You do not have to go very far into the Dynasty running back rankings before questions begin to emerge. After all, Christian McCaffrey ranks as RB5 in the rankings below and he'll turn 28 years old in June. If history is any indicator, we'll be lucky to get more than one more RB1 season our of McCaffrey. That leaves four backs at the very top who I feel supremely confident in: Bijan Robinson, Breece Hall, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Jonathon Taylor.
All four are top-12 running backs for me in 2024 and all four will be 25 years or younger at the start of this season. These are the four backs I feel confident will not lose value in the next 6 months, barring catastrophic injury.
Those are also the only four backs I really want to draft in the first two rounds of a Superflex Dynasty start-up draft. But just because they've separated themselves from the pack doesn't mean they are necessarily in the same tier themselves. I have a bigger difference in value between Robinson and Taylor than I do between Taylor and my RB11, James Cook. Robinson and Hall are the only running backs I would trade this year's 1.01 rookie pick for. In Superflex, I wouldn't give better than the 1.04 for Taylor.
The real wild card is the guy I haven't written much about yet -- Gibbs. He just turned 22 years old in March and finished last year as the RB8 per game, with 16.3 PPR Fantasy points per game. But he did that in a season that he only played more than 60% of the snaps five times. He also only had two games with more than 15 carries. What if David Montgomery takes a back seat and Gibbs becomes a true 1A in this offense? We may get to find out.
Lions' GM Brad Holmes said earlier this month that he "definitely would expect" Gibbs to see more work in 2024. Specifically, Holmes expects Gibbs to be more involved in the passing game, despite the fact that Gibbs had the eighth-most targets amongst running backs in 2023. He scored 1.26 Fantasy points per target in 2023, so even one more target per game could make a big impact on his Fantasy production. If he also sees the 50-50 split that he did inside the five-yard line in the second half last year, Gibbs could challenge to be the RB1 in 2024. If he does that, there's nothing stopping him from taking over the Dynasty crown as well.
The reason I still have Gibbs third of the group is because I am less confident he'll receive the same workhorse role as I expect from Robinson and Hall, and less likely Gibbs could hold up in that role. But I don't think he's capped his upside at RB3 in these rankings and the Lions are sure talking like they'll give him a chance to prove that.
I had Dave Kluge from Footballguys on Fantasy Football Today Dynasty with me this week to talk about Dynasty running back rankings. We talked about McCaffrey, Jonathon Brooks, Kenneth Walker, Tyjae Spears, and more. Check it out:
Here are my updated Dynasty running back rankings:
