Thanks for the rankings. FWIW, I can see your rankings for QBs when I click on forecast->dynasty but if I try to sort by WR or RB it only shows Jeff's rankings. Very odd. Anyway, I just sorted them myself in a spreadsheet because I have a hard time ranking different positions against each other and find it much easier to view when sorted by a single position. These are my positional thoughts:
It's a nitpick, but with Bell being younger than David Johnson and more proven I'd rank Bell higher. Gordon and Freeman are too high for my taste. Both are set for major regressions next year (Gordon will have a 3rd down back to contend with and Freeman is losing his OC) and Gordon has yet to finish a season healthy. Ryan Mathews had a much better start to his career than this guy yet never got half the love. Prosise seems really high for a guy who has barely carried the ball in the NFL and can't stay healthy. Crowell is waaay too low for a guy who is 24 and coming off 4.8 ypc on one of the worst blocking AND passing teams in the league. Speaking of Cleveland, I'd have Duke somewhere on there especially with the likes of Theo Riddick and Paul Perkins making the cut (I would not have them in the top 100). Abdullah is a guy way down on the list that I'd much rather have than Prosise. He seems like a very talented player being subjected to unfortunate use. The most prevalent missing name on this list is Kenneth Dixon. I have him ranked in the teens for RBs, but he's not one of the 33 RBs listed.
I'm convinced Cooks and Thomas are products of Drew Brees. With Brees looking to play out his contract, I suspect he'll be aiming to pack his bags to head to a contender in 2018 and Cooks and Thomas will plummet down these lists by October 2018. Similarly, Davante Adams only has one year left of Rodgers carrying him. It's refreshing to see Hopkins ranked outside the top 12 WR. It'll be interesting to see where Cooper ends up in the rankings next year if Crabtree outshines him again. Speaking of Crabtree, he seems kind of low. I've mentioned it before, but it's crazy people still rank Demaryius Thomas above him. They're the same age and Crabtree is the much more complete WR with a more stable situation. I'd much rather have Sterling Shepard than the likes of Crowder, Tyreek Hill, or Parker. I know he doesn't have the WR1 upside people see in Parker, but in a year or two he'll still be in starting lineups as a rock solid WR2 whereas Parker will be at the end of rosters. His 1st year was better than Parker's 2nd. To me he's similar to Cobb, but 4 years younger and less disappointing. Landry's fantasy relevance is the product of the PPR scoring system. If he's not extended, I'm not sure he'll find another QB as willing to check down to him as Tannehill and he'll become just another 60/700/3 slot WR. The Detroit WRs seem low.
Reed's injuries scare me too much to ever invest in him. Just the concussions alone could force him into retirement soon, but it seems like those are only half his injury problems. Henry seems high considering Gates is likely going to stick around another year. By the time Henry is in his prime, the poorly managed Chargers will be looking for a new QB. Kelce's TE2 ranking feels like recency bias. With injuries to Charles and Maclin last year, it felt like a perfect storm for him, yet I read that his TE1 finish in 2016 would've placed him like TE5 in 2015. Without the extra targets next year (and a normal year of TE scoring), he'll likely be back to his usual TE6-8 finish. I'm all about the budding Ertz-Wentz connection for the next few years.
Mariota at QB5 was surprising. Maybe it shouldn't be, but I'd have him at least 4-5 spots lower.
Again, thanks for posting these rankings in the SP. My comments aren't meant to rag on them or nitpick them, just doing my best to fit the requirement from your statement: "will definitely adjust my rankings if anyone has convincing arguments"
Missed this post earlier. A few comments on some of the disagreements:
1. Johnson over Bell... They're in the same tier and will be pretty close when I assign trade values. Not going to try to talk anyone out of Bell if they have him over DJ. He's a beast when he is healthy. But for me personally, I'm a bit more concerned about Bell's durability than DJs. DJ made it through 17 weeks with a huge workload (before getting a minor injury in Week 17) in his first season as a starter. Bell has been hurt in every single one of his four seasons. He's facing offseason surgery. Predicting injuries is always a tricky business, but if trying to assign some sort of injury risk to players, Bell's has to be pretty high after all of the lower body injuries he has had.
I also think that Bell is an "older" 25 than DJ despite being 10 months younger. Bell had 414 touches his final year at MSU, which is serious punishment in the Big Ten. He's taken 4 years of abuse in the NFL, including a 370+ touch season in 2014 and over 400 touches last season (including playoffs). I worry that Pitt is just going to go year to year with him contractually and absolutely run him into the ground over the next year or two. Meanwhile, DJ has only had one season of heavy workload in the NFL and played at a lower, less physical level in college.
2.
Crowell and Duke...I actually like Crowell as a trade target this offseason and feel like 23 is higher than most have him. But I don't know if I get the argument for both him and Duke in the top 30. Is the Cleveland offense one that can support two top 30 backs? They hold each other back in the same way that Hill and Bernard do in Cincy, especially in full PPR where one back steals most of the catches and the other steals most of the TDs. I prefer Crowell of the two and I feel like you have to pick one or the other, because that offense isn't going to support multiple top fantasy options any time soon.
As for Duke vs. Theo Riddick, Riddick had an 80 catch season in 2015 followed by 53 in just 10 games last year. Duke had the exact same # of catches in 16 games. In his last 16 games played, Riddick has 83 catches, 30 more than Duke. With RB2 types, projecting 5 to 5.5 receptions per game vs. 3.5-4.0 is a big difference.
3.
Cooks and Thomas...They are obviously products of Brees to some extent. It's easier to put up 1200 yards with a 5,000 yard QB than a 4,000 yard QB. It's possible Brees leaves after this year, but I'd put the over/under on his time in New Orleans at 2.5 or 3 years (and probably bet the over). Short term, they both have great projections. Longer term, if they go from a 5,000 yard QB to a 4,000 yard QB, their projections will go down some, but it's not like they'll just disappear from fantasy relevance. Even with awful QB play in Denver in 2016, Sanders and Thomas were still WR2s. So I think you can project a couple more WR1 seasons for these two with Brees. And after that, they're still relatively talented 25 year olds with long careers ahead. If they stay in NO, they're at least playing a bunch of games in a dome every year with whoever the new QB is. Compared to the other guys in that 10-20 range, I think they both project well. I haven't run all the projections yet for my trade value numbers, but it'll be interesting to see how they come out with these guys. I probably feel good about top 15 numbers for a couple years and top 30 numbers for quite a few after that. How many WRs can you say that about?
4.
Sterling Shepard...He was pretty good as a rookie, but still had just 685 yards. Those aren't fantasy WR2 numbers. He came in under 12 PPG this season, which is about replacement level, low-end WR3 numbers. He needs to make a pretty big jump to really be worth anything as a weekly fantasy asset. And he came in as an older guy with a lot of polish. He's locked in as the #2 WR on his own team with an aging QB. What are the chances he makes the leap to a 1,000 yard guy in 2017? I think you rank him in terms of what % chance you think he has of making that kind of leap in production.
5.
Tight Ends...Reed is almost impossible to rank because the concussion risk is such an unknown. When healthy, he's a huge difference maker. If you could guarantee me 16 games in 2017, I'd happily take him round 2 in redraft. I don't know what to do with him really. I think you're really underrating Hunter Henry. I was high on him last offseason and ranked him as a top 10 rookie and I think you're seeing that play out. It's so rare to see a 21-year old rookie tight end come in and score 8 touchdowns and look as good as Henry did. He's going to be a huge offseason riser in the ADP and rankings in my opinion. In the dynasty startup auction I'm doing, he was actually the 2nd most expensive TE behind only Gronk. A lot of dynasty owners really like him and I think you'll see his trade value spike this offseason. If you can get him relatively cheaply now, I'd jump all over it.
I like Ertz a lot too, but I'm not going to go too far out on a limb ranking him because I thought he was going to break out in 2015 and 2016 too and he got off to really slow starts both years.
