Former Rutgers football star Isiah Pacheco primed for potential fantasy football breakout
The 2024 NFL season begins Thursday when the Kansas City Chiefs host the Baltimore Ravens. While head coaches Andy Reid and John Harbaugh prepare for this matchup, NFL fans worldwide take on their own coaching roles through fantasy football.
Fantasy football managers looking for a premier running back at the top of their drafts or through trades with their league mates should look no further than former Rutgers football star Isiah Pacheco.
If your gut wasn't the most significant indicator that Pacheco is an option to be your RB1 in fantasy, then these trustworthy fantasy sites should convince you.
ESPN has Pacheco ranked as its eighth fantasy running back in point-per-reception (PPR) leagues ahead of the 2024 season, while CBS' consensus rankings and Yahoo have the two-time Super Bowl champ at the ninth spot of their preseason rankings.
Pacheco's average draft position (ADP) in ESPN drafts currently sits at 17.7, slotting him as a high-end second-round pick in the majority of leagues. Pacheco is typically the seventh running back off of ESPN draft boards.
Being drafted ahead of him are some running backs who finished among the top 10 players at the position a year ago, such as Christian McCaffrey, Breece Hall, Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs. Saquon Barkley and Jonathan Taylor are also typically drafted above the former Scarlet Knight.
As long as he remains healthy, McCaffrey figures to stay atop the league in running back scoring, considering his resume of consistent top finishes.
Hall finished as the RB2 last season, scoring 290.5 fantasy points on the year and being a model of consistency, appearing in all 17 of his team's games. Hall should be primed for another massive season, with the only fantasy football question mark being that the return of Aaron Rodgers at quarterback could lead to fewer checkdown passes, resulting in fewer points in the PPR format.
Robinson started slow in his rookie season in 2023 but finished strongly as the RB9. With a more competent offense around him in 2024, he should break out even further.
There could be some fluctuation amongst Pacheco and the rest of these high-end backs, though.
Gibbs finished as RB10 a season ago in his rookie campaign and could have finished higher if not for fellow Detroit Lions running back David Montgomery being so heavily involved in the offense, particularly near the goal line. Gibbs should be poised for a big season, but the veteran Montgomery still lurks in the shadows and is arguably the better traditional running back for head coach Dan Campbell to lean on.
In Pacheco's case, he has been a three-down workhorse for the Chiefs and has no real threat to cede carries to anyone in Kansas City's running back room.
As for the final two running backs being drafted ahead of Pacheco, injury concerns loom for Barkley and Taylor.
Barkley has yet to play in all of his team's games in any year of his career thus far, and while he has appeared in at least 13 games in each of the past three seasons, missing just a few games is enough to drop his overall finish in PPR scoring.
The talent has always been there for Barkley, but another fantasy question mark remains a factor. Barkley joins Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles after making a name for himself with the New York Giants. Hurts is widely known to score rushing touchdowns on the goal line, eliminating some of Barkley's potential chances to score an extra six fantasy points.
For Taylor, he appeared in 32 games through the first two years of his four-year career and has since played in just 21. Similarly to Barkley, the talent is there, but Taylor is coming off two disappointing seasons and will need to show more consistency moving forward.
Availability is the best ability, and Pacheco rarely misses games.
As Pacheco enters his third year in the NFL, the excitement around the Vineland, New Jersey, product is reaching even higher levels than in the past — both in the pros and in the eyes of fantasy football players around the country.
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