Monday, August 15, 2022

Check out my content over on ROSRankings.com!

In case anyone is still looking for my fantasy football content on this blog, I wanted to remind everyone that this season I'm posting my fantasy football articles & draft rankings over on www.rosrankings.com

If you follow me on Twitter, you've likely seen me posting links to podcast episodes I've been doing with @andrew_seifter. We're starting our position previews this week, and we'll continue to fade out baseball and focus on football in the coming weeks and of course continue during the season.

So that's it! Go check out my preseason articles at www.rosrankings.com!

Monday, April 4, 2022

Fantasy BASEBALL 2022: ROSRANKINGS.COM

Hey there, sports fans!

If you follow me on Twitter, you've likely seen me posting links to podcast episodes I've been doing lately with @andrew_seifter. The most recent one was a football free agency roundup, but most of the content we've been working on in March has been baseball related. If baseball isn't your thing, that's cool. I'm not moving away from football. I'm just adding to my repertoire.

The NFL offseason is a long one, and I've been playing fantasy baseball as long as fantasy football (over 20 years). I thought why not take a shot at rankings in baseball too?!

I'm posting my initial draft rankings below using the FantasyPros tool so I can enter the expert accuracy competition there. But Andrew and I have been putting a lot of work into our rankings over on www.rosrankings.com.  We have well over 300 player notes, and you can check out our combined rankings ahead of your fantasy baseball draft if you are last minute like me and haven't had yours yet. 

For in-season rest of season rankings and articles, that's where I'll be making my updates for baseball. I don't plan to make baseball posts here, so if baseball IS your thing, head over there. We're planning to do baseball podcasts twice a week during the season, and we'll sprinkle in some football here and there over the next few months as well.  When football picks back up, we'll be shifting a bit and will have more pigskin content for you guys.

So that's my update for now. If it's football you're looking for, we'll likely do our next football podcast shortly after the NFL draft so stay tuned..

Thursday, February 10, 2022

Never Too Early 2022 Fantasy Football Rankings

Until people stop calling their initial rankings for next season their "way too early" rankings, I'll continue to call mine the "never too early" rankings.  

Granted, both sound equally corny.  But whatever.  It's never too early to start thinking about next year!  

FantasyPros already has rookies in their 2022 draft rankings tool, so I've even sprinkled a few of them into my first edition below.  I've added notes next to a handful of guys, and I'll continue to update these over the next couple of months (but likely no huge changes until mid March when free agency signings start happening).  So let's get right into it and let me know what you think on Twitter!




Thursday, January 20, 2022

Fantasy Football 2021 End of Year Review

Like pretty much everyone I know it seems, COVID has finally infiltrated our household.  With two kids in daycare around other snot-nosed monsters who have no sense of social distancing, it was only a matter of time.  In fact, I'm surprised we've lasted this long.  

In any event, life has been busy the last week or so, and I haven't had much time to balance work, kids, and make some time for (gasp!)...myself.  But I'm finally sitting down to do my end of year review, where I look back at my preseason articles and see what I got right and what I got wrong.  This article tends to be super long, and every year I honestly try to make it shorter.  I won't recap every pick from every article.  If you want to go back and look at everything I wrote this summer, you're welcome to do so.  I'll include a hyperlink in each section below.  But for today, I'll just play the hits.  

If you've checked out my rankings this year, you likely know I had a decent amount of success in the FantasyPros expert accuracy competition (finishing 8th on the season!).  With that came a lot of new followers on Twitter, and I really do appreciate it.  I'm sure a lot of you only care about the weekly rankings for start/sit decisions during the season, but this is a year round thing I do here, so buckle in!  

That's not to say I'll be posting things every week during the offseason.  In fact, things will be relatively quiet over the next couple of months.  But I'll have my first edition of 2022 rankings out soon, and the NFL Draft will be here before you know it.  So stay tuned.

For now, let's go back and look at my preseason picks, shall we?




I'm renaming this article on the fly because after that domestic violence video of Zac Stacy surfaced, it feels much better giving my man Alfred top billing.  Anyway, this is by far my favorite preseason article to write every year.  It's a Q&A format that includes my picks for "sleeper", "bust", "long shot", etc. based on historical trends.  I've revisited a few below to discuss the actual results and highlight a couple I almost got right too.

Q: Who is this year's Alfred Morris (2012), Zac Stacy (2013), Tre Mason (2014), David Johnson (2015), Jordan Howard (2016), Alvin Kamara (2017), Phillip Lindsay (2018), Devin Singletary (2019), or James Robinson (2020)?
[Description: A rookie NOT taken in the first two rounds of the NFL Draft who is virtually UNDRAFTED in fantasy leagues.  He's not expected to be the Week 1 starter, but he could really help your fantasy squad by mid-year.]

My Preseason Answer: Kenneth Gainwell
Honorable Mention: Jaret Patterson
End of season ACTUAL Answer: Elijah Mitchell
Guys like Najee Harris and Javonte Williams are excluded from this category because they were both drafted too highly in real life and/or fantasy.  But Eli Mitchell basically grabbed this backfield from Day 1 and never really looked back (outside of injury).  He ended up as the RB26 on the year, but he was really better than that because he was RB16 in fantasy points per game.  As for Gainwell, I was actually feeling pretty good about him about a month into the season.  But then the Eagles started playing guys like Boston Scott and Jordan Howard in October, and Gainwell fell back in the pecking order.  Still, he showed signs of being a playmaker and could be the 1b in this backfield next season.


Q: Who is this year's Danny Woodhead (2013), Darren Sproles (2014), Danny Woodhead (2015), Theo Riddick (2016), Chris Thompson (2017), James White (2018), Raheem Mostert (2019), or Nyheim Hines/J.D. McKissic (2020)?
[Description: Shifty veteran who sneakily finishes in the top-20 overall fantasy RBs.]

My Preseason Answer: Kenyan Drake
Honorable Mention: James Conner
End of season ACTUAL Answer: James Conner
At least I nailed my honorable mention here, but Drake wasn't close to sniffing the top-20 even before his Week 13 ankle injury.  On the other hand, Conner ended the season with 15 touchdowns and was the RB7.  And honestly, it felt like a sneaky top-10 finish because even by midseason I feel like people weren't giving him enough credit as a top fantasy running back.  He was a bit touchdown dependent, but the guy scored so many...who cares?!


Q: Who is this year's Keenan Allen (2013), Odell Beckham, Jr. (2014), Tyreek Hill (2016), JuJu Smith-Schuster (2017), Calvin Ridley (2018), A.J. Brown (2019), or Tee Higgins (2020)?
[Description: Rookie WR with playmaking ability who is a late-round fantasy pick or even undrafted in most leagues but ends up being a top-25 fantasy WR.]

My Preseason Answer: Rondale Moore
Honorable Mention: Terrace Marshall, Jr.
End of season ACTUAL Answer: Amon-Ra St. Brown
Like with the first RB category, guys like Ja'Marr Chase and Jaylen Waddle were drafted too highly for consideration here.  But Amon-Ra St. Brown was a top-5 WR down the stretch and ended up as the WR27 on the season (and WR21 if you include Week 18).  He's the closest person to fitting this category, and he did it with Jared Freaking Goff (his given name) most of the season.  He should get bonus points for that.



Q: Who is this year's Andrew Luck (2013), Russell Wilson (2014), Derek Carr (2015), Kirk Cousins (2016), Carson Wentz (2017), Patrick Mahomes (2018), Lamar Jackson (2019), or Kyler Murray/Josh Allen (2020)?
[Description: A young starting QB ready to jump from one fantasy QB tier to the next.]

My Preseason Answer: Tua Tagovailoa
Honorable Mention: Joe Burrow
End of season ACTUAL Answer: Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow 
You could have drafted Tua outside of the top-20 QBs this year, so I liked him as a deeper sleeper to maybe finish in the top-12.  Joe Burrow was already being drafted near QB1 territory back in August, but finishing as the QB5, he definitely took an even bigger leap than expected.  As for Herbert, he finished as the QB2 so he made that leap and then some.  Both guys will be selected as top-10 QBs in drafts next season, and deservingly so.


Back in the summer, I looked at every team in the NFL and tried to find one "value" guy on each squad who I liked the most based on his ADP at that time (Average Draft Position - using FantasyPros as my reference for half PPR leagues).  Let's take a look back at a few guys I wrote about in that article who outperformed their preseason ADP (and a few who didn't). 
NOTE: End of season finishes are based on Weeks 1-17.

Good calls!
Damien Harris - Overall ADP 75, End of season RB13
Mike Williams - Overall ADP 121, End of season WR15
Darnell Mooney - Overall ADP 139, End of season WR26
Marquez Callaway - Overall ADP 193, End of season WR35

Excluding injuries, not-so-good calls
Tre Sermon - Overall ADP 93, End of season RB93
Zack Moss - Overall ADP 94, End of season RB49
Trevor Lawrence - Overall ADP 128, End of season QB23 (QB38 in PPG, yuck!)
T.Y. Hilton - Overall ADP 153, End of season WR95


The funny thing is, one of my big takeaways from this article a season ago was "Will Fuller needs PEDs to stay healthy."  And yet, I didn't learn because I wrote about him again before the 2021 season.  The guy played in two games this year and never saw the field after that.  I didn't include players like him in my summary above because with so many injuries in the NFL every year, about half of my list doesn't really fit into a good call or bad call bucket.  Anyway, on to the next one...






As a reminder: These were NOT my preseason position rankings.  

My preseason/draft rankings always have a ton of factors built into them, but these were my preseason predictions for who could finish in the top-12 at each position in a best case scenario with fully healthy seasons.  I highlighted in BOLD the guys who actually finished in the top-12 at their position this year.


My preseason top-12 QBs 
Kyler Murray 
Patrick Mahomes

Lamar Jackson
Russell Wilson
Justin Fields
Tom Brady
Josh Allen 
Matthew Stafford
Dak Prescott  
Derek Carr
Aaron Rodgers
Kirk Cousins

At first glance, it feels a bit embarrassing that I didn't even include Herbert or Burrow in this list.  But you know, aside from them, Jalen Hurts is the only other guy I didn't get in this top-12.  I even nailed guys like Derek Carr and Kirk Cousins for goodness sake!  And Lamar was the QB8 in fantasy PPG, so he would've made this list had it not been for that late season injury.  So my only real misses here were Russell Wilson and Justin Fields.  Wilson had been a perennial top-10 fantasy QB prior to this season, and Fields was always a bold/longshot call.  I'd say I did fairly well with this list.


My preseason top-12 RBs 
Dalvin Cook 
Ezekiel Elliott 
Christian McCaffrey
Derrick Henry 
Clyde Edwards-Helaire
Gus Edwards
Jonathan Taylor
Nick Chubb
Austin Ekeler
AJ Dillon
Chris Carson
Sony Michel

I had a lot of wild cards in this preseason list, and injuries derailed a bunch of these guys.  Sony Michel was probably my craziest pick, and he ended up as a top-30 RB!  AJ Dillon finished as RB22 and was an Aaron Jones injury away from finishing where I had him.  Looking back, I don't really hate any of these picks (even the long shots).

My preseason top-12 WRs 
Tyreek Hill
Calvin Ridley
Davante Adams 
A.J. Brown
Justin Jefferson
DeAndre Hopkins 
Stefon Diggs
Robert Woods
Jerry Jeudy
Chris Godwin
Will Fuller 
D.J. Moore

Will Fuller is officially dead to me.  I mean, if he could stay healthy, I'm sure he could be a top-12 fantasy WR.  But it looks like that will never happen.  This list is littered with disappointment, but you have to take some shots.  No one knew Calvin Ridley would sit most of the season due to a non-injury, and guys like Robert Woods and A.J. Brown could've been up there if healthy.  But that "if healthy" thing is certainly a trend here.  It sure makes all of this predicting difficult.


My preseason top-12 TEs 
Darren Waller
Travis Kelce 
Kyle Pitts
Mark Andrews
Austin Hooper
George Kittle
Tyler Higbee
Noah Fant
T.J. Hockenson
Jonnu Smith
Cole Kmet
Gerald Everett



Austin Hooper LOL.  I mean, that was just a bad call.  I thought he could end up on this list based on his second year in the system, more targets, etc.  He barely finished as a top-25 fantasy TE this year.  Wow.  Hockenson finished 13th, so I was close to getting half of this list right.  And let's be honest, for the tight end position, that's not too bad.

If you made it to the bottom of this article, congrats.  Thanks for reading, and as always feel free to hit me up on Twitter so we can keep the conversation going this offseason.  

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

2021 Fantasy Football Week 18 Rankings

I debated on whether I'd even post Week 18 rankings, but ultimately I settled on doing it.  I thought I'd take a minute to get some of my thoughts down after another fun fantasy football season, so this is going to be a much longer intro than usual.  If you're just looking for the rankings, feel free to just scroll on down.  I won't know any different!

This has been a really good year for me with the FantasyPros accuracy competition.  Because of that, I was often included in their weekly tweets for either a top-10 finish that week or a top-10 overall (which I got in and stayed in most of the second half of the season).  That gained me over 1000 new Twitter followers this year, and I truly appreciate all of the new people who have checked out my rankings and random tweets.  More than that, I've really enjoyed all of the questions, answers, discussions, etc.  I've especially loved the last minute questions when I was able to do that around 12:30pm on Sundays.  

Even though she doesn't even read my blog (!!!), I'll give a big shout out to my wife anyway because she maintained order in my house from noon-1pm nearly every Sunday this season.  It really helped me focus on those last minute rankings updates and Q&A sessions.  I hope to keep that going next year and maybe keep growing that Twitter following (tell your friends!).




Anyway, with all of the new followers, I thought there might be a handful of folks who could be playing here in Week 18.  If you are, I'll post my rankings below with a big disclaimer:

With so many teams resting players and having guys active but playing limited snaps, the rankings the final week of the regular season are very difficult to do.  

FantasyPros doesn't even include Week 18 in the accuracy competition because there's just too much variance and most fantasy leagues don't play this week.  These rankings will change a TON from now until Sunday as we find out which players will be inactive/rested.  So if you're using my rankings this week, check back before the Saturday kickoffs and then again around noon on Sunday for a final update.  I won't spend as much time on it this week as I do most weeks, but I'll still get it updated as best I can for you guys.

There's a reason the vast majority of leagues don't include Week 18 in their fantasy playoffs.  I can't imagine having someone like Joe Burrow for an entire season and scorching the EARTH the last couple of weeks only for him to sit in the most important week for fantasy because his real life team has nothing to play for.  If your league still includes Week 18, talk to your commish and get that changed ASAP.  

So with that out of the way, let me just say that whether or not you won a fantasy championship this year, I hope you had a good season and had fun.  For me, it's more about the ride than the destination (as cheesy as that sounds).  Or maybe that's just me saying it this year because I didn't actually win a championship in any of my three leagues (though I did finish second in two, ugh!).  If it surprises you that I'm only in 3 leagues...well, it's definitely by design.  I have a full time job and a family (with two kids who are ages 2 & 5).  That's a lot to keep up with.  Then on top of that I constantly update (read: obsess) over the rankings, I'm an active commish of a couple of leagues, and even just setting rosters in three leagues is a lot when I'm trying to do my usual Sunday updates.  Then there's the sports gambling side which became legal this year in my home state of Virginia, so that's a bit of a time suck too.  Maybe in the next year or two I'll get back up to 5 leagues or so, but for now I think 3 is a nice number.  

Aside from the Week 18 rankings & betting picks below, it's on to next year, right?  FantasyPros already has their 2022 rankings tool up on the site, and I started on those today.  I'll put out an "end of year review" article soon to recap some of my preseason picks, and I'll post my initial 2022 rankings in the coming weeks as well.  Then I'll be digging into the NFL Draft & free agency before you know it, and I'll get an article out with a preview on some of that stuff in a month or so.  If you're just here for the rankings, that's cool too.  But for me this is really a year round deal.  It's all fun to me.  

If you're like me and love trying to figure out and discuss how every little offseason move will impact next year's fantasy football season, you've come to the right place! 

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 17 Rankings

This is it. It's Championship Week.  If you're playing for it all, congrats.  It's tough to even make it this far during a normal year, much less this crazy one with all of the COVID stuff.  This season has been a fun one for me with all of my new followers on Twitter.  I've enjoyed all of the start/sit questions, conversations, etc.  I appreciate all of it.  I really do.  I'm going to keep my intro short for this final week of the fantasy season.  If you have a specific question, just hit me up on Twitter.

One more time...to the rankings!



Wednesday, December 22, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 16 Rankings

If you're still with me here in Week 16, it probably means you're in the semifinals in your fantasy playoffs.  Or maybe you're still playing for 2022 draft position or to stay out of last place.  Maybe you're just still having fun and don't want the season to end.  Whatever the case, I'm glad you're here.  The season always seems to fly by, and it's hard to really appreciate the fantasy season when you're in it.  Whatever it is you're still playing for, try to stay focused down the stretch because it'll all be over soon!

I've really enjoyed Sundays from like 12:40-12:55pm EST when I've had the time to answer questions on Twitter for start/sit decisions.  I wish I could say I had time for it every Sunday, but it just doesn't always work out that way.  So if you have any questions ahead of time, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and we can get the conversation going there.

Let's get right to the rankings, shall we?




Wednesday, December 15, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 15 Rankings

The byes are finally over, and it's time for the fantasy playoffs.  But this week has a strange feel to it, doesn't, it?  All of the COVID cases have me thinking a game or two might actually get canceled this week.  Or even worse for fantasy/planning purposes, what if they move games to Tuesday or Wednesday like they did last year?  

I know I'm getting ahead of myself because there's really no mention of things like this yet, but it's in the back of my mind.  Below are my initial rankings with a lot of guys intentionally missing for now.  I'll be updating them daily and of course leading up to kickoffs for Thursday, SATURDAY (don't forget this week!), and 1:00pm Sunday when they're locked.

As always, feel free to hit me up on Twitter for all of your start/sit decisions not answered by my rankings.  I've really appreciated all of the new followers this season, and I continue to enjoy the back and forth conversations I've had with some of you on Twitter.  So keep em coming!  And here's to hoping I can finish strong and hang on in the top-10 for the FantasyPros accuracy competition because we're in the home stretch.

To the rankings!



Wednesday, December 8, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 14 Rankings

If you're still looking at rankings here in Week 14, that's a good thing.  It means you're still in your fantasy playoff picture.  It's also finally the last week of byes, and for most people it gets real next week.  Everything is shifted a week later than usual with the extra game on the schedule this year, so it feels weird not to be starting playoffs this week, but whatever.  We'll just wait a week.  

Whether you have start/sit questions or are looking ahead to playoff stashes, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and we can chat there.  Let's get right to the rankings!




Wednesday, December 1, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 13 Rankings

We're getting super close to the fantasy playoffs, and here I am ranking guys like Alexander Mattison in my top-5 RBs and Jamaal Williams in the top-20 in that same game.  Whether you stashed guys like this or spent all of your waiver budget/priority on them yesterday, one or both players very well could be worth it even if just for the next couple of weeks.  

You probably went through this mental exercise weeks ago, but I'll reiterate that it's well past the time for thinking about where you drafted a guy back in August.  There was a guy in my longest running home league who drafted Cordarrelle Patterson in the late rounds, and we all gave him so much crap for it.  I think he even dropped him before the Week 1 games even started, and look where we are now.  Patterson is one of those league-winning type of players and was undrafted in most leagues.  

Christian McCaffrey and Derrick Henry aren't walking through that door and winning any fantasy championships this year.  It's guys like Leonard Fournette and maybe even Taysom Hill.  Who knows?  We'll find out tomorrow night if Taysom could be a QB1 down the stretch...or not.

As always, if you have start/sit or other questions, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and let's talk about it.

Let's do the rankings!







Tuesday, November 23, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 12 Rankings

With it being the week of Thanksgiving, I thought I'd get ahead of things and post my initial rankings a day early.  I know a lot of folks post their rankings on Tuesdays, but most weeks that just isn't in the cards for me.  Also there's so much player news that comes out on Wednesdays that I feel like posting rankings on Tuesdays is a bit early.  But whatever.  They're here early this week, so enjoy it because I'll likely be back to my regular Wednesday posts again next week.  Let's get right to it, shall we?



Wednesday, November 17, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 11 Rankings

Depending on your league settings, you likely have around 4 more weeks to get into the fantasy playoffs (or not).  Most leagues also have trade deadlines quickly approaching, so we're getting into critical decision time for fantasy managers.

If you're in a keeper or dynasty league, are you a buyer or a seller?  Can you continue to hold out hope for guys like Chris Carson or Julio Jones?  Do you want to trade for AJ Dillon to get a potential RB1 for the next couple of weeks and help your team get into the playoffs?  Should you sell high on Patrick Mahomes?  Should you buy high on him?!?

Bottom line is this: it's now or never if you want to swing a trade.  If you don't make a deal, your current squad plus the waiver wire is what you have for the rest of the season.  Fantasy football should be fun, so if you want to try to trade for Lamar or Saquon or Deebo or whoever, do it!

If you have trade questions, start/sit, or anything else...as always, hit me up on Twitter and let's talk about it.

To the rankings!




Wednesday, November 10, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 10 Rankings

I'm still in the top-10 for the season after another solid week in the FantasyPros rankings competition, but this week is going to be challenging for me.  I'm going out of town tomorrow and I'll be driving back Sunday, so I might be updating my rankings before the 1:00 kickoffs from a Sheetz parking lot...but I'll be doing it!  My initial rankings below are posted here on Wednesday night, and I'll be updating them regularly as best I can.  But I'll be on a mini-vacation this weekend with family, so it might be a little less than usual.

If you have any specific questions, just hit me up on Twitter.  Let's do the rankings!



Wednesday, November 3, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 9 Rankings

Today was a wild ride with the NFL news. We had Aaron Rodgers testing positive for COVID-19, followed by several others including Saquon and A.J. Green.  Then there was the OBJ saga, which honestly you shouldn't care much about unless you're a Browns fan.  It's a low pass volume offense, and to be honest he hasn't been relevant since before we even knew what COVID-19 even was.  

It was pretty cool for me when I checked Twitter this afternoon and saw I was the #3 ranker for Week 8 and I'm now in the top-10 for the season!  That usually comes with a few new followers on Twitter, so welcome to you all.  I usually try to keep things pretty short here and adjust my rankings constantly throughout the week leading up to 1:00pm on Sundays. 

If you have any questions or just want to bounce something off me, let's keep the conversation going over on Twitter.  Let's get right to the rankings!



Wednesday, October 27, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 8 Rankings

For most leagues, you're about halfway to the fantasy playoffs (unless your team is 0-7...in which case you're trending toward the opposite of that).  This midway point of the fantasy season can be a great time to make a trade, as you never know how someone may value guys like Miles Sanders or Allen Robinson.  Personally I think you'd be justified in sending either guy to the waiver wire, but you might as well throw a trade offer out there before you do, right?  

If you've been starting Lamar Jackson (who is on a bye this week) and your waiver wire happens to be thin at the QB position, offer Allen Robinson for Matt Ryan.  Yes, it's gross.  But would you rather start someone like Mac Jones this week?  I wouldn't. 

My point is it's time to try to forget that you spent a second round pick on a guy.  You can move on if you want.  Now is the time.  If not now, when?!?  Week 9?...Week 10?  In the case of Allen Robinson, he's on a bye in Week 10.  Just trade or drop him now.  Pull the band aid and thank me later.

If you have specific add/drop/trade questions, hit me up on Twitter.  Let's do the rankings!





Wednesday, October 20, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 7 Rankings

Unless you have a roster with both Alvin Kamara and Calvin Ridley on it, the byes in Week 6 probably didn't hit your fantasy team too hard.  But Week 7 is a rough one, and for most it'll be the worst bye week of the season.  It's kind of like Black Friday.  It's earlier and earlier each year.  Oh, and it's terrible.

In case you're just realizing it, here are the teams not playing this week: Bills, Cowboys, Chargers, Vikings, Steelers, Jags.  Yeah, that's a lot of good fantasy players on those teams.  Yes, even the Jags!  Don't disrespect James Robinson like that.

Hopefully you planned ahead and grabbed a backup QB or WR or whatever you need on your waiver wire.  If not, I hope you have depth or can use these rankings to find a guy now!

As always, hit me up with any questions on Twitter, and good luck to everyone in Week 7!



Wednesday, October 13, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 6 Rankings

This is always a crazy time for me.  In a three week period at the end of September through mid October I have my wife's birthday, my daughter's birthday, and my wedding anniversary.  And this year (next weekend) I'll be going out of town for a twice-delayed-due-to-Covid annual guy's trip.  

But the rankings don't stop...

Even with a busy week with work and life, I still managed to be the #13 ranker in Week 5.  This week's Sunday updates are going to be a challenge because I have all kinds of family coming around 2pm for my daughter's birthday party.  I just hope I can have a focused hour around noon to get all of my final updates done because I feel like those last minute tweaks are helping me with this accuracy competition.

So if you have questions before Sunday, it would be much preferred to get those to me ahead of time the next couple of days on Twitter.  I have been doing my best to answer any and all last-minute questions you all have, but just know it's a bit frantic right before 1:00 kickoffs on Sunday while I'm trying to make my rankings updates and oh by the way make sure my own fantasy lineups are set.

Thanks for reading, and let's do the rankings!




Wednesday, October 6, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 5 Rankings

Now that we have a 17 game season, we're no longer a quarter of the way through it after 4 weeks.  I can't tell you how much I dislike that lack of symmetry.  In any event, we now have a fairly decent sample size to work with, and I do like that.  Predicting who will perform and who won't from week to week should be a piece of cake now, right?  Ha!

I'm going to keep it brief this week and get right to the rankings.  As always, feel free to hit me up on Twitter with your trade questions, start/sit decisions, etc.  I'd rather keep the conversation going there rather than put a bunch of content here. 

Let's get to it!



Wednesday, September 29, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 4 Rankings

Last week, I mentioned how hard it can be not to overreact to Week 1, and it can be prove equally difficult to determine what is and is not a trend after Week 2.  Well, I must have guessed right on a few of those because I ended up as the #2 most accurate expert on FantasyPros in Week 3!

I'm glad to see a few more followers on Twitter (welcome!), and feel free to ask me questions there.  I enjoy having a discussion about trades, waiver wire adds, and of course start/sit decisions.  But to me, that's exactly what it is: a discussion.  A lot of people like to confirm their own opinions with a fantasy analyst or a friend, but sometimes you'll gain a perspective that you might not have been considering. 

One thing I added last week to each position ranking was tiers.  While I'm not sure how helpful they are for the reader, it's possible they helped me with my accuracy.  I guess we'll find out here in Week 4, won't we?  If you're new to my rankings, just know that I will update them regularly (at least daily from now until Sunday around noon).  So check the timestamp in the window below to make sure they're up to date.
 
Let's get to em!




Wednesday, September 22, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 3 Rankings

It's hard not to overreact to Week 1, but I hope you did your best in Week 2.  And it might be even harder to look at two weeks of data and try to determine what is and is not a trend.  While James Robinson played a ton of snaps, he continued to mostly trend down.  Week 3 is going to tell a lot about Robinson.  In what should be an up-tempo game, I'd expect him to end up with double digit fantasy points.  If he lays an egg, it might be time to panic and probably time to bench him.

Deebo Samuel continued to trend up last week.  So did Derek Carr and plenty of others.  I can't wait to find out how many of these trends will continue here into Week 3, and I hope I have a good feel for moving guys up and down.  This is the dance we do with the rankings, and it's especially volatile at the beginning of the season.  By Week 4, things will come a bit more into focus.

One new thing I'm trying out this week is adding TIERS to each position ranking.  I'm not sure how helpful they will be for start/sit decisions, but it'll give you an idea of how I think of guys in certain buckets.  For instance, if you're deciding between starting DeVonta Smith or Diontae Johnson, they're super close in my rankings but I have Smith in a tier above Johnson.  So while it's basically a toss up, since I have them in different tiers, it's a slightly easier call than DeVonta Smith versus Brandin Cooks for instance (since they're in the same tier).  

I hope the tiers make sense for in season rankings.  They do to me.  I'll obviously be updating these throughout the week/weekend, so check back often as news rolls in.  Let's get to them, shall we?



Wednesday, September 15, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 2 Rankings

The first week of the NFL season can be tough to predict, and you don't want to overreact too much here in Week 2.  For instance, I'm not really lowering Aaron Rodgers or any other Packers, especially since they're facing the Lions on Monday Night Football.  I am moving guys down like James Robinson and Julio Jones...and Jameis and Deebo Samuel up.  We'll find out in just a few days if any of those are overreactions or not.

As always feel free to let me know what you think on Twitter @bartonwheeler, and I'll post my betting picks below my rankings.  I'll keep both up to date throughout the week/weekend.

Let's get to it!



Tuesday, September 14, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Rest of Season Rankings

While it feels a little silly posting Rest of Season rankings after just one week of games, here I am doing it anyway.  Last year I finished as the #2 ROS ranker on FantasyPros just behind Dan Harris, so there's no time to wait if I want to get a jump start at trying for the #1 spot.  Sure, fewer people do the ROS rankings competition (maybe 30ish), but finishing second in anything other than pistols at dawn isn't too shabby.

I will update these rankings fairly frequently (like when big injuries happen), but I'll at least update them every Monday/Tuesday all season long.  Hopefully this list will help you when considering trade offers, but it can also be helpful to see the big picture on a player rather than kneejerk reactions that can occur on a weekly basis.  If you have any questions about these ROS rankings, feel free to hit me up on Twitter @bartonwheeler!




Wednesday, September 8, 2021

2021 Fantasy Football Week 1 Rankings

Is it just me or has it been a long summer?  COVID isn't over...and neither is baseball.  But we finally made it to the 2021 NFL season!

It feels good to get my initial Week 1 rankings done, and I'll be adjusting them as practice notes start trickling in.  So check back often.  Seriously, I could use the clicks!

Feel free to let me know what you think on Twitter @bartonwheeler, and I'll post my betting picks below my rankings.  Sports betting was illegal in my state of Virginia last year, but not anymore!  So now I'll be using my own advice on some of these picks.  I'll be adjusting those regularly as well, likely all the way up to kickoff times. 

Below my betting picks will be my real football predictions in case you care to see those...

You may notice I'm relatively low on rookies in Week 1 because I want to see it first before I rank most of them higher.  If you want to start Najee Harris or a guy like Trey Sermon against the Lions, go for it.  But I think Sermon is likely a FLEX at best.  As for someone like Michael Carter, the Jets didn't even list him on their official depth chart.  So tread lightly with guys like him in Week 1.  If guys go off in their first NFL game, I'll adjust accordingly.  But for now, most are relatively low.
OK.  Let's get to the rankings!



 
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So here are my real football predictions for the 2021 season.  I've been way off with my Super Bowl winners the last two years.  I picked the Rams to win it all in 2019, but I did have the Chiefs at least making it to the Super Bowl.  Then last year I picked the Saints over the Chiefs, so I am consistently getting the Chiefs right to make it to the Super Bowl.  This year I think I'll actually pick them to win it.  Let's take a look at the rest of my picks, shall we?


AFC East: Buffalo Bills
AFC North: Baltimore Ravens
AFC South: Tennessee Titans
AFC West: Kansas City Chiefs
AFC Wild Card1: Los Angeles Chargers
AFC Wild Card2: Cleveland Browns
AFC Wild Card3: New England Patriots
[Chiefs over Ravens in AFC Championship Game]

NFC East: Dallas Cowboys
NFC North: Green Bay Packers
NFC South: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
NFC West: San Francisco 49ers 
NFC Wild Card1: Los Angeles Rams 
NFC Wild Card2: Seattle Seahawks
NFC Wild Card3: Minnesota Vikings
[Packers over Rams in NFC Championship Game]

Super Bowl Prediction: Chiefs over Packers