The story of free agency, from a Fantasy Football perspective, is going to be the running back position, With Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, Derrick Henry, Austin Ekeler, Tony Pollard and several other former starters all on the market, that shouldn't come as a surprise. And it's fully reflected in my first run of the 2024 Opportunity Index.
Each year I put this spreadsheet together highlighting how many opportunities each team needs to replace. This year there are a whopping 12 teams with at least 249 running back opportunities (targets plus rush attempts) to replace. That's 50% more than last year. Of course, not all opportunities are equal. With that in mind, here are my favorite landing spots for each of the three skill positions:
With Ekeler and Joshua Kelley gone, the Los Angeles Chargers have 372 running back opportunities to replace. They also have a new head coach in Jim Harbaugh and a new offensive coordinator in Greg Roman. Both have extensive histories with run-first tendencies, Roman's offenses have finished top ten in rushing attempts and yards in each of his 10 seasons as an offensive coordinator. Combine that history with Justin Herbert, which means no one will be able to stack the box, and you have a near-perfect landing spot for a running back.
The Jacksonville Jaguars chose to place the franchise tag on Josh Allen and (so far) let Calvin Ridley walk. If that holds, they will have a league-high 175 wide receiver targets to replace from 2023. Of course, Ridley may also be the only WR1 available on the free agent market so if he doesn't return this could be a vacancy filled by a rookie. if not, this could be one of the landing spots that could make Marquise Brown much more appealing than he looks right now.
The New England Patriots and the Cincinnati Bengals are the only two teams with more than 100 tight end targets to replace. One of them has a question mark at quarterback and the other team has Joe Burrow, so it is pretty clear where the top landing spot is. The Bengals also lost Tyler Boyd, who has worked over the middle of the field for most of his career. In other words, there's a chance the Bengals prioritize TE1 over WR3 and we get a Fantasy-relevant tight end in Cincinnati.
Below is the full Opportunity Index, updated as of Friday, March 8. From left to right, the columns are running back attempts to replace, running back targets to replace, total running back opportunities to replace, wide receiver targets to replace, tight end targets to replace, team targets to replace, total opportunities to replace, 2023 team RB target share, 2023 team WR target share, 2023 team TE target share. Those last three columns are more relevant for teams that retained the same head coach and offensive coordinator from last year.
