Fantasy Football Sleepers: Jaylen Wright, Rico Dowdle, Kimani Vidal (2024)

When preparing for your fantasy football drafts, knowing which players to target and others to avoid is important. The amount of information available can be overwhelming, so a great way to condense the data and determine players to draft and others to leave for your leaguemates is to use our expert consensus fantasy football rankings compared to fantasy football average draft position (ADP). In this way, you can identify players the experts are willing to reach for at ADP and others they are not drafting until much later than average. Let’s dive into a few notable fantasy football draft lottery tickets to consider below.

Fantasy Football Draft Lottery Tickets

Rico Dowdle (DAL)

Dowdle will fight Ezekiel Elliott for work in Dallas this season. Dowdle has long been a fav player of mine. Last year, among 53 qualifying backs, he ranked 16th in yards after contact per attempt while also having the 23rd lowest stuff rate (per Fantasy Points Data). Could Dowdle be the next Alexander Mattison? It’s possible, but I’m willing to make the bet that he surprises people in 2024. He’s an RB3/4 who could easily post RB2 numbers if he runs away from Elliott with the job.
– Derek Brown

Kimani Vidal (LAC)

Vidal might have tumbled down the NFL draft board, but don’t make the mistake of assuming that he lacks the talent profile to take over the Bolts’ backfield. His competition (Gus Edwards & J.K. Dobbins) isn’t exactly overwhelming. Last year, Vidal ranked 21st in PFF’s elusive rating while proving that he can handle volume with at least 23 carries in 57% of his games. With Greg Roman at the controls, there will be plenty of rushing volume to chew on, so even if he doesn’t claim the workhorse role. From 2019-2022 with Baltimore, Roman coordinated an offense that ranked first in neutral rushing rate. Vidal could be a flex play in Week 1 with the upside to grow into more (RB2) as the season moves along.
– Derek Brown

Jaylen Wright (MIA)

Wright got decent draft capital (fourth-round) in the NFL Draft, but he landed in a nightmare situation. Raheem Mostert is coming off arguably the best season of his career, and De’Von Achane is one of the league’s most explosive rushers. Wright looks to be on the outside looking in for rushing volume right now, but it only takes one injury to change that. Mostert and Achane haven’t exactly been pictures of health in the NFL. Wright is the perfect late-round high-upside draft pick to covet this year. The talented rookie, who ranked fifth in yards after contact per attempt and 13th in elusive rating (per PFF), is only one domino’s fall away from consistent RB2/3 production this year.
– Derek Brown