The Los Angeles Rams made Blake Corum the third running back off the board in the 2024 NFL Draft. Stepping into a backup role behind Kyren Williams, what is Corum’s fantasy football appeal? Should managers target him in drafts?
Blake Corum’s 2024 Fantasy Forecast
When the Rams drafted Corum, my immediate reaction was to not really care since Williams was so good last season. Plus, Williams has such a high-volume role that it’s unrealistic to project Corum for any standalone value.
But as the spring and then the summer wore on, I put more thought into all of my takes for this season, and Corum was one of the players I found myself warming up to in a big way.
While I don’t believe he’s a great prospect, he’s not a bad one. At worst, Corum should be a replacement-level back in the NFL.
We’ve seen replacement-level running backs be league-winners in the right conditions. More than once, those conditions were stumbling into the RB1 role for Sean McVay’s Rams.
I buy that the Rams want to ease Williams’ workload. We saw him unable to hold up over a full season, but we also saw his backups fail to come anywhere close to producing as well as him.
Simply put, the Rams’ RB depth was awful last season. So, when Williams returned from injury, they had no choice but to feed him as many carries as he could handle.
Corum should be a sizable upgrade on the cavalcade of sub-replacement-level backups LA trotted out last season. He also showed an ability to handle a heavy workload at Michigan, carrying the ball 484 times in his final 26 collegiate games.
Additionally, Corum can work in the passing game. He wasn’t asked to do much of it at Michigan, but he did see an 8.6% target share in his sophomore season. If he found himself in Los Angeles’ lead-back role, he could very well see a 10% target share, which would be enough to bolster his fantasy value.
All of this is to say that Corum, at worst, should be fine. That does nothing for fantasy managers while Williams is healthy. But Williams plays running back, and running backs frequently get hurt. If he goes down, Corum is almost certainly going to be the next man up and very likely to see a significant workload.
McVay has never used a committee. Going all the way back to Todd Gurley, whoever the Rams use as their lead back plays all three downs. If they’re willing to give guys like C.J. Anderson, Cam Akers, Darrell Henderson, and Sony Michel three-down workloads, the Rams will do it with Corum as well if something happens to Williams.
Corum’s ADP sits at RB40 (No. 124 overall). Similarly, I have him ranked at RB36, and I do want to actively target him because he’s the exact type of running back fantasy managers should look to draft as their RB4.
How many running backs going outside the top 36 have plausible league-winning upside? There are plenty of backups with upside, but I submit that Corum is the only one with the potential to win you your league, given what we’ve seen from Rams RBs during the McVay era.
There are several backs going behind Corum who have more standalone value. And so long as Williams is healthy, those backs will look like superior picks. However, they lack the potential to smash the way Corum does if the guy in front of them goes down. That’s what makes Corum so appealing and why I want to make sure I get him in at least a few of my leagues.