2024 Fantasy Football breakouts: Ranking 10 candidates who could be league-winners on Draft Day
What is a breakout? We set some parameters and then swing for the fences in preparation for you 2024 Fantasy Football drafts
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Last year, we set about defining Fantasy football terms like "sleepers," "breakouts" and "busts" so that we could have a clear goal in mind when slotting players into each category. For breakouts, we decided the best criteria was to focus on players who reached a new level of per-game production and were on more winning teams than losing teams. Looking at the previous season, we found most of the players who qualified were drafted in the first eight rounds, so this became a logical separation from our sleepers discussion, which only drew from players drafted after Round 8.
So how did we do? Well, some players we identified as breakout candidates couldn't overcome poor quarterback play or didn't see positive touchdown regression we expected; some were just very bad (looking at you, Alexander Mattison). But one big success story was Rachaad White, who went from averaging 7.6 PPR points in 2022 to nearly 14 in 2023 while showing up with the sixth-best winning percentage among running backs.
But looking at the players who qualified as breakouts last year, I'm not certain our criteria can't be improved upon. The winning-percentage angle brings in some names like Jake Browning and Ty Chandler who certainly wouldn't be labeled breakouts in retrospect even though both had "career" seasons for them, while Isaiah Likely was the best winning-percentage tight end by a wide margin and helped win plenty of Fantasy titles but made almost no impact during the regular season for Fantasy.
So what we'll do is use our sleeper rules of needing someone to finish twice as high as their positional ADP, rounded up, but apply it only to players in the first eight rounds of ADP. We'll also keep in place the need to reach a new level of production so that we can't just label Patrick Mahomes a breakout when he finishes as QB1 because he was the QB3 in ADP unless he somehow outdoes scoring 30 points per game, which he did in his first season as a starter. This will also help us avoid players coming off an injury or a poor season that could be suppressing their draft price; Austin Ekeler finishing as the 14th-best RB won't be enough considering his elite production from 2021 and 2022. The ADP factor will also do a good job of taking otherwise easy picks like Bijan Robinson off the table, as he'd need to finish as RB1 to meet our new criteria rather than just improve on last year's somewhat disappointing numbers.
I've come up with a list of my favorite breakouts for 2024 Fantasy Football drafts who all meet those parameters, and below I've ranked them by how confident I am they'll achieve the goal of reaching new heights in Fantasy points per game and beating their ADP by a wide enough margin to qualify. Consider it a target list after you've made your first pick but before you transition to our sleeper suggestions in Round 9.
So who gets the top spot as the best Fantasy breakout of 2024? And which running backs and receivers have the best chance to provide incredible value for their Fantasy teams? ... Join SportsLine here to see R.J. White's breakout rankings for 2024 Fantasy football leagues!
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