Fantasy Football: 5 running backs to target at their current ADP

• Our love for De’Von Achane may have created value for his teammate: Raheem Mostert – last season’s RB2 – has a great shot to outperform his current value if he looks anything like last season.

• Hedging on the Cincinnati Bengals running back room: Chase Brown has been mixing in with the first-team offense, so he has the potential to earn an incredibly valuable role.

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Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Fantasy football drafts are starting in earnest here throughout August, which means that ADP is unlikely to change too wildly for the rest of the offseason. After diving into Sleeper’s current ADP, several values still stand out that fantasy managers can take advantage of for the 2024 season.

Raheem Mostert, Miami Dolphins

• Sleeper ADP: 84.9
• Sleeper position ADP: RB26
• My rank: RB22

There is plenty of reason to be excited about second-year running back De’Von Achane‘s RB1 potential in Miami this season, especially after posting some of the most efficient rushing metrics for the position in recent years. However, as a result of that hype, last year’s overall PPR RB2 has fallen by the wayside in terms of ADP, so much so that he becomes a significant value in 2024 after proving that age didn’t slow him down just last season.

Mostert will be 32 years old this season but is coming off a year where he posted by far the best rushing grade of his career (91.1), which happened to rank second at the position in 2023, behind only Achane. Mostert is not your typical 30-plus-year-old running back in that he doesn’t have the wear and tear from past heavy workloads weighing him down, entering this season with just 735 carries for his career – a number that 30 other running backs since Mostert’s draft year (2015) have since exceeded over the years.

Mostert’s rushing metrics from last season are encouraging, but his usage with and without Achane in the lineup, where he dominated goal-to-go carries for the position (63%) and resulted in 11 of his 18 rushing touchdowns, as well as 57% of Miami's total offensive snaps, needs to be considered. While Achance can push for a larger role in 2024, Mostert will still be involved, especially around the goal line. In such an explosive offense, his opportunities should still be many. It’s not often you can draft the previous year’s RB2 this late, so when the opportunity emerges, we almost have to take that low-cost swing.

Jaylen Warren, Pittsburgh Steelers

• Sleeper ADP: 98.0
• Sleeper position ADP: RB32
• My rank: RB26

Warren was quietly one of last season's most impressive running backs but more importantly, he was even better than his teammate Najee Harris, who is currently being drafted nearly two rounds and nine positional spots ahead as RB23. Even for those who don’t want to take Warren over Harris in 2024, this ranking needs to be much closer when considering Warren’s history of being the better back.

While Warren outperformed Harris in essentially every metric as a runner and receiver, the Steelers coaching staff favored deploying Harris over Warren as a runner. Warren’s usage has been trending up in recent years, leaving some room for new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith to continue that trend in 2024 in order to help make the most out of the Steelers backfield. Smith’s offenses in Atlanta led to a top-three run rate in the league while his time in Tennessee led to a top-two run rate in the league over those spans. The potential for a more run-heavy offense, at the very least, should provide a greater volume of carries for Warren with the potential to also eat into Harris’ touches again this season, making him a nice value at RB32 while also dominating the receiving work out of the backfield.

Warren versus Harris in 2023:

Chase Brown, Cincinnati Bengals

• Sleeper ADP: 122.5
• Sleeper position ADP: RB40
• My rank: RB35

As someone who wrote up Zack Moss as a breakout candidate this offseason, the hype surrounding Chase Brown has me nervous, as it’s just too loud to ignore at this point heading into the preseason. By all reports coming out of training camp, Brown has been working with the first-team offense regularly enough that Moss, who is also still getting reps with the first-team, isn’t likely to see as heavy of a role as first believed. Brown flashed potential last season when he got a larger role from Week 13-on, delivering some explosive runs, a top-10 mark in yards after contact per carry (3.40) and a top-20 mark in missed tackles forced per carry (0.19) over that span. As a receiver, Brown also earned high marks over that span, including an 84.8 receiving grade (third), 13.6 yards per reception (fifth), 16.4 yards after catch per reception (third) and the best yards per route run (5.14) for the position.

Brown isn’t set to start the year with a full grasp on the Bengals RB1 job as long as Moss doesn’t lose the job outright, but the value of winning that role while still getting significant work as a runner and receiver before seizing the job makes Brown incredibly enticing for a running back being drafted outside the first 10 rounds at the moment. As for Moss, he isn’t likely to have as long of a leash as Joe Mixon did in Cincinnati should he not be as efficient as Brown, which just continues to improve Browns' odds of emerging.

Blake Corum, Los Angeles Rams

• Sleeper ADP: 116.9
• Sleeper position ADP: RB39
• My rank: RB37

Corum’s teammate, Kyren Williams, is currently a top-10 drafted running back heading into this season after delivering an exceptional 21.4 PPR points per game on 22.9 opportunities per game last season. However, the Rams drafting Corum in the third round after Williams’ strong season does at least provide some hesitance that Williams will be able to replicate that level of production again because Corum is good enough to work in a bit more to ease Williams' load, as he did miss time due to injuries in 2023 to the point that that workload might not be feasible again.

Coming out of college, Corum posted the best career rushing grade out of the FBS since 2018 (96.2) and doing so on an offense in Michigan that relied very heavily on him touching the ball. Corum has proved that he can handle a heavy workload, and that continued around the goal line, where he had significant success, converting 40 goal-to-go rushing touchdowns to contribute to his 56 rushing touchdowns since 2021 – both of which were by far the most in all of college football over that span. It stands to reason that Corum will work his way onto the field, both to spell Williams and to utilize his skillset in those key short-yardage situations. For that reason, he’ll have a shot to outperform his RB39 ADP while, at the very least, serving as an elite handcuff who would inherit a significant workload should Williams miss any time.

Chuba Hubbard, Carolina Panthers 

• Sleeper ADP: 136.5
• Sleeper position ADP: RB43
• My rank: RB39

The Panthers were the first team to take a running back in this year’s NFL draft, which signaled that Hubbard’s time as a starter was unlikely to last much longer. Jonathon Brooks is the top Panthers running back being drafted at the moment as RB28, but he’s also less than a year removed from a torn ACL, causing the team to confirm that he won’t play in the preseason and may not be ready for the start of the year as well. Brooks only has one year of starting experience and coming off the ACL without much time to work into practices with the team is going to cause a slow start as he’s eased into action. In the meantime, Hubbard figures to be the primary beneficiary of that absence.

Hubbard won the Panthers starting running back job last season due to Miles Sanders‘ missed time and underwhelming performances, and as a result, Hubbard served as a decent fantasy option in the back half of last season. Hubbard ranked as the PPR RB10 from Weeks 12-17 when he was fully embraced as the lead back while his 79.4 rushing grade ranked as the 17th-best mark among all backs on the year. Hubbard should serve as the lead back once again, even if for the first half of the year before Brooks is fully healthy, which is still more valuable than his current ADP would indicate, making him a valuable target late in drafts.