2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Top 300 Overall & Draft Strategy
FNTSY Sports Network’s Pat Mayo, Garion Thorne & Tim Anderson debate Mayo’s 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings. They discuss each tier of players, argue over who is ranked too highly, and best draft strategies while offering their top tips to win your Fantasy Football championship.
2016 Fantasy Football Rankings – Top 300/Draft Strategy | RB | WR | QB | TE | Top 300 Debate | Profiles: RB | WR | QB | TE
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2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Draft Strategy
FINALLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYY… Fantasy Football has come back, to eradicate your day-to-day efficiency. Seriously, at some point over the next four months you’re going to be faced with a choice to keep scanning twitter for a last second Thomas Rawls update and helping your child out of a bear trap. In fairness, you had previously explained the risks associated with stealing delicious picnic baskets. The consequences are very real.
Every year, I lay out my Top 300 players for the Fantasy Football season, and for the past half decade my strategy has remained fairly uniform and ultimately successful come Fantasy championship time: Load up on receivers early. This method of drafting was birthed to counter the ubiquitous strategy of weighting RBs at the top of rankings. I always believe, and still do, wide receivers are your best bet for safety in the early rounds. Are their bust rates lower than running backs? Marginally. But that’s not the main reason for targeting pass catchers.
2015 was a horrible year for high-end RBs. Just take a gander back at last season’s scoring leaders. Of the 18 RBs drafted in the first three rounds, only five ended up returning RB1 value: Adrian Peterson, Lamar Miller, Matt Forte, Latavis Murray, and Frank Gore. And that’s even misleading. Reviewing total points doesn’t accurately portray how well a single player actually performed for your team. Sure, playing Gore every week, knowing he finished as RB12 sounds like a big win, but it wasn’t. Gore played all 16 games and vaulted into the upper echelon of RB through volume. Ask anyone who rolled old-man Gore through their lineup every week, I’d wager they’re still suffering from buyer’s remorse. On a per game basis, Gore scored a measly 10 standard Fantasy points each week, good for 22nd at the position (28th in PPR formats). Latavius Murray wasn’t much better either. He finished a spot ahead of Gore in overall numbers, but could only muster 10.1 Fantasy points per game. Even in standard leagues, that fell short of Danny Woodhead’s stat sheet production.
It’s great when your primary back stays healthy and keeps his job for the entire season, but when those backs are incredibly mediocre you fall into a common Fantasy trap: Deluding yourself into thinking you’re strong at the position and don’t see the urgency of upgrading the spot, thus consistently starting a back who never moves the needle for your team in a given week.
Most Fantasy players work under the assumption the player they draft gets slotted into a specific spot in their lineup and their work is finished. Please, don’t think this way. Each position on your roster is just that, a single position. Don’t attach a name to it. Merely think of it as slot you have to fill out every week. That’s it. If you ran out Gore or Murray at RB2 for 16 weeks, even with their solid yearly totals, you likely finished near the bottom of the standings at production from that roster position. The guy who filled that spot with a combination of waiver wire backs or bench guys who paid off in favorable matchups likely did WAYYYYYYYY better in overall scoring. It’s just, no one ever looks at it that way. You could have scooped up Dion Lewis after Week 1, rode him until his injury then plugged in Charcandrick West for a few games, eventually landing on DeAngelo Williams as the permanent fixture in that spot once he assumed all of Le’Veon Bell’s touches. Now, what I just described was the best-case scenario for mixing and matching undrafted RBs throughout the season. In fact, if you had played that combination, it would have scored more Fantasy points than Devonta Freeman, the highest scoring Fantasy RB in 2015. Cast those names aside and plug in a mixture Karlos Williams, Darren McFadden, Charles Sims, Ryan Mathews, Tim Hightower, Buck Allen, Matt Jones, James White, Spencer Ware, Chris Johnson and James Starks and you finished with RB1 value from one of your RB slots. More than Gore and Murray.
Using this strategy of mixing and matching RBs is highly volatile, and there’s certainly no guarantee it will work, but it speaks to the fundamental truth behind taking wide receivers early: RB are easy to replace; WR ain’t.
When a running back gets carted off the field and season declared over, it’s fairly easy to pinpoint who the next man up is going to be. It’s not a perfect science, but in most cases, determining their role – percentage of snap count, goal line work, overall volume – is somewhat straight forward. Similar thoughts don’t apply to receivers. Remember when Jordy Nelson went down last pre-season? In the days and weeks following the injury, Randall Cobb was declared a Top WR while Davante Adams became firmly entrenched inside the Top 20 of the position. It was expected, and I don’t absolve myself of this way of thinking (I had Cobb at WR7 and Adams at WR17… GLUGHHHHHHH!!!), Cobb would see a jump in his already gaudy target total while Adams would creep up among the leaders too. That makes all the sense, right? RIGHT??? Didn’t happen. Turns out, reformatting a WR’s totals is much more difficult when a player goes down. A starting wideout already has a role in whatever offense they play in. When an RB goes down, the next man up is specifically in his backup role to replace the guy in front of him. As we learned with the Packers, Cobb isn’t as good as Nelson and was horribly miscast as Aaron Rodgers’ primary weapon. He wasn’t used to getting extra attention from the opposing defenses, and, he got zero help from Adams, or any other Packers WR for that matter, to take attention away. A lot of the success Nelson and Cobb have had playing together over the past few seasons is their ability to both be good. I get that seems rudimentary, doesn’t make it any less true, though. If the defense focuses too much on one, the other is there to capitalize and blow up the scoreboard. With Adams, other teams just sat back and marveled that he plays in the NFL despite his crippling addiction to drops. Adams should have gone full HOT HANDS at some point, couldn’t have hurt.
Replacing a WR and projecting new totals has a much wider range of outcomes than you’d expect; increasing the odds of being wrong about said player. With running backs, it’s fairly cookie cutter, anticipating the role a replacement will play. Normally, backups don’t possess equal talent, but at running back I care far more about opportunity than skill. Give the shittiest running back 20 combined touches and all the goal line work for a game and he’ll likely be Top 15 at the position that week.
I’ve already given over 15 examples of RBs who were snatched off the waiver wire last season and churned out Top 12 weeks. And these weren’t random games – upon assuming their new roles, it was entirely projectable. People used those RBs in their lineups those week. What WRs did you pick and play on a weekly basis? Allen Hurns, Michael Crabtree, Willie Snead, Kamar Aiken, Ted Ginn, and maybe James Jones for a few games? Kudos if off you grabbed those guys and started them when they went off, but not only were they not elite options most weeks, they were few and far between. New, startable RBs popped up every week. When you’re making predictions prepare to be wrong, a lot. It’s a certainty. However once you concede this, searching for players whose range of outcomes is smaller will limit the amount and impact of those mistakes.
So all things being equal, on draft day, favor the WRs at the top.
Zero RB Theory
The unusual amount of highly drafted RBs busting last season has scared the bejesus out of everyone, and there’s more and more chatter this season about the Zero RB Theory. Basically, load up on WRs (or potentially GRONK!!!), pass on RBs until the middle rounds then grab a bunch all in row. If properly applied, this strategy can pay massive dividends. But I don’t completely subscribe. With more and more drafters using this method, some high-end RBs are going much lower than in season’s past. If a legit RB falls to you at a value, take him. It’s really that simple. Will it work out, who knows? But gambling on an elite talent like Jamaal Charles as a middle-to-late second round pick sounds mighty enticing. And, as we know, they can be replaced should the worst happen. This may sound counter to what I’ve been preaching, however the best way to approach Fantasy drafts is to mine as much value as possible. While I believe WRs are generally better values, it doesn’t mean RBs have none. That’s my issue with the Zero RB Theory. Entering a draft with a concrete strategy that YOU MUST FOLLOW is asinine. Every draft is different, and different values emerge throughout the course of the picks. If you can’t adapt to the flow of the draft, you’re screwed. Imagine you pick at the end of the first round and David Johnson is available. That’s too much value to pass up for a low-end WR1. So, just because you lean towards WRs early, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seize an opportunity when it presents itself.
Quarterbacks
There are a few things I won’t do, though. Like wear sandals. I’m not Jesus. And, what happens if I need to escape on foot? I’m fucked. Also, selecting a QB in the first five rounds. There’s no need. Sure, if you draft Cam Newton in the second round and if he improves on his 2015 totals, it will end up being a solid pick. However, that rarely happens. I’ve identified Andrew Luck, Drew Brees, Rodgers, Newton, Russell Wilson, and Tom Brady as the elite six QBs this season. If you want one of these top-end pivots, simply wait until they start going and grab whichever one is still on the board. I’m finding that guy is usually Brees. If QBs in your league get drafted in the first few rounds, all the better. Just wait until around round ten and grab Philip Rivers or Eli Manning. If you really want to the roll the dice, hold off until the end and snag Jameis Winston or Matthew Stafford. They’ll be there. Unless you get a historic, outlier performance from your pivot (which is next to impossible to predict), they’re relatively interchangeable. Brady finished as the number two scoring QB on a per game basis in 2015, that was only four more points a game than QB18 – Marcus Mariota. Of the Top 10 per game scoring QBs last year, five were drafted outside the Top 10 at the position – CAMMMM (ADP QB15), Blake Bortles (ADP QB 25), Carson Palmer (ADP QB 17), Tyrod Taylor (ADP QB20) and Andy Dalton (ADP QB26). Like running backs, I think there’s a breaking point where value on the top guys becomes too good to pass on, but as a rule, just wait and solidify the rest of your roster.
Tight Ends
Most people think Fantasy Football leagues are decided by critical choices made at the beginning of drafts. If you don’t nail the coin flip decisions in the first few rounds you’re finished. However, that’s simply not the case. Ask anyone who who drafted Dez Bryant or Charles in the first round last year. Tons of people overcame that speed bump and drove to Fantasy glory. Strangely enough, it’s the choices made reaching on questionable talent in the middle rounds that will derail your season. And this year, I see it with Tight Ends. With Jordan Reed and Greg Olsen, and even Delanie Walker, Travis Kelce and Tyler Eifert’s performances having narrowed the gap between GRONK!!! and the rest of the tight end pool, tight end ADPs have gone full Sputnik and left the atmosphere.
GRONK!!! as a swing pick late in the first or in the second round is fine. I wouldn’t reach on him in the middle of the first round, though. Unlike RB, should anything happen to GRONK!!!, TEs are not easy to replace. Olsen and Reed any time after round three makes sense on a value basis, even if there are cases to be made against both. Reed is perpetually dinged up. Olsen will see a decrease in market share with Kelvin Benjamin returning to the fold. Plus, there’s always a chance the Miami-Dade Police finally figure out he’s been the one dumping chopped up bodies in the ocean. The other guys are solid, but definitely not Fantasy superstars.
Like most, I think Coby Fleener has giant breakout potential. But Fleener is specifically the type of player that can get you into trouble. If your hand is forced into taking him in round 5, you’re stuck with him: Good or Bad. If he wildly underperforms the first two weeks, you’re not dropping him. You’re not even benching him. Why? Because he cost you a 5th round pick. Although, the moment the draft ends, where you took someone really only matter in terms of perceived trade equity. But, while reaching on upside can pay massive dividends and potentially swing a league in your favor, it’s more likely to go the other way. Really, what’s the Fantasy difference between Fleener and Antonio Gates, outside of the Chargers big man going almost 70 picks later? And here’s the best part of Gates, outside of the lack of capital you have to expend, if Gates sucks, you won’t be afraid to cut the chord and seek a replacement. He was only “a 12th round pick”. You’re not bound to that. Having the ability to move on from a player, especially at a thin position, to pluck this year’s Reed, Gary Barnidge or Ben Watson off the waiver wire is very valuable. So, unless tight ends begin to slip back into the seventh round or below, just take Gates late. I think he’s going to be a Top 5 guy. But, if I’m wrong, it’s not a costly error, and one which allows you remedy the issue quickly while others remain stagnate, unwilling, or just maybe unsure, to admit they made a bad pick. In Week 7, when they finally figure it out and realize there’s little to do about the situation, you’ve already rectified the problem.
Other Things to Ponder
Your Bench: If you draft a quarterback to be your starter, don’t hold a backup. Bench spots should be allocated for accruing upside. Sure, you can carry your standard replacement WR/RBs for when injuries inevitably come, but a better use for the back end of your bench is to stash players in limited roles you think can breakout later in the season. Many people did this with David Johnson last year, and it paid off. It doesn’t always work out that way, but if Aaron Rodgers is your starting QB, why do you need a replacement? Maximizing the value of your bench is a way to turn low-capital assets into starters throughout the season. During your QB bye-week, just plug-and-play and move on.
Handcuffs: You don’t need to handcuff your running back. Which is not to say you shouldn’t handcuff RBs. Just take the best ones, even if you don’t own the starter. At this moment, I don’t know which RB will replace Charles should he go down. It could be Spencer Ware, it could be Charchandrick West. They could split the workload for all I know. I prefer to target situations that are more clear with running backs that come close to meeting the optimal criteria I want from an RB. The checklist:
Goal line work
Plays 60-percent of the snaps
Adds production though the passing game
This is how I ended up stashing DeAngelo Williams on almost every team last season. It was clear if Le’Veon Bell went down Williams would be an every week starter. I view Williams in the same light this season. Although his price is now inflated with Bell being suspended to start the season. Charles Sims is my favorite non-Williams option this year. He already plays around 40-percent of Tampa’s snaps, and can be a viable PPR FLEX/RB2 option in a pinch if you need him, but if Doug Martin is sidelined, Sims is going to get a shot at the entire workload. Other backup RBs to stash away: DeAndre Washington, Jerick McKinnon, Jordan Howard, Tevin Coleman, Bilal Powell, and James Starks. Don’t populate you entire bench with these guys, but take a couple.
Defenses: Stream them week-to-week. Even a DST as unappealing as the 49ers has value sometimes. Like Week 1 at home against Jared Goff making his first career start.
League Rules and Settings: This one may be the most important. The larger the league, the more you need to adjust your strategy. While I would never go near Jason Witten in a 10 or 12-team league, his consistent, albeit pedestrian, production is valuable in 14 or 16-team leagues where replacements essentially blocking TEs. In a shallower league, I’d much rather risk the upside of Eric Ebron over Witten knowing a bounty of options are available if he doesn’t work. That luxury doesn’t exist in deep leagues. Same applies to low-upside/consistent players like Michael Crabtree and Theo Riddick (in PPR leagues).
Pace of Play: It doesn’t take a Vulcan to see the logic behind teams that run more plays give your Fantasy players more opportunity to score Fantasy points. Here are the 2015 PACE rankings.
Draft Slot: If you have the option to choose where your draft slot, picks 1-3 are ideal. This applies to standard and PPR drafts. Getting one of the Top 3 players – Antonio Brown, Julio Jones or Odell Beckham Jr. – sets your team apart early, and you can still get in on the back end of upper-tier talent with your next two picks before it drops off a cliff. The worst pick to have: 4.
Know Your Draft Software: For starters, do you draft in-person or online? If your draft is through the interwebs, mess around and familiarize yourself with the nuances of the draft software (ie. where everything is, how to quickly look at the other teams, the queue, etc). Then comes the important part: Make note of that site’s default rankings. In a pinch, most Fantasy players become slaves to the default rankings. Pressed for time, they’ll take the highest ranked player remaining at their position of need. Get a sense of where the players you like fall in those default rankings. Let’s say you love Dion Lewis and, by average draft position, you think you can get him in the middle of the fourth round. That’s a terrific plan; understanding ADPs and where players are being taken is the proper way to mold a draft blueprint. However, it’s important to find out where he’s ranked in the draft software, if your player appears abnormally high on the list, in comparison to other places or third party ADP listings, you’ll have to reach to get him. Without being cognizant of that before the draft, you’re likely to miss out. So go do some mock drafts on ESPN, Yahoo, CBS, MFL, or whatever system you use and get up to speed on how they present the draft options.
2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Top 300 Overall (PPR)
My rankings are a guide to the players I’m targeting and those I’m avoiding. Obviously. But they are not scripture on the order you should draft them. Fusing Average Draft Position with the rankings is how you get maximum value. For example, I have Antonio Gates ranked over 60 draft spots ahead of where he’s currently being taken in drafts. Meaning, should pass on Gates, despite his lofty ranking, and grab him rounds later. Don’t reach for a player you don’t have to. At the end of the draft, add up the rankings of all your players and try to have the lowest number possible, like golf. Why settle for five players inside the Top 50 when you could have eight?
Check out Jake Ciely’s Standard Rankings | Half Point PPR Rankings
*Updated August 8th*
Antonio WHO’S THAT Brown????????
Julio Jones
Odell Beckham
David Johnson
DeAndre Hopkins
Mike Evans
AJ Green
Alshon Jeffery
Brandon Marshall
Dez Bryant
Allen Robinson
Jamaal Charles
Le’Veon Bell
GRONK SMASH!!!!!!!!!
Jordy Nelson
Brandin WEBER Cooks
Keenan Allen
Devonta Freeman
Todd Gurley
Ezekiel 25:17 Elliot
Adrian Peterson
LeSean McCoy
Golden Tate
Demaryius Thomas
Julian Edelman
Amari Cooper
Jeremy Maclin
Dion Lewis
Lamar THRILLER
TY Hilton
Randall Cobb
Doug Baldwin
Jordan Matthews
Eric Decker
Eddie Lacy
Matt Forte
Oh, hai Mark Ingram (Guest Rank: Garion Thorne)
Jordan Reed
Matt Jones
Arian Foster
Greg C. Olsen
Danny Woodhead
Steve Smiff Señor
Sammy Watkins
Michael Floyd
Josh Gordon
DeMarco Murray
Jarvis Landry
Kelvin Benjamin
The Wreck of the Larry Fitzgerald
Donte Moncrief
Latavius Murray
Doug Martin
Jonathan Stewart
Andrew Luck
Drew Brees
Russell Wilson
CAAAAAAMMMMMMMMM Newton
Aaron Rodgers
Tom Brady
Travis Kelce
Delanie Walker
Antonio Gates
Thomas Rawls
CJ Anderson
Carlos Hyde
Hi-Ho DUKE Johnson
Ryan Mathews
Jeremy Hill
Ameer Abdullah Oblongata
Charles Sims
DeAngelo Williams
Tyler Lockett
Devante Parker
Jeremy Langford
John Brown
Michael Crabtree
Emmanuel Sanders
MARV Jones
Darren Sproles
Theo Riddick
Tyler Eifert
Ladarius Green
Coby Fleener
Frank Gore
Gio Bernard
Chris Ivory
CJ Prosise
Allen Hurns
Doral Green-Beckham
Corey
Goldman
Coleman
Kamar Aiken
Willie Snead
Sterling Shepard
DeSean Jackson
Travis BenJAMIN
Kevin White
Philip Rivers
Ben Roethlisberger
Carson Palmer
Eli Manning
Hunky Tony Romo
ANDY Dalton
Blake Bortles
Famous Jameis Winston
Matt Stafford
Markus Wheaton
Zach Ertz
Alanis
Forsett
Bilal POWWWWWWWell
DeAndre Washington
Jay Ajayi
TJ Yeldon
Tyler Boyd
Rashad Jennings
MELVIN!!! Gordon
Jordan Howard
James Starks
Devontae Booker
He went to Jerick McKinnon
Shaun DRAWNNNNN
Davonte Adams
Laquon Treadwell
Torrey Smith
Josh Doctson
Ted Ginn Jr.
Vincent Jackson
Tavon Austin
Rueben Randle
Eric Erbon
Jason Witten
Zach Miller
JIMMY Graham
Julius Thomas
Gary Barnidge
Jermaine Kearse
Terrance Wiliams
Phillip Dorsett
Victor Cruz
Sammie Coates
Michael Thomas (NO)
Chris Hogan
Cole Beasley
Reggie Bush
Kenneth Dixon
Isaiah CROOOOWell
Tevin Coleman
Wendell Smallwood
Josh Ferguson
Spencer Ware
Shane Veeren
Cameron Artis-Payne
Matt Ryan
Tyrod Taylor
Ryan FitzMAGIC
Kirk Les Cousins Dangereux
Marcus Mariota
Chris Thompson
Derrick Henry
Tim Hightower
LaGarrette Blount
Sideshow Cecil Shorts
Danny Amendola
Breshad Permian
Kendall Wright
Nelson Agholor
Pierre Garcon
Nasty Nate Washington
Devin Funchess
Mohamed Sanu
Robert Woods
Leone Carroo
Stefon Diggs
Albert Wilson
Bruce Ellington
Smokin Jay Cutler
Alex Smith
Joe Flacco
Derek Carr
Ryan Tannehill
Colin Kaepernick
Robert Griffin III
Dwayne Allen
Jordan Cameron
Austin Seferian-Jenkins
Martellus Bennett
Charles Dice Clay
Clive
Warren
Walford
Will Tye
Vance McDonald, Vance Refrigeration
Rashard Higgins
Darrius Heyward-Bey
Justin Hardy
Brandon LaFell
Eddie Royal
Jeff Janis
Rishard Matthews
Jamison Crowder
Karlos Williams
Jaelen Strong
Darren McFadden
BUCK Allen
Daniel Lasco
Kyle Rudolph
Ben Watson
Sam Bradford
Brock Osweiler
Teddy Throwsevelt
Jared Goff
Mark Sanchez
Lance Kendricks
Jace Amaro
Jeff Heuerman
Ryan Griffin
MAXXXXXX Williams
Robert Turbin
KENYAN Drake
Paul Perkins
James White
Lance Dunbar
Charcandrick West
Travaris Cadet
Ronnie Hillman
Zack Zenner
Tyler Ervin
CJ Spiller
Mike Gillislee
Andre Johnson
Andrew Hawkins
Marquess Wilson
Will Fuller
Brandon Coleman
Ty Montgomery, Flea Market
Pharaoh Cooper
Marqise Lee
Keshawn Martin
DeAndre Smelter
Brian Hartline
Stevie Johnson
Quinton Patton
Cody Latimer
JJ Nelson
Josh Huff
Benny Cunningham (and his wife, Oprah)
Ka’Deem Carey
Fitzgerald Toussaint
Alfred Morris
Kenny Stills
Kenny Britt
Chris Conley
Dwayne Harris
Jacob TAMME
Garrett Celek
Brent Celek
Richard Rodgers
Gavin Escobar
Jermaine Gresham
Cameron Brate
Austin Hooper
Hunter Henry
Malcolm Mitchell
Brian Quick
Philly Brown
Dontrelle Inman
Rashad Greene
THE SLEDGEHAMMER Taylor Gabriel
Justin Hunter
Devin Smith
Chris Givens
Kenny Bell
Harry Douglas
Mike Wallace
Michael Campanaro
Darius Wright
Stedman Bailey(s)
Seth Roberts
Keyarris Garrett
Donteea Dye
Tajae Sharpe
Cordarrelle Patterson
Khiry Robinson
Tre Mason
Andre Williams
Jordan Todman
Antonio Andrews
Orleans Darkwa
Alex Collins
Terrell Watson
Keith Marshall
Denard Robinson
Dexter McCluster
Kyle Juzskyskyzikusqyzqkiakykzi
Brandon Bolden
Marcel Reece
Roy Helu
Lorenzo Taliaferro
Damien Williams
HEY VERN Davis
Mychal Rivera’s Sister
Levine Trololololololol
WORST PLACE!!!
THEE WORST Trent Richardson
Oh, hai Mark Ingram
Jared Cook
The Pat Mayo Hour covers the entire scope of the Fantasy sports landscape from Football to Reality TV, daily and yearly leagues and everything in between. You can watch the Pat Mayo Hour every weekday at 3:00pm EST, 8:00pm EST and Midnight on the FNTSY Sports Network Television channel or on your Apple TV, Xbox, Roku or Amazon Fire Stick. If you have a Fantasy question, general inquiry or snarky comment, ship it to Mayo at PatMayoHour@gmail.com and the best will be addressed on the show.