A look at a few players who could break out in 2024 fantasy football you need to target in drafts. Here are some of our favorite fantasy football breakouts to draft ahead of the 2024 season.

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Breakout Players

Anthony Richardson (QB – IND)

Let’s kick things off with an easy one, as there’s not much to say about Anthony Richardson that hasn’t already been said. The fourth overall selection in the 2023 NFL Draft made four starts last season before sustaining a shoulder injury that ended his season. Richardson was still the QB12 in points per game, despite exiting two of those four contests early, with 18.4 points per game (PPG). If we remove those two games and include only the games in which he finished, Richardson’s average jumps to 25.75, which would have been QB1 on the season. Obviously, two games is an incredibly small sample, but it’s all we’ve got with Richardson so far.

The only areas of concern for Richardson are injuries, a healthy Jonathan Taylor at the goal line and his ability to consistently win from the pocket. He finished Week 1 and Week 4 with 37 and 25 pass attempts, respectively, and was more impressive from the pocket than many anticipated. The addition of Adonai Mitchell shouldn’t be overlooked either. Richardson now has an X receiver who shines in contested catches in Michael Pittman, another outside receiver who is a remarkable athlete in Mitchell and a slot receiver who exceled in his role as a rookie in Josh Downs. Mitchell was just what the doctor ordered for the Colts offense, and if there’s any coach we can trust to get the most out of a young, athletic quarterback, it’s Shane Steichen. He did so with Jalen Hurts and has proven his systems effectiveness in the NFL on multiple levels.

If he stays healthy this season, Richardson will be an elite fantasy quarterback and will be drafted in the range of Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts in 2025.

Trevor Lawrence (QB – JAX)

Going a little deeper in the quarterback bin here, Trevor Lawrence is quietly trending towards the best season of his career. Often viewed as a disappointment following the astronomical expectations on his shoulders, Lawrence has been slightly short of what was advertised, but still very good. After shedding the black mark on the Jaguars organization known as Urban Meyer, the towering quarterback brushed his blonde locks back and proceeded to finish as the QB8 overall in 2022, with a QB14 PPG finish. He threw for the ninth-most passing yards that season and was graded as the 15th-best passer by Pro Football Focus (PFF). He followed that up with a similar season, finishing as QB13 overall and QB17 in PPG in 2023. Again, he was the 15th-highest rated passer by PFF and finished 10th in passing yards. He’s also underrated as a runner, finishing with 339 yards last year, the ninth-most in the league.

After miscasting Calvin Ridley, the team added Gabe Davis as a deep threat and drafted Brian Thomas Jr., who is overlooked due to the wide receiver talent in the NFL Draft but is an eventual number one wideout in my book. Pairing those two with an established duo of Christian Kirk and Evan Engram rounds out the best pass-catching core of Lawrence’s young career.

Last season, he posted the eight-highest average depth of target (aDOT) and the seventh-most money throws, with the fifth-most air yards and deep balls, but suffered the fifth-most dropped passes. His deep ball accuracy rating was eighth-best. Now he has the weaponry around him to go to war.

Dontayvion Wicks (WR – GB)

The Dontayvion Wicks hype among the fantasy football community is comparable to today’s political climate. You’re either all the way on one end, or all the way on the other. No middle ground. I’m not sure if Wicks represents the left or the right in this scenario, but if I could vote for one player to take a gigantic leap out of the muddy Packers receiver room, I’m casting my ballot for Wicks.

Although it’s a crowded room in Green Bay, it’s an also an ambiguous one that allows for somebody to emerge this season. Wicks succeeded in many predictive areas, including the 13th-best first downs per route run mark and the 11th-best yards per target total. He had the fourth-highest win rate versus man coverage, notched the 13th-best QB rating per target and tallied the 18th-most fantasy points per target. On top of all that, Jordan Love picked Wicks as his breakout player for the team, stating “he’s going to have a monster year this year” and head coach Matt LaFleur compared to Wicks to Davante Adams.

Wicks offers the fluidity and footwork that we see from Adams, along with his ability to win downfield and make tough catches, but his 5.6 yards after catch, good for 19th-best, prove he can work with the ball in his hands. All the Packers receivers have a lot to offer, but Wicks is the most complete of the bunch.

Rashid Shaheed (WR – NO)

With the departure of Michael Thomas, third-year pro Rashid Shaheed is expected to slide in as the Saints’ WR2 this season. The former undrafted wide receiver out of Weber State has made his mark in the NFL as a deep threat, creating loads of big plays for Derek Carr and the Saints’ aerial attack. Shaheed was practically unstoppable downfield last season, posting a 99.99 PFF receiving grade on deep targets. The only other receivers to hit that mark were Tyreek Hill, Puka Nacua, Ja’Marr Chase, Nico Collins and Brandon Aiyuk. Shaheed registered a 121.5 QB rating on deep throws enroute to the 10th-highest average depth of target.

With 2.43 fantasy points per touch, Shaheed was the 17th-most effective wide receiver in that category, just ahead of Tank Dell. In fact, the two receivers shared strikingly similar numbers last season.

For him to take the next step, however, Shaheed will need to accumulate higher volume and evolve into more than just a deep threat. With Michael Thomas in the lineup last season, Shaheed saw 36% of his targets come 20+ yards downfield, while that number dipped to 17% with Thomas out of the lineup. Ideally, Shaheed sustains his deep target success while mixing in more targets underneath. The word out of training camp is that he’s doing just that, and has won every 1-on-1 rep he’s taken.

Although the Saints offense doesn’t exactly strike fear into opponents, Shaheed may change that this season with an outside shot to finish in the WR2 range.

Jaylen Warren (RB – PIT)

I was all in on Jaylen Warren last year, but this is likely to be his true breakout season. After turning Najee Harris from a workhorse back to a committee back, Warren tallied 4.65 yards created per touch, the third-best mark among all running backs. His true yards per carry of 4.9 were sixth-best while his breakaway run rate of 8.1% landed as the third-highest mark. He led the league in juke rate and excelled as a receiver, posting the ninth-highest yards per route run while commanding the sixth-highest target share.

Enter everybody’s favorite play-caller, Arthur Smith. It’s no secret Smith loves to rely on his running game. It’s even less of a secret Russell Wilson is more washed than your favorite sweater you can’t get rid of. It’s time to let go. With a tough, physical and imposing roster and Mike Tomlin at the helm, why wouldn’t this team play a brand of smashmouth football and run it down everyone’s throat?

Harris will still see plenty of the early down, short yardage, grind it out type of work, and he has reportedly slimmed down and looked more agile. Still, he was just 36th in true yards per carry last season and 39th in yards created per touch. It’s obvious to anyone with at least 20/400 vision who the better player is in the black and yellow backfield. The situation is reminiscent of Melvin Gordon and Austin Ekeler with the Chargers. They let Gordon hang around until it was painfully obvious, and it’s becoming painfully obvious Warren is superior to Harris.

Editor’s Note: Prior to the publication of this article, Jaylen Warren suffered a hamstring injury in preseason action versus the Bills. Monitor the injury wire for updates.

Tyjae Spears (RB – TEN)

The second year running back out of Tulane is a popular sleeper/breakout pick this year, and for good reason. While the arrival of Tony Pollard has watered down the firestorm of hype Spears was set to receive after Derrick Henry‘s departure, there’s still plenty of flames burning in Spears’ outlook.

He was extremely efficient last season on limited volume behind King Henry, tallying the sixth-most yards per touch at 5.5 and the fifth-most yards created per touch at 4.58. He notched the fifth-best breakaway run rate and was especially effective as a pass catcher, finishing 11th in yards per route run. All indications are Tennessee wants to sling it this year, which benefits Spears and his pass-catching chops. New head coach Brian Callahan made it clear, stating “the teams that win the most games are generally the teams that pass the ball the best.” Adding Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd also signaled a shift in philosophy.

The Titans targeted their running backs 106 times last year with Spears seeing 70 of them. That’s right around the average for the Bengals over the past five seasons, where Callahan was the offensive coordinator, but in 2022 they tossed it to the running backs 130 times. There’s a strong likelihood we see a bevy of running back targets in Tennessee this season. Of course, Henry’s departure also unlocks tons of rushing attempts. It’s unlikely they hit 383 rushing attempts again this season, but with Spears accounting for just 100 carries last season, there’s plenty of room for an uptick. Last season was the first year Pollard cleared 200 carries, and his efficiency took a major hit. I would expect this to be a pretty clean split between the two, with Spears being the preferred pass-catcher. If we project him for 150 rushing attempts at the same efficiency, he’s closing in on 700-800 rushing yards. Add in his receiving work, and he’s well over the 1,000-yard mark. These projections are optimistic, but you can see the upside for a solid RB2 campaign from Spears.

Drake London (WR – ATL) & Kyle Pitts (TE – ATL)

Perhaps the most obvious breakout candidates of all time, both Drake London and Kyle Pitts are on a collision course of talent and timing. Drake London finished last season with the fourth-best average cushion among wide receivers at 6.79, but his catchable target rate was all the way down at 36th with a mark of 73.4%. He was 35th in target quality rating and 36th in unrealized air yards. Pitts landed the second-best average cushion among tight ends with 5.88, while suffering the 37th-highest catchable target rate and target quality rating. He was number one in unrealized air yards with 479.

The Falcons finished last season with the fourth-lowest pass rate, but we should see a dramatic shift there with the arrival of offensive coordinator Zac Robinson and quarterback Kirk Cousins. The Rams were consistently in the middle or slightly above league average in pass rate, and Cousins has always preferred to sling it. Prior to last season, Cousins was consistently rated one of the best deep ball passers in the game. In 2021, he registered the third-best PFF grade on deep passes with a score of 96.2. In 2022 he was ninth at 91.5.

This is the perfect marriage between quarterback, pass-catchers and new offensive coordinator. After all, Cousins chose the Falcons for a reason.

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