Simply earning a role on an NFL team would have been a win for former UDFA Jaylen Warren. Instead, he has not only carved out a role but has looked like the best running back on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now entering his third season, can Warren take another step forward, making him a value in fantasy football drafts?
Jaylen Warren’s 2024 Fantasy Forecast
It’s always a good thing to see players progress from year to year. Warren played well in a small role as a rookie. Last year, he saw more work, but he remained just as efficient.
Warren averaged 5.5 yards per touch (seventh in the league), had a 31.9% evaded-tackles-per-touch rate (first), and took 8.1% of his carries for 15+ yards (third). Warren’s 4.65 yards created per touch were third in the league as well.
Warren touched the ball a mere 210 times all season. That is definitely low, but it’s fair to wonder if we even want him to touch the ball more. He averaged 5.3 yards per carry on just 149 attempts. Through the air, he saw a 15.3% target share, sixth in the league, and averaged 1.58 yards per route run, ninth among running backs.
Fantasy managers who drafted Warren didn’t necessarily get a difference-maker. What they did get was a guy who performed better than expected based on his ADP.
Warren averaged 11.6 fantasy points per game, finishing as the overall RB29. Considering where he was drafted, Warren reaching double-digit fantasy points in 10 out of 17 weeks is pretty impressive.
The difficult part entering this season is trying to figure out what new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith will do with this backfield. Just in case you forgot (even though I know you didn’t), this is the same guy who decided Bijan Robinson wasn’t worthy of even seeing half of his team’s carries.
In Pittsburgh, Smith will need to decide how to divvy up touches between Warren and Najee Harris. The more plodding Harris seems more like Smith’s type of back. However, Harris has first-round draft capital.
Last year, Smith showed a clear preference for the lesser talent and a clear preference for lower draft capital. On the Steelers, the running back with more talent is the UDFA. There’s really no way to know how the workload will be divided.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Harris and Warren have very similar ADPs. Warren is going off the board as the RB27, two spots behind Harris. There’s no clear benefit to taking the cheaper guy. If you take one of them, you are taking a stand on which one will be the superior fantasy asset. Last season, that was Warren.
The answer may be that both are values, though. Smith’s Falcons ran the ball 49% of the time in a neutral game script last season. As offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans, they were also around 50%. The Steelers are going to run the ball a lot. There could be enough work for both to be RB2s.
Warren will likely do most of his damage in the passing game, while Harris projects to be the primary goal-line back. That’s about the extent of our ability to predict this backfield.
The Steelers only scored 29 offensive touchdowns last season. That number should be higher with improved QB play. I am not a believer in Russell Wilson or Justin Fields, but both are significant upgrades on Kenny Pickett. This should allow them to sustain more drives, affording Warren more opportunities to score fantasy points.
I have Harris ranked as my RB21 and Warren as my RB28. The drop in Warren is largely due to his preseason hamstring strain that is expected to keep him out through at least the first week or two. Both are still viable selections in the middle rounds of fantasy drafts.