With the yearly scarcity of reliable running backs and abundance of injuries they seem to sustain, finding gems hidden in the rough is often what separates teams from playoff bound to fantasy champions. Finding these fantasy football breakout running backs is easier said than done, but doing so is vital to winning your league.
Breakouts at the running back position happen almost exclusively in one of two ways. 1. Like David Montgomery last season, you can find a back who has underwhelmed relative to expectation, thus deflating their draft value, then pick them at their low ADP in the hopes that new circumstances or gained experience lead to improvement. 2. Or, like 2020's J.K. Dobbins and Antonio Gibson, finding breakout running backs can be predicated on spotting talent, and hoping that said talent eventually wins out the starting job, or finds it via injury.
Though these strategies are still, unfortunately, a crapshoot, a bit of research can turn your late-round fliers into potential league winners.
Without further ado, let's rank the top 5 breakout running back candidates for 2021.
Top Fantasy Football Breakout Running Backs In 2021
5. Javonte Williams – Denver Broncos
Javonte Williams is currently behind Melvin Gordon on the Denver Broncos’ depth chart, but we should expect him to start the year at least as a third-down back. As a monster in pass protection and beast running downhill, Williams could easily provide RB3/low-end flex value to begin the year.
However, to truly justify his 76 ADP (RB27), Williams will have to supplant Gordon as the back gaining the lion's share of touches in Denver. Such a task looks daunting, especially given that Gordon had a bounce-back 2020 in which he averaged 4.6 yards per carry and nearly eclipsed 1,000 rushing yards, but anyone who watched Broncos games last year knows that Gordon lacks the explosiveness that an up-and-coming team like theirs needs.
Williams is probably the only rookie back who begins the year as a clear backup, but could easily find himself in the starting job without an injury to the current starter. He doesn’t have breakaway speed, but with some of the best contact balance in the league and elite lateral acceleration, it wouldn’t shock anyone if he’s starting and putting up RB2 numbers by the fantasy playoffs.
4. Michael Carter – New York Jets
Though the Jets have been a bit of a fantasy wasteland the past couple years, Michael Carter has the talent and potential to become a fantasy football breakout with the potential volume he'll have. Only Tevin Coleman's in his way on the depth chart, and Carter is essentially a supercharged version of Coleman's skillset at this point in Coleman's career.
The argument against taking Jets running backs is that negative game scripts and poor offensive line play render any ground game useless, as we saw with Le'veon Bell and Frank Gore over the last couple seasons. Michael Carter brings a completely different game to the table, however.
Carter has true three-down ability, as his route running and hands are reminiscent of Alvin Kamara. At North Carolina, Carter thrived on mismatches with linebackers over the middle, as well as longer developing wheel routes down the sideline. These kinds of safety valve passes are important for a rookie quarterback like Zach Wilson, and Carter should be the beneficiary of them all throughout the year.
3. Chase Edmonds – Arizona Cardinals
Though the Cardinals acquired James Conner in the offseason, his role shouldn't scare anyone about Chase Edmonds' value heading into 2021. Even with Kenyan Drake around as the starter, Edmonds finished as fantasy's RB25, buoyed by a steady dose of receptions out of the backfield from Kyler Murray.
Conner isn't quite as explosive as Drake, too, so there's a good chance that this year becomes Edmonds' chance to take on a decent chunk of the carries in addition to his already impressive ability to contribute through the air. Edmonds posted 53 receptions on 67 targets, for 402 yards and 4 of his 5 touchdowns on the year, and he should at least be able to retain that level of production.
The real prize for drafting Edmonds would be if he somehow managed to get the bulk of carries. In games that It's unlikely that he'll outperform Conner by a significant amount on the ground, but Conner does have a propensity to get injured. He's missed an average of 5 starts per season over the last three seasons.
Kliff Kingsbury clearly likes Edmonds, and so whatever time he's able to find as the feature back in Arizona, expect Edmonds to be a monster in PPR and a true fantasy breakout.
2. Trey Sermon – San Francisco 49ers
Trey Sermon seriously has the potential for a huge 2021 and to be the best of these fantasy football breakouts/handcuffs. Not only does he back up Raheem Mostert, one of the most oft-injured players in the league, but he possesses the talent to charge RB1 value into fantasy lineups if given a feature role as well.
As a big back at 215 pounds, paired with graceful agility and balance to evade and break tackles, Sermon is a perfect fit for the 49ers zone run scheme. He also has great hands, giving him a true three-down skillset, and, though Kyle Shanahan often applies somewhat of a committee approach to his backfields, we have seen the hot hand dominate at times as well. Any injury to Mostert or breakout from Sermon should vault him into RB2 territory, at minimum.
At his ceiling, Sermon is talented enough to vault into the conversation as a RB1 in a run-heavy offense.
1. Myles Gaskin – Miami Dolphins
Myles Gaskin is a bit of a cheat answer here on our list of fantasy football breakout running backs for 2021, as he broke out onto the scene as a very solid PPR back in 2020, but he's still victim of an ADP below Chase Edmonds and several backs without the pedigree or dual-threat talent that Gaskin showcased last year.
He is essentially a hybrid receiver/running back, and can provide production somewhere between Edmonds' and Austin Ekeler's production. With receivers like Will Fuller and Devante Parker in the fold who pull defenses with great graviy, Tua Tagovailoa will be looking underneath a lot to find support in Gaskin, especially in the early going of the season when he hasn't built the confidence to take those shots down the field in tight windows.
In the games that Gaskin played last year, he averaged 16.4 fantasy points per game in PPR. Only eight running backs averaged more points per game, and all of them are going well ahead of Gaskin. Malcolm Brown and Salvon Ahmed aren't any more competition for touches than was present last year, so Gaskin seems like a no-brainer at his ADP.
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