First off, awesome work, guys.
Some thoughts as I go through this...
- I'd love to see Herman's PK rankings.
me too
- If it's really five years, some of those LBs are way overrated.
Personally, I didn't limit my rankings to a 5-year window or a 3-year window. I just chose to rank the players how I think I would value them in a keeper or dynasty league. That involves weighting their performance over the next year or two a little heavier than their performance in years 3, 4, 5, etc. but taking it all into account somehow.
- I don't get the Julian Peterson ranking. What has he ever done FF-wise to earn such a high ranking, over guys like Kirk Morrison, Marcus Washington, and Kawika Mitchell?
Looks like I have him lower than most as I think he's one of those players who are better in real life than they are in fantasy football. He doesn't put up great stats and he has an injury history. However, in his favor, Seattle SLBs do have a history of being pretty productive.
-DJ Williams is way too low IMO. I know he's at SLB for now, but so's Derrick Johnson who's ranked 16th. This just seems like a disconnect to me.
I think Johnson still has a chance to play WLB and in the nickel and even dime defense, but the presence of Gold and Wilson means Williams will likely be stuck at SLB for the forseeable future and will probably remain just a 2-down LB to boot.
-Bob Sanders over Ed Reed? Really? I own Sanders, and he's nice and all, but I'd throw in a third round rookie pick to upgrade to Ed Reed.
Reed is a big play guy who hasn't topped 67 solo tackles since his rookie year. I think Sanders can be a decent playmaker, but can also improve significantly on the 72 solo tackles he had last year. With the Colts having a better offense, teams will be forced to throw against the Colts a lot more than they will against the Ravens. He also doesn't have a Ray Lewis stealing tackles in front of him.
-I really like the Madieu Williams ranking - I see him as high as 5th on some people's rankings, which seems bonkers to me. Then again, I see he was 5th, 8th, 26th, and 51st in the four rankings - the 51st place ranking is way crazier than the 5th place ranking, I guess.
I agree that I likely have him ranked too low and will move him up. But, I still think he's overvalued and unlikely to ever repeat his rookie season success. The Bengals have dramatically improved the talent around him since then.
-Nick Collins seems awfully high, even before the Bryan Scott signing.
Do you mean Marquand Manuel? Otherwise, I'm not sure what Scott going to NO has to do with Collins in GB. I think his ranking is pretty reasonable given his youth and the terrible Packers defense in front of him.
-There's a big gap between the ranking of Michael Lewis and his ADP in Zealots leagues - I wonder why the big difference.
Lewis was the 6th ranked fantasy DB last year and put up 93 solo tackles. He's just 26 years old and should be entering the prime of his career. Zealots scoring seems to favor playmakers a little more than guys who consistently put up solid tackle numbers. Not sure if that's why he was undervalued or not.
-Why would Kerry Rhodes and Erik Coleman be ranked so closely? Coleman seems to be the better choice.
I think we had this discussion in the consensus ranking threads. Most people tend to favor Strong Safeties over Free Safeties, so that gives Rhodes a slight edge. Also, Coleman got off to a slow start in 2005 that may have cooled off some people's expectations for him.
-Crumpler over Heap surprises me. The Witten omission needs to be fixed.
I have Heap at #2 so that surprises me too.
-Eric Johnson seems awfully low - yeah, he's hurt all the time, but I'd rather take a chance with a guy like him who has shown something rather than a guy who will never be anyone's FF TE1 like Putzier or Graham.
Some guys may have left him off because he was injured all last year and Vernon Davis is going to the 49ers in many mock drafts.
-Brady over Palmer really surprises me.
If it weren't for his injury last year, I'd have given very serious consideration to ranking Carson over Peyton. With the Pats losing Givens and Dillon getting old, I'd like to drop Brady but he's just so darn consistent and many of the other top QBs have question marks this year.
-I think the QB rankings are excellent. Someone left Ramsey off their rankings, though, and I think that was probably an oversight.
I've always been a Ramsey fan and it looks like I have him ranked considerably higher than anyone else.
-Rudi seems slightly high to me.
Consistency. He's been a top-10 RB for 2 years in a row now, plays behind one of the best offensive lines in the league, and has a great QB and WR group to take focus off him and consistently put him in position to score easy TDs.
-Tiki Barber is over 31 years old. If this is a five-year ranking, what's he doing over Westbrook, McAllister, Jamal Lewis, etc?
Tiki still has only 1889 career rushes and has been a top-10 RB for 3 years in a row. He seems to be getting better with age, not worse and I think he can continue to be a top-15 fantasy RB for another 2 or 3 years.
-Rhodes seems way-overvalued. Nobody really thinks he'll be the starter, and nobody thinks he would keep the job for more than a year if it happened... so why does everyone rank him so high?
I think he could be the starter in the league's best offense, and at just 27 years old, I think he's ranked about right. If he stayed healthy, I think he could produce for more than a year too. Although that might not be very likely, until they bring in another back on draft day, his potential upside warrants a decent ranking right now, IMO.
-Mike Anderson is something like 33 years old and is penciled in at RB2 for his team. I'd sure rather take a chance on a guy like Duckett, GJones, or Dayne who at least have youth on their side.
IMO, it kind of depends on how the rest of your roster shapes up. Some dynasty teams need to supplement their young rosters with aging vets who might only have a year or two left. Many thought Droughns was just a product of the Broncos system and look what he did in Cleveland last year. Jamal Lewis was badly outplayed by Chester Taylor last year so maybe Alexander winds up outperforming him this year as well. His average suggests most people have him around the #40 RB spot, which seems reasonable although I bet he will drop going forward as rookies get added and many situations around the league become more clear.
-Fitz over Chad Johnson doesn't seem right to me... it's strange to see after the message board consensus had a clear tier of Chad/Smith/Holt/Moss above the rest of the WRs like Fitz.
As one of the few staffers who didn't rank Fitz #1, I agree that he has a few question marks around him (questionable QB situation, Boldin and James could steal targets, etc.). I like Chad and Steve Smith over him for dynasty purposes right now, but I also think Fitz could be the most talented WR in the league with nearly unlimited upside. Tough to go wrong with any of these guys, but the Arizona QB situation scares me a little and I feel safer with Palmer or Delhomme's #1 targets.
-Owens at 7 baffles me, but I'm a hater so I guess I'll just never get it. The guy's old, broken down, and his teams bench him because he's a jerk. He's a great player, but I can't see how he plays more than 30 more games in his career.
Apart from last year when he was suspended, he's never missed more than 2 games in a season so he's not a huge injury risk. And, it's easy to imagine him being a top-10 WR for the next couple years and maybe top-20 for a year or two after that if he wants to.
-DJax is low.
Looks like my ranking is dragging him down a bit, but now I'm not sure why I had him so low. I'll likely be moving him up soon.
-Drew Bennett seems underrated to me. A guy like Reggie Brown hasn't shown anything to rank him over Bennett IMO.
I have them ranked nearly identically. Bennett was a disappointment last year and now the team has Givens coming in to be the #1 along with 3 promising 2nd year WRs and 3 promising young TEs to take targets from him. Meanwhile Brown seems to be stepping into the #1 WR role for the Eagles without a whole lot of competition beyond Westbrook and LJ Smith.
-I'm glad to see some reality check on Matt Jones. I like the guy, but the talk this offseason on the boards was that he was a top-10 or top-20 guy, which is nuts at this point - he could be Marc Boerigter.
I have him pretty low at WR46, although I will likely be moving him up a little given his potential. With Jimmy Smith's career winding down, and Reggie Williams looking like a busted pick, Matt Jones could become the #1 target for Leftwich at some point.
-Antonio Bryant seems too low at 72 and unranked by two people.
I have him at 29. Love his talent, but don't like his situation much at all.