Fantasy Football 2024: 5 veterans who won the 2024 NFL Draft

• Kansas City Chiefs get Patrick Mahomes the fastest wide receiver in combine history: With the league’s best passer throwing him the ball, Xavier Worthy has an opportunity to make a big impact in Year 1.

• The Carolina Panthers start the rebuild around second-year QB Bryce Young: After a disastrous rookie season, the Panthers finally get their former No. 1 pick some support in his surrounding cast.

• Cincinnati Bengals running back Zack Moss couldn’t really be a lead back this season… could he? Maybe!

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The 2024 NFL Draft is officially in the books, and while rookies are all the rage, there’s still an entire league of veterans sifting through the fallout of the incoming class.

Here’s a look at five veterans who won the NFL draft and what it might mean for fantasy football managers in the season to come.

The Kansas City Chiefs continue the rebuild of their wide receiver room

Coming out of a season in which Patrick Mahomes posted career-lows in passing yards per game (261) and touchdown rate (4.5%), as well as a career-high interception rate (2.3%), the Chiefs decided it was time to get the man some more help in the receiving game.

Sure, they did still manage to win a Super Bowl despite throwing to 34-year-old Travis Kelce and rookie Rashee Rice, who, regardless of talent level, ranked dead last among wide receivers with a 5.0-yard aDOT (min. 50 targets). Imagine how much easier it would have been if they had more threats on the offense.

The Chiefs aren’t taking the conventional “alpha receiver” route but are rather flooding the field with a group of varying skill sets to complement Kelce and Rice with the speed and quickness of Marquise Brown and 2024 first-round pick Xavier Worthy.

Worthy penned the Chiefs as an ideal landing spot in the pre-draft process, stating he hopes they’ll deploy him in the Tyreek Hill role. And after Kansas City moved up to pick No. 28 via trade with the Buffalo Bills, the plan started to take shape.

The biggest winner of all of these moves is, of course, Mahomes, who finished as fantasy football’s QB8 last season despite a disappointing group of weapons that had him tied for a league-high 29 dropped pass attempts. I hope you bought the dip on Mahomes because, barring injury, he’s once again a lock for a top-three fantasy season.

The Cincinnati Bengals made 10 selections in the 2024 NFL Draft — not one of them a running back

The Bengals have made several splashes in their running back room this season, including the trade of veteran Joe Mixon to the Houston Texans followed by the signing of Zack Moss.

Moss earned a two-year contract worth $8 million after an impressive 2023 campaign with the Colts, during which he filled in for the oft-injured Jonathan Taylor. That signing withstood the test of the 2024 NFL Draft, too, as the Bengals opted against drafting a single running back with any of their 10 picks.

Furthermore, they also secured another anchor on the offensive line with Georgia offensive tackle Amarius Mims. Though second-year running back Chase Brown is undoubtedly ready to take on an increased role in Mixon’s absence, it does feel that it’s Moss’ job to lose, given the financial investment and the fact that he is a better pure runner.

Brown brings a very intriguing element to the Bengals’ rushing attack with his 4.43 speed and ability as a receiver. However, he enters this season with plenty of question marks regarding a full-time role, having never played more than 18 snaps in a single game as a rookie while also leading all players in the NFL in his rookie season with a 20.5% stuff rate (min. 40 carries).

Meanwhile, Moss is a power back who thrives in high-volume situations by wearing down his opponents with physicality. Expect him to lead the backfield in 2024, barring any unexpected circumstances.

The Carolina Panthers go all-in on offense this year

To put it kindly, 2023 No. 1 pick Bryce Young had a disastrous rookie campaign. His 52.7 passing grade ranked 39th among 41 qualifying quarterbacks, and he averaged a league-worst 5.5 yards per attempt.

After Young was pressured on 40.7% of dropbacks, the Panthers got him some help on the offensive line with free agent signings Robert Hunt (Dolphins) and Damien Lewis (Seahawks). They also traded to acquire former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Diontae Johnson, a premiere route runner with the ability to function as an outside possession receiver.

In the draft, the Panthers followed up their investment in the offense with the first-round selection of receiver Xavier Legette out of South Carolina and running back Jonathon Brooks in Round 2. 

Many have questioned the selection of Legette, given his emergence as one of the most divisive prospects in the pre-draft process due to his fifth-year breakout. Despite his status as a late bloomer (and similar profile to that of former second-round pick Jonathan Mingo), Legette offers an impressive combination of size and athleticism to provide Young with an immediate target along the perimeter.

Brooks, meanwhile, is undoubtedly one of the most well-rounded prospects at the running back position in this class. His above-average wiggle and burst earned him a 91.9 rushing grade in his lone season as the lead back with Texas, where he totaled 1,135 rushing yards, 10 touchdowns and one fumble over 11 games.

Even better for quarterback Bryce Young is Brooks’ ability as a receiver and a pass-blocker, where you can expect him to earn a role quickly as an outlet option underneath.

All things considered — those “things” being the long lists of assets the Panthers exchanged for the No. 1 overall pick just to set him up for failure in his rookie season — they’ve done a solid job through the offseason to prepare Young for a much improved Year 2.

The winds of change are a-blowin’ in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! All aboard the Najee Harris hype train

New OC, new QB, new OL — who dis?

Change has been the theme throughout the offseason for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Gone are the days of OC Matt Canada and QB Kenny Pickett (may his 1.8% career touchdown rate live in infamy). It’s time to get back to the Steel Curtain roots of defense and a ball-control-style of offense, which they’re setting up as well as ever with an overhaul of their offensive line.

That rebuild includes 2023 first-round pick OT Broderick Jones and free agent signing LG Isaac Seumalo, as well as OT Troy Fautanu and C Zach Frazier, on whom they used their first two picks (Nos. 20 and 51, respectively) in this year’s draft. Though a secure offensive line is a win for the entire offense, there’s no doubt that veteran running back Najee Harris (as well as his complement, Jaylen Warren) have the most to gain. 

For the purposes of this discussion, Harris is the biggest winner, given that he accounted for a 63.2% market share of the team’s running back rush attempts. Having displayed a significant improvement in his overall field vision in Year 3, which yielded a career-high 77.2 rushing grade, don’t be surprised if Harris posts his most efficient season to date and vastly outplays his April ADP of RB20.

Jerry Jones puts all of his eggs back in Ezekiel Elliott’s basket

The league’s worst-kept pre-draft secret was that the Dallas Cowboys (and specifically, Jerry Jones) were totally enamored with Texas running back prospect Jonathon Brooks. As it turns out, he didn’t have much of a contingency plan after Brooks was selected by the Panthers in Round 2, leaving the 2024 NFL Draft without making a single selection at running back.

Rather than rolling with Rico Dowdle as their RB1 for the season, Jones opted for a reunion for former Cowboy Ezekiel Elliott, signing him to a one-year, $3 million deal. 

Elliott doesn’t fit the prototypical mold of an RB1, considering he’ll be 29 this season and literally leads all active running backs in the league with 2,168 rush attempts. Fresh legs might not be a thing. However, there’s no doubt that the current competition in the room, barring a trade from the front office, is likely to yield a top-15 season in fantasy football on sheer volume alone.

Over the past four seasons (the Mike McCarthy era), the Cowboys have ranked top-five among all teams in the regular season in EPA per play (0.06), points scored (324), red-zone (798) and goal-line plays (232), goal line plays and offensive plays per game (70.5).

Despite some shakeups on the offensive line this season, there was no better potential landing spot for a running back; expect another 250-plus touch season incoming for Elliott.