Late-Round Picks: Chase Brown, Rico Dowdle, Jermaine Burton (Fantasy Football)

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 some of Derek Brown’s favorite late-round fantasy football draft picks to target.

2024 Fantasy Football Draft Advice

Later Round Targets

Chase Brown (RB, CIN): Chase Brown remains a high-end handcuff bet for 2024 that could end up leading the Bengals in backfield touches. He has been running as the RB1 in camp plenty, and the buzz has been building. Last season, Brown was impressive on a per-touch basis, although the sample size is pretty limited (44 carries). Among 77 backs with at least 40 carries, Brown ranked 12th in yards after contact per attempt and 16th in missed tackles forced per attempt (per Fantasy Points Data). Brown is a player to get exposure with during draft season because the upside is there for him to outkick his ADP massively.

Rico Dowdle (RB – 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.

Jermaine Burton (WR – CIN): Burton will contend for the WR3 role with Andrei Iosivas. Right now, Iosivas has the lead, but we’ll see if he can hold Burton off all season. Off-the-field issues are the only reason that Burton was available when the Bengals selected him in the NFL Draft. Based on talent alone, he should have been at least a second-round pick and could have honestly pushed for a first-round selection. In his final season at Alabama, Burton was in the 90th percentile against single coverage and 82nd percentile in YPRR. Take the swing on Burton in the later rounds. If he hasn’t cemented his status as the WR3 early in the season, he’s an easy drop candidate. The upside here is worth the late-round flier.