The fantasy football season is fast approaching (training camp starts this week!), and you’ll need to stay connected to make sure you ace your draft. A good place to start to make sure that happens: the FREE Upper Hand Fantasy Discord! CLICK HERE to join for free today to get your fantasy questions answered, talk smack, and be a part of our 1-of-1 community!

A snapshot of one of the dynasty discussions that’s been going on over the past day or so:

What’s in store:

• High praise for Joe Mixon ahead of Texans training camp 👀. See what OC Bobby Slowik had to say about his new running back.

• Javonte Williams: on the roster bubble? 🫧 According to reports, he has an outside chance of being a casualty of the youth movement in Denver.

• Don’t waste your time targeting any running backs… in the first five rounds of your draft. That is, when you’re running a zero-RB build.

• Are better days ahead for this former No. 1 overall pick? Faraz has an optimistic view for one of last year’s most disappointing players.

• Texans OC Bobby Slowik says that veteran RB Joe Mixon is an ‘absolute workhorse’ ahead of training camp

  • This, despite the fact that the supposed workhorse back has missed a handful of days of practice so far this offseason. The Texans also recently added veteran RB Cam Akers to the backfield mix, as well, to join Mixon and Dameon Pierce as the top three ballcarriers on the roster as we near the thick of training camp. At the end of the day, Slowik’s assessment of Mixon is very much correct; the longtime Bengals starter has earned 280+ opportunities and finished as a top-15 fantasy RB in all of his healthy seasons dating back to 2018. After watching the wheels fall off of Dameon Pierce in favor of Devin Singletary last year, fantasy managers should have no reason to be concerned about Pierce mixing in at a rate substantial enough to challenge Mixon’s role as Houston’s lead back. After all, Pierce is a relic of a system since supplanted by the Demeco Ryans regime, and a trade out of Houston could be the next step for Pierce as he looks to catch on and be fantasy relevant once again. The bottom line, however, is that the Texans appear prepared to run the ground game through the 27-year old Mixon, who could be in line once again for a lucrative role on one of the league’s top offenses (he’s scored 9+ touhdowns in each of the past three seasons with the Bengals). As the RB14 off the board on both Underdog and Sleeper, he’ll have a chance to surpass expectations if the Texans do deploy him in the way they’re saying they will.

• RBs Javonte Williams and Samaje Perine could be on the roster bubble heading into training camp, per the Denver Post’s Troy Renck

  • The complete and utter mess that is the Broncos backfield just got messier. According to Renck, rookie RB Audric Estime’s spot on the roster is all but locked up, writing that Estime will be ‘making the team.’ He also went on to mention that he believes that second-year RB Jaleel McLaughlin is primed to make the final 53 by a comfortable margin, leaving the two oldest ballcarriers in the backfield to duke it out for the last RB roster spot. Of course, this is just what one reporter is hearing on the situation, but it runs heavily contrary to the widely-held belief that Williams would not only make the roster, but have a shot at leading Denvers backfield in 2024 should he be healthy. That’s evidenced by his RB34 price tag on Underdog, which sits well above the aforementioned McLaughlin (RB47), Estime (RB63), and Perine (RB74). At any rate, a running back who isn’t guaranteed to be on the roster after the final cuts are made has no business going ahead of other running backs who’s spots are secured, let alone as an RB3 in the 10th round of drafts. As mentioned before, this isn’t scripture and a lot can change over the course of the offseason – the reason this is news is, in fact, because it’s an unprecedented development. But with the Broncos in the thick of a rebuild around rookie QB Bo Nix and a young team around him, they very may well want to get a look at the new talent in the room before they trot out the oft-injured Williams in 2024.

• The Athletic’s Chad Graff says that Drake Maye will ‘have to be the obvious winner’ in a QB battle in camp to start in Week 1

  • Fantasy managers who drafted Drake Maye in their dynasty leagues may wrinkle their noses at this report, as it appears that he could be trending towards a scenario where his first career start comes after Week 1 in 2024. The Patriots reunited with capable backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett this offseason, handing him the reigns to the offense in the spring. It appears that he’s primed to hold onto that No. 1 QB job heading into training camp, as well; that is, assuming that Maye doesn’t knock the socks off of the New England coaching staff in the next few weeks. At any rate, it’s hard to expect a whole lot from the Patriots offense as a unit in real life and for fantasy purposes – regardless of who’s under center, it’s unlikely that either Patriots signal caller will be rostered, let alone starting, in both 1QB and even 2QB formats. The Patriots added young new weapons in Ja’Lynn Polk and Javon Baker in this year’s draft, but neither addition is likely to push the needle enough to make Maye a consistent weekly starter. He’ll have appeal thanks to some sneaky rushing upside, though – however, it’ll be tough pull the trigger on that speculative value bearing in mind that he might not be on the field to begin the year.

When you don’t go for a RB at all through the first 4 or 5 rounds, and then try and identify a few RBs who can help you early and some who can break out later in the year, that’s the Zero RB strategy. The running backs you target most likely won’t be averaging RB1 points to start, but the goal is to at least grab one or two Top-24 guys – maybe not in terms of ADP, but players who end up being valued similarly come Week 2 or Week 3 based on the way things shake out as the season progresses. The ultimate goal of the Zero-RB strategy is to build some depth at the RB position to give you a chance to hit big on a late-round gem. Meanwhile, the high-end WRs that you drafted in place of the top running backs in the first four or five rounds can hold it down for you AND potentially compensate for your weakness at RB.

Maybe you draft a TE early that gives you such a massive advantage over the other TEs - we call it positional advantage - that helps you overcome the weakness at RB. And then if you have later round RBs that end up hitting, your team can end up being a juggernaut. It definitely takes a keen eye and a little bit of luck, but the skill is identifying 1 or 2 RBs in the draft who end up hitting big and then heavily working the waiver wire.

Check out our latest YouTube Video!

Want to know more about implementing the zero-RB strategy in your drafts? Head on over to our YouTube at the link above for the full rundown from Faraz and Zach!

One of the advantages of this strategy is that you can avoid being hit hard when a RB gets hurt - it’s the position that has the most injuries, so when you don’t invest premium capital in your running backs, you’re insulated against the debilitating affect of having a star running back miss significant time (because you don’t have one in this strategy.)

So let’s identify a few RBs that we might consider, round by round, to draft to fill out our Zero-RB builds in 2024. (Round 5 or later using Sleeper ADP).

• 5th round - Kenneth Walker, Alvin Kamara Aaron Jones

• 6th round - James Conner, David Montgomery, D’Andre Swift, Rhamondre Stevenson

• 7th round - Najee Harris, Tony Pollard, Raheem Mostert, Zamir White

• 8th round - Nick Chubb, Javonte Williams, Jonathon Brooks, Zack moss, Austin Ekeler

• 9th round - Jaylen Warren, Devin Singletary, Trey Benson

• 10th round - Tyjae Spears, Brian Robinson, Gus Edwards, Blake Corum, Ezekiel Elliott

• 11th round - Chase Brown, Jerome Ford, Zach Charbonnet

• 12th round - Jaylen Wright, Chuba Hubbard, Kendre Miller, JK Dobbins

• 13th round - Rico Dowdle, Ty Chandler, Marshawn Lloyd

At the end of the day, the zero RB approach is very tempting. You’re avoiding a position that gets hurt early and often in your drafts, so you essentially have insurance that way on your premium draft capital. And if you do hit on a few of these RBs later and you combine that with the elite or near-elite WRs and TEs and QBs you drafted, you could be sitting pretty.

I want to give Bryce Young a chance regarding whether or not he has a chance to break out this season. Granted, his situation in 2023 wasn’t great; he couldn’t overcome it, and a lot of that was definitely on him. But things are looking, at the very least, not as bleak in 2024 as they were last season.

In 2023, Young was last in catchable throw percentage. In turn, he had the worst off-target throw percentage. Of course, he was under duress on 40% of his dropbacks, which is an insane number – he also had the highest percentage of dropbacks resulting a sack – but he did avoid the most would-be sacks of any QB last year. It was a bad year.

Put bluntly, the offensive line in Carolina was very bad - but they really did improve the interior line this past offseason. The right side of that line is looking pretty good, so I think they’re solid there overall now.

The other thing to consider is that he’s an anticipation thrower and he had no separators on the outside last year. Diontae is literally one of the best separators in the NFL. It’s a great fit. He has a true #1 now on the outside, and a solid veteran complement in Adam Thielen on the inside. They’re not using Xavier Legette on the line, which is great to hear - so he’s an added weapon, as well.

Geno Smith was left for dead before Dave Canales got to him in YEAR 9. Everyone counted Baker Mayfield out, and he just had his best year under Canales with 4000 yards and 28 TDs… and now, Canales’ new project is a #1 overall pick just a year ago. I can totally see him identifying what Young does well now, work on those installs, and then iterate from there.

One underrated thing that Canales did with Mayfield last year was design him on runs - Mayfield had the  6th highest designed rushing attempt percentage among all QBs. Young was all the way down at 2% last year, that can easily go up, given his skillset coming out of college.

There is definitely a world where Young is a completely different QB this year - I’m not saying he’ll be a Top-12 fantasy fantasy QB, but he could break out and become a good QB.