New York Jets RB Breece Hall looked fully recovered from his ACL tear by the end of the 2023 season. Now another year removed from the injury, is Hall ready to ascend to the ranks of the elite in 2024? How high should he go in fantasy football Best Ball drafts?
Breece Hall’s 2024 Fantasy Outlook
It’s been a rough start to Breece Hall’s career. He started out his rookie season playing behind Michael Carter. When he finally was ready to take off and be a fantasy RB1, he tore his ACL.
Although Hall recovered well, he was always going to be eased back into things in 2023. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he lost Aaron Rodgers four plays into the season.
In fantasy, we want running backs on good offenses. That was supposed to be Hall. Once Rodgers went down, even once Hall regained confidence in his knee, he was still going to be in one of the worst offenses in football.
Over the first 13 weeks of the 2023 season, Hall averaged 13.5 fantasy points per game. Given his discounted ADP due to his injury, this was fine for fantasy managers. But the hope was he would get back to 100% over the second half of the season and be an elite RB1.
That was going to be tough to do with Zach Wilson at quarterback. And, well … Hall is just that good.
Despite averaging 13.5 points per game through 13 weeks, Hall somehow finished the season averaging 17.1 points per game. He finished as the overall RB6. Hall did this by reaching his true form over the final five weeks of the season.
In his case, it’s OK to include Week 18 in our analysis because the Jets played hard in the game. Including Week 18, Hall averaged 25.8 fantasy points per game from Week 14 onward. He was able to carry the ball a whopping 37 times in the final game of the season (please never do this again, Jets. Thanks!)
Even with a less-than-100% knee, Hall averaged 3.9 yards created per touch and a 25.8% evaded-tackles-per-touch rate. In a bad offense running behind a weak offensive line, Hall proved capable of producing on his own. Now, imagine him with a full season of Rodgers.
Should You Draft Hall in 2024 Best Ball Leagues?
ACL tears aren’t what they once were. Players are fully capable of returning to their pre-injury form. It just usually takes a year.
Hall is now in the year after the year in which he came back from his torn ACL. That’s when we want to draft running backs.
There are seldom few true three-down backs in the modern NFL. Hall actually led all running backs in targets, receptions, and receiving yards last season.
It still remains to be seen what the Jets will do at wide receiver. However, if they go into next season with a similar-looking offense, Hall could very well be the second-leading target earner behind Garrett Wilson.
Christian McCaffrey is still the only true uber-elite running back in fantasy. I would still lean more toward wide receivers in the top half of the first round of Best Ball drafts. But once those elite receivers are gone, Hall is the next running back I am drafting.
Join Theo Ash: Your Football Opinion
Listen to the Your Football Opinion with Theo Ash! Click the embedded player below to listen, or you can find this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a five-star review! Rather watch instead? Find us on the Pro Football Network YouTube Channel!