5 Running Backs Who Could Break Fantasy Football This Year

Running backs are once again the most important position for fantasy football. They were last year, and they will be this year. So, in this video, we're going to be breaking down the five running backs who could absolutely break fantasy football this year. You need these guys on your team.

And let's start with former first-round pick. Yes, people forget he went in the first round, Amari Hampton, who, let's be real here, in last year's NFL draft, if Ashton Genty wasn't in that draft as a top-10 pick, a great player, Amarian Hampton, we'd be talking about him as one of those like next stud prospects. That's how good he was in college. I mean, see for yourself. He went to North Carolina, UNCC, where in his final two seasons there, the mega producer of all mega producers. Like, I get it, Notre Dame had good running backs and Jeremiah Love had to compete with Jaren Price. But look at the production of Marian Hampton was putting up. 1,500 rushing yards. He finished his career with 1,660 rushing yards, 1,660. When you factor in his receiving yards in his final year of college with the rushing yards, he had over 2,000 total yards, 17 touchdowns, 38 catches. He checked all the boxes coming out of college in terms of production, the height, weight, the speed, all that. Over his final two college seasons, Hampton averaged 24 touches, 150 yards, and 1.3 touchdowns per game. That is a complete bell cow workload.

But unfortunately, his rookie year wasn't as good as those two years in college because of this right here. In week five, right when he started to break out in the NFL, he suffered an ankle injury. And early on, it seemed like, okay, this is just maybe a two to four-week stint. And then we got reports that it was going to be a lot more. And ultimately, Amarian Hampton ended up missing, according to Player Profiler, which he did, eight games last year. He was on the injury report for nearly 10 different weeks. So, if you're a rookie running back, the first month of your season, you start to ramp up, you start to heat up. Naji Harris is hurt in your backfield, and now you're the guy. And then you miss eight to 10 weeks. Yeah, that's going to lead to a bad rookie season. But overall, when he was out there, Amarian Hampton looked good. Check this out. He was averaging over 60 rushing yards and 21 receiving yards per game. So, you're talking about a total of 82 total yards per game last year, despite leaving one of those games early, despite being ramped up in multiple of those games. Um, if you remember before the injury last year, Amari Hampton was popping off. He had the slow start to the season in the season opener, I think the Friday night game against Kansas City. 15 carries, 48 yards. Everybody with these rookie running backs, whether it was J.J. Gibbs' rookie year, Amarian Hampton last year, if they don't get going right away, the first one or two games, everybody starts panicking. Give them some time because when you gave Amaran Hampton some time, yes, the first two games were bad. Everybody was panicking. They were selling low, and we were buying high, and it worked out really well. If you did that for at least a couple of weeks, Amarian Hampton started popping off. 24.9 fantasy points in his third game, number four overall that week amongst running backs, 129 yards. Oh, the next week, let's do even better. 65 yards, another touchdown, 27.5 fantasy points. The week after that, 13 fantasy points, but then he ends up getting hurt. But if you look at those three games, these three games right here where he starts producing, those are the three games where Naji Harris tore his Achilles, missed the season. And in those games, Amaran Hampton was playing like 85% of the snaps, averaging over 20 fantasy points per game.

Now, heading into this year, honestly, things look really good. First off, the Chargers hired Mike McDaniel as the offensive coordinator, the former head coach of the Miami Dolphins. And in my opinion, that was a complete uh misstep by the Dolphins letting Mike McDaniel go. And the Chargers, Justin Herbert, this offense, John Haw, they're all going to benefit, in my opinion, from McDaniel calling the offense. And Hampton's going to benefit because what does Mike McDaniel do? He just produces top-five and top-10 running backs. He's done it the last three years. Check this out. In his first year in Miami with Raheem Mostert, right, the ghost of Raheem Mostert, who at this time was already a 31-year-old running back. Raheem Mostert went for 1,000 rushing yards, 21 touchdowns. If you remember, was a top-five running back. But in that exact same season, it wasn't just Raheem Mostert who was a top running back. We also saw a top-five running back in Devon Achane this year as a rookie, 11 touchdowns, 17.3 fantasy points per game. Since then, the past two seasons under Mike McDaniel, Devon Achane has scored a dozen touchdowns every single year and has been the RB6, the RB5 was factored in in the explosive run game on the ground, which Mike McDaniel has been famous for since his time with the 49ers and Kyle Shanahan as the offensive coordinator there. And also also he last year Devon Achane ended up producing as a receiver these last two years, 67, 78 catches. Now, that might be more of a factor of like a check-down Tua and not so much Mike McDaniel's offense, but we know McDaniel wants to run the ball and based on the Chargers' offseason moves, they're probably going to do that a lot. You can see those offseason moves in the team changes tracker. This is a part of the fantasy blueprint. Over 10,000 plus members. If you want to join it, you can check it out at jointheblueprint.com for the lowest price of the offseason right now. Limited time. You can see this offseason they sign a new center in Tyler Bednarz. They end up signing a guard in Cole Strange, right? Former first-round pick, a run-blocking tight end in Charlie Kolar, a fullback, right? A fullback in Alec Ingold, arguably the best in the NFL, and a running back for speed that Devon Achane light for uh Mike McDaniel and Keaton Mitchell, right? So, they do all that. They had three offensive linemen in the NFL draft as well. Naji Harris is now gone out of this backfield. Zion Johnson, the guard, is gone. So, if anything, they bolster the offensive line. They bring in the fullback, the run-blocking center, the fast running back, or the run-blocking tight end, the fast running back. All these things for Mc Mike McDaniel. This is screaming they're going to run the ball a bunch. And it's also screaming workhorse usage for Amarian Hampton. Like, I get the rest of the backfield is here. Keaton Mitchell was a free agent signing who got decent money based on like the expectations for what he would have got. He's that fast speedster guy that Mike McDaniel's probably going to use on a couple of plays a game. And Kamani Vidal, all things considered, Kamani Vidal last season, especially when Naji Harris and Hampton went down, he actually produced pretty well between his rushing and receiving yards. He had an 800-yard season in his second year as a late-round pick in the NFL. Average four yards per carry. Like he had some big weeks in there, some nice runs as well. But overall, you're not giving, I think it was like a sixth-round pick on Kamani Vidal out of Troy in the 2024 draft. You're not giving that guy a large workload over your former first-round pick in Amarian Hampton last year. So, I think a lot of things are setting up really nicely for Amarian Hampton. Like, sure, if you want to point to some of the downsides about him, the injury history from the ankle last year, I get that. The rookie year was choppy to start the year, although he started to ramp up. Um, and we just haven't seen a 17-game version of him in the NFL. But again, we saw flashes last year when he was healthy, and as of right now to start this season, he's more than healthy. So, in my early rankings right now, I'll pull these up. These are currently also available um at jointheblueprint.com. You can see I have Hampton right here. He's my 24th overall player. As of this recording, he's going as the 34th overall player. So, that's a third-round pick. I don't think that's going to hold up. I definitely think he's going to end up being like somewhere between fifth pick 15 and 20 by the time the NFL or by the time most fantasy drafts in August kickoff, but as I'm as of right now, I'm about a round ahead of ADP on Amarian Hampton. I think the guy's floor is very strong in this offense, and I think the ceiling is massive.

Next up, let's talk about a polarizing fantasy player. If you're in the fantasy football circles, you listen to podcast content like this, you're in the fantasy Twitter streets, you know, people are either hot and cold on Breece Hall. As always, I think people are overreacting, and it's somewhere in the middle. But I do think there is a world where Toutin is seeing 300 or so touches in a Liam Coen offense with the Jags this year, and that's hard to ignore the upside of that. If you're not familiar, Toutin was a pick in the fourth round last year for the Jaguars. In his final two years of college, he produced pretty good, right? His final year over 1,100 rushing yards, 17 touchdowns, caught 20-plus balls his final two years of college. So everything looked good there, but he wasn't like on many people's radars. People knew he was fast until he went to the NFL combine and ran a 4.32 40 time at his size of 206 lbs. Now, this isn't like the Mike Washington speed profile because Mike Washington did this at 223 lbs. But still one of the fastest running backs we've seen for this size. 98th percentile speed score, 97th percentile burst. Those are his broad and uh vertical jumps at the NFL combine. So once people saw he was a freak athlete, he started to rise up draft boards. Ultimately went into the fourth round. James Gladstone, who ended up being the new GM last year for the Jacksonville Jaguars, like a big part of his interview process was hyping up a guy like Breece Hall, and then they ended up drafting him. So, yeah, he's probably going to be a part of the offense this year. In his rookie season, like things weren't great. He only got 83 carries. He only averaged 5.5 carries per game, less than a target per game. But despite these 83 carries, where did they use him specifically? In the goal line, in the red zone. Seven touchdowns last season. Stole a bunch from Travis Etienne. Seven touchdowns on just 83 carries. So, we know that at least last year Liam Coen trusted Breece Hall in the red zone and at the goal line. So, we would suspect that that's probably going to happen again this year, especially with Travis Etienne now gone. Etienne ended up getting a bag in free agency. He ended up signing a multi-year deal with the Saints, which is going to now leave um a more bare backfield for Jacksonville. If we pull up Jacksonville's team changes tracker, you could see that so far this offseason, Travis Etienne is gone. A blocking tight end and Johnny Mundt is gone, but they did add Chris Rodriguez. So, they replace Travis Etienne with Chris Rodriguez. And this is where people start to get a little bit crazy. Uh, Chris Rodriguez does have a history with coach Liam Coen during their time together in college at Kentucky. And Liam has said great things about Chris Rodriguez. But let's get one thing straight. Although Rodriguez on somewhat limited carries in his NFL career, does average a respectable 4.6 yards per carry. He's not Travis Etienne, right? He's not the explosive type player as Travis Etienne. He wasn't the first-round pick prospect coming out of college like Travis Etienne. And Travis Etienne in this Liam Coen offense last year saw 296 touches between his 260 rush attempts. Between his 36 uh pass attempts, he ended up being a top-13 running back. We'll call it a top-12, a borderline RB1 with 15 fantasy points per game, 13 touchdowns, nearly 300 touches. That's why I alluded to the fact that Toutin might be taking on this role this year. So, if he's gone, there's a lot to be replaced here. I don't think that Chris Rodriguez is going to be the guy who steps in and sees 296 touches and 13 touchdowns in this offense. Will Chris Rodriguez see something? Will he be involved in this backfield? In my opinion, there's no doubt about it. I think a two-minute, maybe four-minute offense will be Tank Bigsby, who was in that role last year, a good pass protector and pass catcher, and then maybe some early-down usage for Chris Rodriguez, but I don't see this being a 50/50 backfield, at least not for all the season. You have a much more explosive, younger second-year player in Breece Hall here who you trusted in the red zone last year. I think Toutin's going to see that red zone and short-yardage usage, unless we hear otherwise. And I do think he's going to see the bulk of the carries. At least 12 to 14 carries per game, if not more. And if we know anything about Liam Coen, all he does is produce elite fantasy seasons for running backs. Uh, we saw it last year with Travis Etienne. Maybe not elite, but very strong uh top-12 running back finish. And then we saw it in Bucky Irving's rookie season over those final seven games of the year after the bye. Bucky Irving took on a larger role. Averaged 18.3 fantasy points per game, 90 rushing yards per game, threw in some receiving yards. He was averaging over 100 total yards per game. Also finished the season during that second half of the year as a top-10 running back. So Liam Coen, if you're his guy in his rushing offense, you're going to benefit, and I do think Toutin is going to be that guy. We can't completely rule out a Chris Rodriguez upside as the guy. But let's be honest here, like who's more likely to have the 1200, 1300 yard season like Travis Etienne had last year, the explosive fast younger player in Breece Hall or the slower plotter four yards per carry running back in Chris Rodriguez? So although Rodriguez, I do see the the the path for him to be productive this year, there's just so much more upside and upside wins championships in fantasy by drafting and taking a buy shall. Here's a helpful tweet from Ryan Heath. Uh, there was a lot of talk and I'll just pull this up first actually. There's a lot of talk of Chris Rodriguez's contract, two years, $10 million, but the big thing about the contract that people were alluding to was that he got $6.2 million in guaranteed money, which for a backup running back and like the type of running back that Chris Rodriguez has been in his career, this is probably double than what you would expect. Usually, you're thinking like two to three million guaranteed, which is why people are like, "Okay, he's going to have a bigger role," which he should have a decent role, but as Ryan Heath points out here on Twitter, recent running backs who signed similar total guaranteed contracts to Chris Rodriguez, a percentage as a percentage of their team's cap. That's very important because although Rodriguez got $6 million guaranteed, the NFL cap has gone up every year and gone up dramatically over these last two to three years. So, running backs on the total are getting paid more, but as a percentage to the cap, it's relatively similar. You can see Jamal Williams when he signed with New Orleans, uh, Minnesota signing Alexander Mattison to bring him back, Dalvin Cook with the Jets, Antonio Gibson with New England, Chris Rodriguez this offseason with Jacksonville, and Naji Harris with the Chargers. Literally none of these guys hit with the team that they went to. Literally none of them. Dalvin Cook basically career-ended. Alexander Mattison basically career-ended at that point. Who else? Jamal Williams did nothing with the Saints. Antonio Gibson did nothing with New England. And Naji Harris, albeit he tore his Achilles early on in the season, did nothing with the Chargers. So, like overall, the money paid to Chris Rodriguez as a percentage of the cap is just 2.1%. The exact same that Naji Harris got last year, that Antonio Gibson got to be a Patriot, and he never did anything with that opportunity. So I'm not too concerned about the contract being a reason why. Like overall, if there was a reason Chris Rodriguez would be more involved, it would be because Breece Hall just stinks in my opinion. To be clear, I'm not saying Hall stinks. I'm saying that's the only way that Chris Rodriguez probably becomes like a really fantasy relevant player this year or an injury to Hall. If we pull up the offseason moves one more time, I do also want to point out that the Jaguars did probably reach, but a lot of blocking tight ends were going in round two. The NFL is just shaping up to be more blocking tight end personnel, multiple running backs out there, um, all that type of stuff, multiple tight ends. Uh, Nate Bor Borner from Texas A&M went in the second round. He's more so known as a blocking tight end. So somewhat paints with their first pick on offense in this draft. The Jaguars go with a blocking tight end. Somewhat paints what they want to do. We already know what they want to do because we have years of experience now or history seeing a Liam Coen offense. Now I've talked about like Breece Hall positively and how he could break fantasy football, but we should also point to the fact that there is a world where he just doesn't get it done. Maybe he's somewhat too small to be like a full workhorse back at 205 pounds. His rookie sample wasn't all that great. You're still going to have Tank Bigsby on passing downs because Breece Hall is not a pass-catching running back. So, I get all this, but based on where he's going in early fantasy drafts, like a seventh-round pick. I do think he's worth taking a swing on for the upside play. So, earlier on right now in my top 250 rankings, I have Toutin as my 55th overall player. So, in like your 12-team formats, I have him as a fifth-round pick. I think there's some upside there. He currently goes off the board in the sixth round as the 60th overall pick. So, I'm a little bit ahead of consensus there.

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Next up, let's talk about James Cook. And you might be saying, "No duh. He could break fantasy football. He's done it the past two seasons." And I agree with you, but for some reason, he's still not going in the first round. I currently have James Cook as a top-10 overall player. He currently goes in the middle to later parts of the second round. That's a steal. Once again, he could break fantasy at that point because like I alluded to, we literally just saw him do it last year. And here's the thing about James Cook. Oh, these last two years have been phenomenal. He's been a top-12 running back. Now, the year before that in 2023, he did it with 18 touchdowns, leading the NFL or ranking top two in touchdowns scored. He was a top-12 back, but he did a lot of that, the heavy lifting based on the touchdowns. There was a concern that he wasn't getting a big workload, right? You could see in 2023 only 207 carries. Still went over a thousand yards, still was efficient, but he wasn't getting a lot of receptions. You have a mobile quarterback in Josh Allen who's going to take off and run as opposed to checking it down on like a second or third and five. He's going to take off and run. But the Bills offense leaned heavily into Cook last year. He became a workhorse running back for the first time in his career. 309 rush attempts. Despite him easily seeing by 70-plus rush attempts, a career-high in carries in a season, his efficiency actually also hit a career-high. This rarely happens. 5.3 yards per carry was a career-high. Usually, if you see a larger workload, your body's going to break down. You're going to get tired within those games. You're going to deal with bumps and bruises, and maybe your efficiency drops. But that's okay because your work, your workload is high, and overall, you'll see more fantasy points. Not for James Cook. Instead, James Cook's workload went up, efficiency went up, which just led to him having a massive season, 1,600 rushing yards. He led the NFL there, and he finished with a career-high 17.8 fantasy points per game. The touchdowns also, despite having Josh Allen stealing some goal-line carries and red-zone carries, the touchdowns for James Cook also remained very high last year. So now you're getting a running back who is coming off of back-to-back proven seasons. One in 2023 where he did it on touchdowns and strong efficiency, and last year where he did it with everything, the touchdowns, the efficiency, the high workload, and also he did it when everybody knew the Bills were going to be running the ball. Last year James Cook faced on average 6.8 defenders in the box, top-five stacked box rate in the NFL. And despite that, he ended up having a lot of success. He was averaging four yards per carry against a stacked front, which is very good when there's an extra man, nearly seven men in the box on average. Um, just seeing loaded boxes and still ran through them. The efficiency remained very high, averaging over five yards per carry, averaging 5.6 yards per touch. Whoa, there we are. And and overall having 77 broken tackles. I mean, left and right, James Cook everywhere last year, explosive run rate, everything was great. And then you look at the offseason moves and the Bills didn't add a running back. It's still the same competition of Ray Davis and Ty Johnson who have their own roles on this team. Ray Davis basically being a straight backup. Ty Johnson being more of your passing-down, like two-minute offense guy. That's the one knock you could say against James Cook is that he's not going to go out there, at least as of right now, he proved a lot of people including myself wrong last year by seeing a larger workload. But as of right now, he's not going to go out there and catch 50-plus balls in a season. He's probably going to hover where he's been these past few years catching you 30, 35, maybe 40 balls. But are we, are we that upset with that? If he's going to go out there and score a ton of touchdowns, hopefully that continues. But more importantly, see a bunch of carries. If you're going to have 300-plus carries, yeah, you're probably not also going to catch 70 balls. Now, the one thing the Bills did do this offseason was they traded for DJ Moore. So, they basically ended up getting most likely Josh Allen, his number one outside receiver, Khalil Shakir, in the slot. They drafted a fourth-round wide receiver, as you can see here, Skyler Bell out of UConn, who does have a lot of upside. Some people compare him to Jamar Chase in his play style. Obviously, not draft capital-wise being a fourth-round pick, Skyler Bell. But anyways, they get DJ Moore. And the reason why that's important is like despite DJ Moore's attitude and the way that they used him in Chicago, I still think he's a solid wide receiver. Especially when you pair him with Josh Allen, this should become a more efficient offense. Less stalled drives, more plays for the offense, more plays for James Cook, more red zone usage, more red zone touches for James Cook. So, as I mentioned, you can see right here I have James Cook currently as a top-10 overall player. This could change. Again, this is obviously early in the summer. He currently goes 18th overall, so as a middle to late second-round pick. I have him as a first-round pick. You don't have to take him there. But if you have a late first-round pick this year and you can at the turn secure James Cook and Saquon, if you want to double-tap running back, that's great. Maybe you get a Justin Jefferson and a James Cook, especially in 10-team formats. That feels really good to me.

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Next up, I want to talk about Trevon Henderson. Somebody that based on his preseason usage last year, having a big preseason touchdown run, everybody was jumping up and down to get Trevon Henderson. By the time August came, he was going in like the third and fourth round of fantasy drafts, which I thought was crazy. I never thought he should have gone above the fifth round, but people were head over heels in love with Trevon Henderson for good reason. Not only did he have the great preseason work, but like the college production was there. As a freshman at Ohio State in the Big Ten against tough defenses, goes for a career-high 1,255 rushing yards, 6.8 yards per attempt, career-high 19 touchdowns. You could then see his final two years in college despite battling with Quinn Ewers, another second-round NFL great player like we saw last year with the Browns. 926 rushing yards, over a thousand rushing yards on seven yards per attempt last year. I mean, uh, last year Trevon Henderson, or his final year of college, was absolutely fantastic. He was the only running back in 2023 with a thousand rushing yards, seven yards per carry, 10-plus touchdowns, and at least 25 catches. The only running back to do that. So extremely versatile. That's why he was taken so highly by the Patriots. Reports had it that like multiple teams were trying to trade up for the Patriots specifically to take Trevian Henderson, but they said, "Eh, we're just going to stay here and take him instead." There's also the athletic profile about him. He's a decently sized back, 4.43 speed, elite burst, top 10%. So all this checks out. However, in his first year in the NFL, he didn't do all that great to start the season. And on the season entirely, he was facing 6.9 average defenders in the box. So just say seven defenders in the box on average. That's crazy. Number two in the NFL. So, the most stacked boxes in the NFL, he was up there, third overall in stack front carry rate. Despite that, he was averaging 6.4 yards per carry into a stacked front. Now, to start the season, people thought right away Trevon Henderson would be the guy. Not the case. It was Rhamondre Stevenson. It was a lot of Antonio Gibson at times as well. Trevon Henderson was like being resorted to a kick returner. Uh, he, he, he like fumbled in a game and despite Rhamondre fumbling a bunch, it didn't matter. Rhamondre continued to be the guy. But that was until Rhamondre Stevenson got hurt. And then in the week nine game when Rhamondre Stevenson wasn't playing, it was the Trevon Henderson show. 14 carries, 147 yards, so over 10 yards per carry, multiple explosive touchdown runs of 50-plus yards and two touchdowns in that game. So Trevon Henderson, he actually caught a ball as well. He ended up breaking out in this game, and it only continued from there. He would then go on over those next three games without Stevenson to total 330 yards, so over, so 110 total yards per game, 252 yards after contact, 10 carries for first downs, 12 missed tackles forced. Um, he had multiple multi-touchdown games during this stretch. If you look at this stat right here by PPR Fantasy Tips on Twitter. Uh, the only running backs to have more than three rushing plays of 50-plus yards in a season since 2013. So the last 13 years. Saquon did it six times in 2023. Saquon did it six times in his rookie year in 2018. And Trevon Henderson did it four times last year. Was absolutely a dominant player. When you start to look at Trevon Henderson, especially during that stretch when there was no Rhamondre last season, it starts to say, "Okay, I kind of get why he went in the fourth round last year." Let's pull up those game logs. If you pull it up right here, look at this stretch of games last year without Rhamondre Stevenson. He's the running back four, the running back three, still putting up decent performances of 11 points per week. Oh, another 30-point bomb and 161 yards and multiple touchdowns. Did this as well in a prime-time game on Thursday Night Football with a massive game. Everything starts to check out for him. And then you look at the backfield competition. They drafted Jamari Miller very late in the draft. Should be pretty irrelevant. They don't have Antonio Gibson on the roster anymore. So, it's going to be Trevon Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson. And I get it. Rhamondre last year when healthy was the guy in the real-life playoffs heading into the Super Bowl. He was getting more work over Trevon Henderson. They trusted Rhamondre Stevenson, the veteran, more. But at the same time, Rhamondre is now turning 28 years old, I believe. Let's pull it up. He's missed. Yeah. So, he's already 28 years old. You can see right here. Uh, so he's going to be 28 years old this season. He's missed 10 games over the last three years combined. So over three games per season. So like Trevon Henderson at some point this year should have a full runway to be the guy. And also the other thing that's important for New England, if you look at it, they revamped the offensive line a little. They don't have Stefon Diggs anymore, but as of this recording, they're most likely going to be getting AJ Brown after June 1st. They get Elijah Vera-Tucker in free agency. They bring in a fullback, so you know they want to run the ball. Um, they get Romeo Doubs as well in free agency. So the wide receiver room should be revamped with whoever, maybe DeMario Douglas in the slot. Romeo Doubs and AJ Brown on the outside. First-round pick on Caleb Lomu. Uh, a guard, might play tackle. We'll see there. So, the offensive line should be revamped. Should be a little bit healthier. Hopefully, they can figure out what's going on uh overall at the tackle position as we head into this season. But you already had a Patriots offense that ranks second last year only behind the Rams in actual scoring per game, 28.8 points per game. And now you're going to add a much better wide receiver situation. Another year for Drake Maye's experience. Like this should be another offense that's getting to the red zone often, that's getting in scoring position often, which should help the entire backfield. I will admit that the risks are there for Trevon Henderson. Maybe the same coaching staff, Mike Vrabel, uh, and and Mike and Josh McDaniels, just say, "You know what? Let's keep giving it to Rhamondre. We trust him. Let's not give it to our explosive, younger, faster running back." There's a chance that just happens. But I'm going to say that heading into this year, another year on the tires for Rhamondre, another year older, the injuries keep adding up, and Henderson did break out with opportunities last year. I think it makes a lot of sense for year two to be the breakout season. If we're talking about a guy who could break fantasy, Henderson has that upside.

And before we keep going, I just want to let you know you can get my free top 50 overall rankings as soon as right now for your fantasy draft to dominate those early rounds of your draft. You can just go to this link right here, uh, fantasyrankingsfree.com. It'll be linked down below. I'll put it on the screen right here. fantasyrankingsfree.com. All you do is you enter your email right here. Once you enter your email, you'll get an uh an email sent to you from me for the top 50 rankings, and you'll get that updated all season long. Be sure to check your spam or promotional folders, especially with a Gmail. Sometimes it gets lost in there, but it's going to send it to you like within a minute or two. So, just fantasyrankingsfree.com, enter your email, get the top 50 overall rankings.

Next up, let's talk about Breece Hall, the Jets running back, who they franchise tagged him. They didn't really add anybody at all in the NFL draft or free agency. So, uh, he's on the franchise tag, but there are rumors that they're trying to extend him. You can see Rich Cimini right here. Longtime Jets reporter, good reporter as well. Now that the draft is done, GM Joe Douglas said he anticipates revisiting the Breece Hall contract extension. So, we'll see what happens there if he gets extended. Either way, though, potentially in a contract year on the franchise tag. Doesn't seem to be happy. They were like trading away everybody at the trade deadline last year. Seemed to be in an active rebuild. Breece's name was floated around heavily, but he never got traded. And I'm sure Breece Hall would have loved to be a free agent this year and not franchise tagged. So he could have got the massive contract that Kenneth Walker got to be the Chiefs running back. That probably would have been Breece Hall instead. Now specifically with Breece Hall, I mean, he was the engine of their offense last year, especially with Garrett Wilson hurt for most of the season. Over 1,000 rushing yards, 350 receiving yards. This guy had over 1,400 total yards last year. Remained pretty efficient. Caught 36 balls. Had a top-five opportunity share in the NFL and arguably the worst offense in the NFL last year. They ranked dead last in passing yards per game. But despite this and despite only scoring five touchdowns, Breece Hall was still able to average 13 fantasy points per game, put up over 1,400 total yards, be involved, and that's all he's done every year of his career. 17 fantasy points per game, coming off of a torn ACL in 2023. Then 15 fantasy points per game, 13 fantasy points per game. Despite the terrible offenses, the horrendous quarterback play, Breece just continues to produce each and every year. Now, is he producing like a first or a second-round pick? No. But you don't have to take him there. He currently goes in like round four. And since there was nobody else on offense that people were scared of, especially with Garrett Wilson's injury last year, Hall did face stacked fronts at a top-10 rate. Hopefully that changes this year with a completely revamped offense. If you want to check it out right now, what the New York Jets have done this offseason, they've done a lot. First off, quarterback upgrade. Probably the best offense, best quarterback that Breece Hall has had since being a Jet and in his NFL career. Aaron Rodgers, quarterback upgrade. I don't care what he did on a terrible Raiders offense last year. I mean, I care obviously, but that situation stunk. That's why they revamped the entire Raiders coaching staff. That's why Aaron Rodgers is now gone. Um, Aaron Rodgers, the Jets, who they traded for him, albeit not that much draft capital because they didn't want the Raiders to cut Aaron Rodgers and anybody to get free pickings. The Jets wanted him as their quarterback, which I think says something. Um, overall though, the Jets offense should be better. They draft a first-round tight end in Brock Bowers, a first-round wide receiver in Malik Nabers. They have Aaron Rodgers there. They had a guard in Christian Haynes. So, I do think the offense should be better, sustain more drives. Garrett Wilson's going to be back healthy. The offensive line should still be better or still be solid and healthy this year. And Breece Hall has the exact same running back competition. You're talking about Isaiah Davis, you're talking about Brilan Allen who ended up on IR last year. Like, not much competition here. Isaiah Davis is a solid pass catcher, but Breece Hall, we know, is a great pass-catching running back. So, I think Breece Hall, once again, is shaping up to be a solid running back. He's still in the prime of his career. He gets an improved offense, should be a healthier offensive line, and not only can he run the ball, he can catch passes. Now, the biggest downside and risk for Breece Hall is not like any type of competition. It's just that the Jets just stink again. Aaron Rodgers is as bad as he was last year, and it's a Justin Fields situation all over again where they hope to get something out of this quarterback on a one to two-year deal, but he just stinks instead. I don't personally think that's going to happen. I think Breece Hall has a lot of upside. If the Jets offense remains inconsistent, that could be a downside if you only get another five touchdowns out of Breece Hall. But if it does improve, you're probably going back to these eight to 10 touchdown seasons from Breece Hall and you're probably going back from anywhere from a top-10 running back to at worst a top-20 running back like he was last year in a worst-case situation. So, I think Breece Hall is a solid pick in those like middle rounds. As of right now, it's like a fourth-round pick. I think he's solid there.

So, these have been five running backs who could absolutely break fantasy football this year. Now, if you want to see my top 24 overall players, you could check out this video right here. It released last week. I think it's going to help you out a ton. And if you want to see my top 50 overall players, an extension of that video, be sure to get it completely free at fantasyrankingsfree.com. Appreciate y'all and I'll see you in the next.