Fantasy Football Breakout Running Backs: Top RBs to Target in 2026 Drafts

March 12, 2026

Patrick identifies fantasy football breakout running back picks for 2026. Target these top RB picks in drafts: TreVeyon Henderson, Blake Corum, Bucky Irving, and more.

As a general rule, NFL running backs tend to have the shelf life of milk on an Arizona porch. Over the past five seasons, only half of the fantasy backs who finished in the top 12 repeated the feat the following year, and only five players have held onto RB1 status over the past three seasons. The position turns over quickly, which means the managers who correctly identify the next breakout before it happens are usually the ones holding the trophy in January.

Anyone who watched the NFL Combine or has been following the predraft process knows this rookie class is unlikely to drop a handful of immediate superstars into the league, which means the next wave of difference-makers is more likely to come from players who have already shown flashes.

With free agency here and backfields across the league about to be reshuffled, new opportunities are right around the corner, and some of those flashes are about to catch fire, giving these five running backs a chance to break out in 2026.

TreVeyon Henderson, New England Patriots

Henderson could just as easily serve as a proxy for the entire 2025 rookie running back class.

Last year’s group arrived with enormous hype, but whether due to injuries, bad offensive environments, or crowded depth charts, none of the top rookies fully delivered on their fantasy expectations.

Henderson might have come the closest, finishing as the RB19 while earning an Offensive Rookie of the Year nod, but much of that case was built on a brief stretch when the Patriots had no choice but to hand him the keys.

During a three-game midseason stretch that Rhamondre Stevenson missed with a toe injury, Henderson was able to convert his lead-back role into 330 yards and five touchdowns, offering a glimpse of the explosive playmaking that convinced New England to spend the 38th pick on him.

Watch that boy GOOOOOO!!@TreVeyonH4 | #NEPats

📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/7sb9b3eQ92

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 9, 2025

And while Stevenson isn’t going anywhere in 2026, Henderson is still a prime candidate for a significant Year 2 jump, particularly in Josh McDaniels’ offense.

Since 2011, the Patriots have drafted eight running backs within the first four rounds. Seven of those backs played at least part of their rookie season with McDaniels on the offensive staff, and the six who returned for a second season saw their snap counts increase by more than 250 snaps on average, while their fantasy scoring jumped by 4.5 points per game in half-PPR formats.

Henderson’s rookie season already exceeds that group. His 500 snaps and 11.1 fantasy points per game both top anything done by the previous McD Six, but that’s no reason to ignore the obvious Year 2 correction that could make him nearly impossible to pull off the field.

On a per-touch basis, Henderson’s yards and touchdowns were nearly identical to Stevenson’s in 2025. But when the games mattered most, the coaching staff’s preference became clear, evidenced particularly across four postseason contests, where Stevenson outsnapped Henderson 185 to 83. And the primary culprit was pass protection.

Henderson entered the league with a reputation as one of the best blocking backs in the class, but McDaniels’ notoriously complex protection scheme humbled him in a way it has humbled plenty of rookies before him. With a full offseason in the system and a year in an NFL weight room, Henderson should be far better equipped to handle his pass-pro duties, which in turn will lead to more receiving work.

If the Patriots can find more snaps for a player who was already their biggest big-play threat, even while occasionally looking like he was just sort of winging it out there, the Year 2 leap could be substantial.

Blake Corum, Los Angeles Rams

One of the five running backs to finish as a fantasy RB1 in each of the past three seasons is the Rams’ Kyren Williams. But if the late-season usage from 2025 carries over, it seems unlikely that the streak survives much longer.

With larger goals than simply repeating as division champs, Los Angeles had a clear plan to lighten Williams’ workload after he touched the ball more than 900 times over the past three seasons. And that plan’s name was Blake Corum.

From the first half of the season to the second, Williams’ touches dropped by more than four per game, while Corum’s climbed by nearly the same margin, and those fresh legs made an immediate impact.

Corum consistently burst through the line and got to the second level before defenses could react, averaging nearly a full yard per carry more than Williams before contact. His 23 carries of 10+ yards practically matched Williams’ 26 despite 114 fewer attempts.

Corum graded out as PFF’s third-highest-rated running back over the final six weeks of the season, and during that stretch, only Polk High legend Derrick “Four Touchdowns in a Single Game” Henry scored more rushing touchdowns.

Extrapolate that six-game run across a full season, and you’re looking at 1,148 rushing yards and more than 14 touchdowns.

Blake Corum rumbles 48 yards for the TD!

LARvsAZ on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/aroS7jo0iI

— NFL (@NFL) December 7, 2025

The Rams ultimately fell one win short of another Super Bowl appearance, but with MVP Matthew Stafford returning under center and Les Snead once more potty-mouthing them picks, there’s little doubt Los Angeles still has February ambitions. And if preserving Williams for the long haul becomes part of that plan, it has already seen how effective Corum can be in an expanded role.

Williams still finished 2025 with more than double Corum’s snaps and 134 additional touches, but if that workload creeps toward something closer to a 50/50 split, Corum’s burst and efficiency could quickly turn him from a complementary piece into the next breakout running back in Sean McVay’s offense.

Tyler Allgeier, Arizona Cardinals

Allgeier was a fifth-round pick in 2022 who promptly ran for 1,000 yards as a rookie. The very next year, Atlanta spent the eighth overall pick on Bijan Robinson, and Allgeier was never heard from again. Except it didn’t actually go down that way.

Despite playing the past three seasons buried behind arguably the best running back on the planet, a guy who has never missed a professional start, Allgeier has stubbornly refused to fade into fantasy irrelevance.

Even with Robinson handling 366 touches in 2025, the third most in the league, Allgeier still managed to crack double-digit fantasy points in five games, adding floor-saving touchdowns in two additional outings. For comparison, the four other primary backups playing behind the league’s top-5 touch leaders combined for four total double-digit performances.

Despite Robinson never missing a start, Allgeier essentially spent the last three seasons with a white-knuckle grip on the title of most valuable handcuff in fantasy football.

Now, after less than two hours on the open market, he’s landed with the Arizona Cardinals, where a quick scan of the depth chart would suggest he’ll no longer be playing behind a generational talent who rarely leaves the field.

As the very first player added by the Mike LaFleur/Nathaniel Hackett regime, Allgeier is an identity hire. He has taken 75.1% of his career carries in zone concepts, which fits perfectly with Hackett’s wide-zone West Coast philosophy.

That’s a stark contrast to his new running mates: the as-of-yet unremarkable, often unavailable Trey Benson and the soon-to-be 31-year-old James Conner, who is coming off a devastating season-ending injury in 2025. By comparison, the two incumbents have taken less than 40% of their combined career carries out of a zone concept.

While it won’t require Ivy League degrees for Conner or Benson to figure out which hole they’re now meant to attack, Arizona’s new coaching staff will find early comfort in leaning upon the steady, physical runner that often made things look easy with the Falcons.

Though in this context, calling Allgeier “steady” is akin to calling Bijan “good.”

Allgeier has logged 737 career touches without a fumble, the most in NFL history. He’s also dropped just one of 69 career targets while catching 89.7% of the passes thrown his way, but that particular talent has rarely been on display, as he’s never seen more than 22 targets in a season.

With a new home and the shadow of Bijan no longer keeping him pinned below the sub-30% snap share he lived with in Atlanta, Allgeier may have landed with an opportunity to showcase all of his talents. And who knows... Maybe all this time, he’s actually been the second-best running back on the planet.

Keaton Mitchell, Baltimore Ravens

More than anyone on this list, Mitchell’s breakout case might require a little squinting. That comes with a warning, though, because if you blink, you might miss half his carries.

Injuries have limited Mitchell to just 26 games and 130 touches across his first three seasons, but nearly every time he touches the ball, something ridiculous happens. He averages 6.8 yards per touch, and almost one out of every five carries he’s taken in the NFL has gone for 10+ yards, while more than 10% of his runs have cleared 15 yards.

Road runner!! 💨@_KeatonMitchell with a 25-yard carry!! Tune in on CBS. pic.twitter.com/rofB3deYVC

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) October 26, 2025

That type of dynamism should catch the eye of Baltimore’s new offensive coordinator, Declan Doyle, a recent import from the Ben Johnson coaching tree who has already emphasized generating more explosive plays. Mitchell might be the most explosive player on his newly inherited roster, though the guy under center is no slouch, either.

Should the untendered RFA find himself back in Baltimore, he'll find himself sharing a depth chart with Derrick Henry and a dedicated pass-catcher in Justice Hill, who averaged fewer than two carries per game in 2025.

While Henry, now 32, has long proved to be a freakish outlier, there will eventually come a time when a new coaching staff stops to ask itself: "Hey, new coaching staff... Is giving an 11-year veteran 300 carries the best way to preserve him for a playoff run that our recent trade for Maxx Crosby would signal we view as an inevitability?" Or something along those lines.

Mitchell cannot replicate what Henry does. At 5’8” and under 200 pounds, he’s the stylistic opposite of Baltimore’s battering ram, but he is a change-of-pace weapon capable of turning one solid block into six points.

And we’ve already seen a small glimpse of what a slightly larger workload could look like. From Weeks 14 through 17 last season, with the Ravens firmly in playoff contention, Mitchell handled 26 carries, his largest four-game workload since his rookie year, in which seemingly every other touch flipped the field. Given the extra opportunities, Mitchell added over 90 yards on breakaway runs alone.

If Mitchell can maintain that sort of pace for 2026, he’d be looking at the first 100-carry campaign of his career. Or, how fantasy managers should view it … 100 chances to house one.

Bucky Irving, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Injuries and a confusing offensive collapse derailed Irving’s sophomore season after his initial rookie year breakout, but Bucky Breakout 2.0 could push him straight into the fantasy elite.

Irving was limited to just 10 games in 2025, most of them arriving late in the year after the Buccaneers offense had already unraveled. Between injuries, questionable play-calling, and a general lack of direction, Josh Grizzard’s offense was hardly the environment for a young running back to shine.

But like clockwork, the offseason has brought an offensive reset. For the fourth time in as many years, the Buccaneers are welcoming a new offensive coordinator, this time with Zac Robinson arriving from Atlanta after coordinating back-to-back top-10 rushing offenses and immediately whispering the sort of sweet nothings that Irving’s fantasy managers have longed to hear.

Namely, that he sees Irving in a role similar to Robinson. The same Robinson who touched the ball more times in 2025 than anyone without a cool acronymous nickname like CMC or JT.

He specifically emphasized Irving’s versatility while praising his receiving ability, which is where things get particularly interesting.

Since entering the league, Irving has caught 92.8% of his targets, an efficiency mark that ranks among the best in the NFL at any position. With Rachaad White and his 56 targets per season all but out the door in free agency, a significant chunk of passing-game work is suddenly up for grabs.

Irving’s 1.57 yards per route run across his first two seasons already places him in rare company among running backs. If his career average of 15.8 routes run per game eeks closer to the 24.3 routes Bijan Robinson has averaged under Zac Robinson, significant fantasy points are waiting to be unlocked.

That emphasis on running backs in the passing game isn’t new for the former quarterback Robinson. Dating back to his time with the Rams, he’s seen his primary running back finish as RB3, RB4, and RB6 over the past three seasons while averaging nearly five targets per game.

If Irving truly steps into that type of role in Tampa Bay, his second breakout will be even bigger than the first.

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