9 Fantasy Football Running Backs Primed to Break Out in 2026

Workhorse running backs are few and far between in today’s NFL, and the obvious ones are pretty easy to peg. Jonathan Taylor (73.1%) and Ashton Jeanty (72.1%) were the only two running backs in the league to top 70% of their respective teams’ rush attempt share in 2025, with Quinshon Judkins (66.1%) and Christian McCaffrey (64.7%) the only ones in the same ballpark. Those backs essentially comprised the entire “elite usage” tier of running backs who controlled the backfield throughout the season.

What we’re doing here today is looking for candidates who could either come out of nowhere to earn these sorts of usages or give us fantasy production in other, more niche ways, like catching the ball out of the backfield or controlling their team’s goal-line usage.

First, we’ll take a look back at some running backs who fit the criteria of breaking out in 2025 before our seven potential breakouts in the middle-to-late rounds for 2026 drafts.

A Look Back at 2025

A mid-career resurgence, an injury bounceback, a surprising rookie campaign, and a back who took advantage of two huge veteran injuries top the list of 2025 breakouts. Many of the players listed below were part of ambiguous backfields, and each gives us at least one criterion of what to look for in future candidates.

We had several breakouts last season, and we have many more truly useful options than we did one short year ago, with three players beating their ADP by at least 15 slots to land as a top-15 option, and five who ended up as fantasy RB2s. Improved offensive environments, backfield-mate injuries, backfield ambiguity, and general increases to workload are among the many situations we’ll consider as we eye the future and potential surprising backs ahead of 2026.

2026 Breakout Candidates

Let’s apply some of the scenarios we saw last year and in prior years to find some comparable situations in the middle-to-late rounds of your upcoming—or ongoing—drafts. Some of the frameworks for breakout production above will repeat in our coming season. If we pair positive scenarios with historically predictable running back stats, we may be able to replicate top-end production from middle-of-the-road draft capital.

All referenced ADPs below will come from our Multi-Site ADP tool.

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