Jonathon Brooks Injury Update: Should Fantasy Managers Buy the Dip?

The Carolina Panthers made Jonathon Brooks the first running back off the board in the 2024 NFL Draft, using a mid-second-round pick to take him. Coming off a torn ACL, Brooks’ timeline to return to action was unknown. Now, we have reports that the team doesn’t expect him back until around Weeks 3 or 4. How does this impact Brooks’ fantasy football value?

Jonathon Brooks’ Injury Update

If you’ve been following me long enough, you know one of my mantras is to not draft injured players. That might naturally compel you to believe I am out on Brooks this season. As with many rules, there are exceptions.

I don’t like to draft players who get injured in training camp or the preseason. A perfect example of this is DeAndre Hopkins. He just suffered a strained knee and is a coin flip to be ready for Week 1. Given his advanced age, that’s not something I necessarily want to dabble with.

Brooks, on the other hand, is not dealing with a recent injury. He tore his ACL last year in his final season at Texas. We know he’s going to be back and healthy. It’s just a matter of when.

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The Athletic’s Joe Person reported that, according to head coach Dave Canales, Brooks won’t play in the preseason and the team is looking at a Week 3 or 4 return to action. He could also open the season on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list.

Fantasy managers would obviously much prefer for Brooks to be ready for Week 1. But this isn’t exactly a death sentence for Brooks’ fantasy value.

Footballguys’ Dave Kluge has the perfect tweet to describe my feelings on Brooks:

Todd Gurley tore his ACL on November 15th, 2014 at 20 years old. Here’s how many touches he had as a rookie in 2015.

Week 1: 0 (inactive)
Week 2: 0 (inactive)
Week 3: 7
Week 4: 21
Week 5: 30

Jonathon Brooks tore his ACL on November 11th, 2023 at 20 years old.

— Dave Kluge (@DaveKluge) August 3, 2024

Before you jump through your screen to exclaim, “You’re comparing Jonathon Brooks to Todd Gurley!” No. That is not what I am doing. Gurley was obviously way more talented (which is not meant to be a knock on Brooks). This is purely to illustrate the timeline.

Just because Brooks won’t be ready to start the season doesn’t mean we should remove him from our boards in fantasy drafts.

The Panthers have had Chuba Hubbard for years. Last year, they signed Miles Sanders because they did not believe in Hubbard as the lead back. That didn’t work out, leading to Hubbard overtaking Sanders as the team’s RB1 anyway. Yet, despite Hubbard’s performance, the Panthers went and became the first team to draft a running back. The message here is clear: They want someone else.

Hubbard will open the season as the starter. He’ll probably be pretty useful to start the season. Per TruMedia, in games where Hubbard played at least 60% of the snaps last season, he averaged 13.5 fantasy points per game. Hubbard projects to be a weekly RB2 for the first month of the season.

For the first month, Hubbard is going to vastly outperform his RB44 ADP. In all likelihood, his price will tick up a bit over the coming weeks, as fantasy managers will be enticed by the guaranteed month of starter-level production.

Make no mistake about it, though, this is Brooks’ backfield. Once Brooks returns, he will come along slowly, just as Gurley was in 2015. If he’s as talented as many think he is, myself included, it’s only a matter of time before Brooks “Todd Gurley-s” Hubbard’s “Tre Mason.”

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The second half of the season is more important than the first. Of course, all matchups matter, and we don’t want to start out 1-3. But even if Brooks isn’t startable until Week 6 or 7, if he’s a top-24 running back for the remainder of the season, he is going to be worth his cost in fantasy drafts.

Brooks’ ADP was already down at RB26 before this news. I’m expecting it to tick down even further by a few spots.

At the spot in which you have to take Brooks, most of the players drafted around there will be drops anyway. If he falls into the seventh or eighth round, my recommendation is to take advantage of the reduced price and gobble up as many shares of Brooks as you can.