regardless of the build
IF BRAVING THE DEAD ZONE: James Cook, Rachaad White — In 0.5 PPR, looking to catch Najee Harris and James Conner below ADP
HANGING AROUND AT HIGHER COST IN AUCTIONS: Anyone above, Jahmyr Gibbs, De’Von Achane, Kyren Williams, Derrick Henry, James Conner
AFTER THE DEAD ZONE TARGETS: Anyone above who falls in drafts, Tony Pollard, Tyjae Spears, Jonathon Brooks (league must have IR spots)
BENCH TARGETS: Anyone above, Chase Brown, Devin Singletary, Blake Corum, Trey Benson, Ty Chandler, Nick Chubb (must have IR spots), Rico Dowdle, Zach Charbonnet, Tyler Allgeier, Braelon Allen, Tyrone Tracy Jr, Ray Davis
CHASING EARLY SEASON USAGE IN HERO or ZERO-RB BUILDS: Devin Singletary, Gus Edwards, Chuba Hubbard, Jerome Ford

Keeper Targets

Wrapping this up, a look at players I want to target or who get added intrigue in formats that allow keepers.

Jonathon Brooks: Easy target in leagues with keepers as the top RB in this class with a 2024 injury discount creating a potentially soft cost compared to what his cost could be in 2025 drafts.

Jaylen Warren: Early season hamstring issue dampens his full outlook, but there is a non-zero outcome where Najee Harris is elsewhere as a free agent and Warren is the PIT RB1 in 2025.

Trey Benson: His 2024 ceiling is tied to the availability of James Conner, but Conner is an unrestricted free agent after the season.

Javonte Williams: Risk he is no longer the same player, but if he returns to pre-injury form, he will still only be 25 years old next season on the open market.

Young Contingency Backs with upside to be more in 2025: Chase Brown, Jaylen Wright, Blake Corum