Dynasty Rookie Draft Advice: Tyrone Tracy (2024 Fantasy Football)

This is what we’ve been waiting for, fantasy football enthusiasts. The NFL Draft is under way, and we finally get to see where the rookie prospects are going to launch their professional careers. And NFL Draft landing spots allow us to start to zero in on fantasy football and dynasty rookie draft pick values.

Throughout the draft, we’ll take a closer look at fantasy-relevant prospects, giving you an overview of their strengths and weaknesses, and assessing their fantasy value in both redraft and dynasty formats.

Let’s dig in.

Fantasy Football Rookie Draft Outlook

Fitz’s Fantasy Football Outlook

The New York Giants have selected Purdue’s Tyrone Tracy with the 31st pick of the fifth round.

Tracy spent the first four years of his college career as a lightly used wide receiver at the University of Iowa before transferring to Purdue and becoming a running back. He had 716 rushing yards and eight touchdowns for the downtrodden Boilermakers last year, averaging 6.3 yards per carry behind a weak offensive line. He also had 19 catches for 132 yards.

An extraordinary athlete, the 5-11, 209-pound Tracy ran a 4.48 at the combine and recorded a 40-inch vertical jump. His 9.84 Relative Athletic Score was second-best among the running backs in this class behind only Louisville’s Isaac Guerendo and 30th best of the 1,765 RBs to have posted a RAS since 1987, according to RAS pioneer Kent Lee Platte.

Although he’s relatively inexperienced as a running back, Tracy displayed good vision and instincts last year to go along with his natural burst and agility. He posted a 163.5 elusive rating last season and averaged 4.44 yards after contact per attempt. And as a former wide receiver, Tracy clearly has NFL pass-catching potential. FantasyPros NFL Draft and college football analyst Thor Nystrom is a Tracy enthusiast, ranking him fifth among the running backs in this class.

Positional inexperience is probably the biggest knock on Tracy, who faces a steep learning curve in the NFL. He’s also an older prospect who’ll turn 25 in November.

Tracy landed in a pretty good spot. Devin Singletary sits atop the Giants’ RB depth chart, with Matt Breida and Eric Gray behind him. It’s easy to imagine Tracy opening the 2024 season as the Giants’ primary passing-down back, and he might be able to contend for early-down work as well.

For dynasty, I have Tracy ranked RB12 among the rookies, RB58 overall. For redraft, I have Tracy ranked RB65 as of now.

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Thor’s NFL Draft Profile & Player Comp

5011/209 | RAS: 9.77
Player Comparison: Miles Sanders

For the first four years of Tyrone Tracy’s career, I watched every snap he took live. This was back when he was an Iowa Hawkeye wide receiver. He was an incredible athlete and a gifted playmaker who needed work as a route-runner. Still, after the 2021 NFL Draft, I said Tracy was a better pro prospect than fellow Iowa WRs Ihmir Smith-Marsette (Round 5) and Brandon Smith (top-15 UDFA bonus).

Tyrone Tracy scored on this play

Swear to god

Better prospect than ISM (R5) and Brandon Smith (top-15 in UDFA guarantees) https://t.co/oYV0G708Zr pic.twitter.com/WXQSNmM961

— Thor Nystrom (@thorku) May 8, 2021

Tracy justifiably felt he wasn’t being used enough — and perhaps developed sufficiently — in Iowa’s pass-averse offense, so he transferred to Purdue. The Boilermakers had the inspired decision to shift Tracy to running back.

Tracy flashed in a platoon role for a bad Purdue team this past season, with an 88.0 PFF grade. Particularly impressive about Tracy’s tape — for a guy so new to the RB position — was his natural feel for running. His 163.5 elusive rating and 4.44 yards after contact per attempt were both the highest of my top 30 RBs in this class.

Tracy is a bouncy, juiced-up, wide-based slasher with better vision and instincts than expected. He runs with tempo and has a knack for timing cutbacks to free himself into open grass. These skills play as a returner.

Between that and his 4.48 wheels, Tracy piled up more explosive runs last year per carry than he had any business accruing on a dead-end Boilermaker outfit. Tracy has good core strength and consistently absorbs off-angle shots without losing momentum — that and his wide base lead to very good contact balance.

Here was the odd thing about the former receiver’s tape: While his rushing tape blew me away, his 2023 pass-catching tape was mostly a snooze-fest. That isn’t necessarily his fault. Purdue’s first-year staff had a risk-averse offense devoid of creativity. The vast majority of Tracy’s targets came on offshoots of the same play: Fake a hand-off one way and immediately throw a swing pass to Tracy in the other direction.

This comically straightforward concept hung Tracy out to dry, with flowing defenders in his wake immediately after he caught the ball. Most of Tracy’s other targets were under-duress dump-offs, which allowed him no more freedom. His NFL team would be wise to allow him to spread his wings more in this area.

Tracy enters the NFL as a 24-year-old sixth-year senior. While this theoretically caps his upside a bit, it also must be said that he has untapped upside at his new position and more tread on his tires than most prospects in this class — Tracy had only 259 scrimmage touches in college. In a down RB class lacking in upside, Tracy is a highly intriguing sleeper.

Check out more NFL Draft profiles and player comps from Thor in our 2024 NFL Draft Guide