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Travdogg's positional rankings from week 16 onward (1 Viewer)

travdogg

Footballguy
I kinda debated whether to keep doing these this late in the season but figured, why not? At this point its probably less about roster management and more about who to start rankings. I'm ranking injured players as if they are playing (at least among non-IR guys) and am ranking as if week 18 matters, because for many leagues it does. With all that said:

QB
Tier 1:
1. Jalen Hurts (1)
2. Josh Allen (3)
3. Patrick Mahomes (2)
Tier 2:
4. Joe Burrow (4)
5. Justin Fields (5)
6. Trevor Lawrence (10), sure is looking like the #1 overall pick he was supposed to be of late. Jags control their own destiny to win the AFC South right now.
7. Geno Smith (6)
8. Justin Herbert (8)
9. Lamar Jackson (7)
Tier 3:
10. Kirk Cousins (14)
11. Tua Tagovailoa (9)
12. Dak Prescott (11)
Tier 4:
13. Daniel Jones (13)
14. Tom Brady (15)
15. Derek Carr (NR), been in the top-15 3 of his last 4, and just got Waller/Renfrow back.

Dropped off: Deshaun Watson (12), they seem to be hiding him a bit, and not using him all that differently than Brissett, which is disappointing, but its also resulted in a 2-1 record.
 
RB
Tier 1:
1. Josh Jacobs (1)
2. Christian McCaffrey (3)
3. Austin Ekeler (2)
Tier 2:
4. Derrick Henry (4)
5. Saquon Barkley (6)
Tier 3:
6. Nick Chubb (5)
7. Dalvin Cook (8)
8. Rhamondre Stevenson (11), well, the ankle sure looked fine. Whether Harris is back or not, he's the centerpiece of this offense, and is a 20+ point threat weekly.
9. Aaron Jones (9)
10. Kenneth Walker (12)
11. James Conner (16)
Tier 4:
12. Tony Pollard (13)
13. Miles Sanders (14)
14. Joe Mixon (10), Perine earned a bigger role while Mixon was hurt, and its really capping Mixon's upside.
15. Brian Robinson (20), 100+ yards in his last 3 games, and is emerging as the centerpiece of Washington's offense. He's also my pick for comeback player of the year.
Tier 5:
16. Ezekiel Elliott (17)
17. Travis Etienne (15)
18. Alvin Kamara (18)
19. Jerick McKinnon (NR), 2 straight weeks as the RB1 overall. Unlikely to maintain that level of upside, but its well past time to be taking him seriously as a starter.
Tier 6:
20. Najee Harris (21)
21. David Montgomery (22)
22. Isiah Pacheco (19), good yardage, but its mostly empty calorie yards. Not catches, or TDs.
23. JK Dobbins (NR), 245 yards in the 2 weeks he's been back. Still seeing a low workload though, so he needs to keep hitting big plays to pay off.
24. Zonovan Knight (25)
Tier 7:
25. Jamaal Williams (26)
26. D'Andre Swift (23)
27. Khalil Herbert (29)
28. AJ Dillon (NR), 3 straight good games, he's been much more involved in the redzone, since Jones shin injury.
29. Latavius Murray (NR), immense volume finally paid off. Now let's see it against someone better the Arizona.
30. D'Onta Foreman (NR), was a horrible dud last week, but still saw overwhelming majority of the rushing work.

Dropped off: Jonathan Taylor (7), an injury plagued disappointing season comes to an end. Colts offense has a lot of questions moving forward, and its obviously early, but Taylor probably isn't a guy I'm gonna be all that high on next season. Rachaad White (24), Leonard Fournette (27), TB isn;t a good rushing team, they aren't a good blocking team, and they aren't a high scoring team. What you are left with is a poor man's Zeke/Pollard in a worse offense. Antonio Gibson (28), starting to become a 3rd down back, and is occasionally being spelled in the backfield by Curtis Samuel.
 
WR
Tier 1:
1. Justin Jefferson (1)
2. Tyreek Hill (3)
3. Davante Adams (2)
4. Stefon Diggs (4)
5. Ja'Marr Chase (5)
Tier 2:
6. AJ Brown (6)
7. CeeDee Lamb (7)
8. Amon-Ra St. Brown (9)
Tier 3:
9. Jaylen Waddle (8)
10. Christian Kirk (11)
11. DK Metcalf (12)
12. Keenan Allen (14)
Tier 4:
13. Tyler Lockett (15)
14. Tee Higgins (13)
15. Terry McLaurin (16)
16. Garrett Wilson (17)
17. Chris Godwin (19)
18. Mike Williams (18)
Tier 5:
19. Amari Cooper (10), hasn't been a top-40 WR in any game since Watson came back. Starting to get a little nervous, but not writing that off as a sign of things to come yet.
20. Brandon Aiyuk (29), took a backseat to the Kittle/CMC show, but Purdy has impressed a bit, and Aiyuk will get his.
21. Chris Olave (22)
22. Mike Evans (24)
23. JuJu Smith-Schuster (25)
24. Christian Watson (23)
25. Michael Pittman (26)
26. DeAndre Hopkins (20), this is as high as I can rank a WR catching passes from Trace McSorley.
Tier 6:
27. DeVonta Smith (27)
28. Zay Jones (33)
29. Jerry Jeudy (28)
Tier 7:
30. DJ Moore (32)
31. Adam Thielen (31)
32. Allen Lazard (30)
33. Diontae Johnson (39), has looked like the Diontae of old with Trubisky behind center. They were trying to get him going even before that, so I'm not sure his target dominance is going away again.
34. Hollywood Brown (21), 2nd option in a Trace McSorley offense. Its a testament to how much I like Brown that he's still even on the list.
35. DJ Chark (35)
36. Treylon Burks (34)
Tier 8:
37. Drake London (NR), the 1 good thing Ridder did was relentlessly target his best WR. London has back-to-back solid weeks, while seeing an incredible 47% target share. Even in this offense, that has value.
38. Jakobi Meyers (36)
39. Courtland Sutton (37)
Tier 9:
40. Deebo Samuel (40)

Dropped off: Darius Slayton (38), been unstartable 3 of the last 4 weeks, after a nice midseason run.
 
TE
Tier 1:
1. Travis Kelce (1)
Tier 2:
2. Mark Andrews (2)
3. George Kittle (6)
Tier 3:
4. TJ Hockenson (3)
5. Evan Engram (9), top-7 in 3 straight, and Lawrence has been red hot. Engram isn't a great talent, but his situation is elite right now.
6. Pat Freiermuth (5)
7. Dallas Goedert (7)
8. David Njoku (8)
9. Dalton Schultz (4), while I don't buy Noah Brown as suddenly the #2 option, there is a bit of a too many cooks in the kitchen concern in Dallas other than Lamb. 30 pass attempts in 3 of the last 4 is a small pie.
Tier 4:
10. Gerald Everett (10)
11. Greg Dulcich (15)
12. Darren Waller (11)
Tier 5:
13. Juwan Johnson (NR), TD machine, is basically this year's Dawson Knox.
14. Cole Kmet (12)
15. Hayden Hurst (13)

Dropped off: Chigoziem Okonkwo (14), I like his talent, but I think his targets shrink with Burks expected back.

I wanna thank everyone for reading and commenting this year, and I wish you all good luck this week, and a Merry Christmas.
 
I’m outright cutting Lazard. GB can’t support 2 receivers let alone 5. They are all healthy and competing for targets. Mostly - they are blocking. No points for blocking. Bye bye. Even though I expect GB to have to throw a lot in a good weather game I would have to throw darts trying to find who gets the targets
 
15. Brian Robinson (20), 100+ yards in his last 3 games, and is emerging as the centerpiece of Washington's offense. He's also my pick for comeback player of the year.
Can you be comeback player of the year as a rookie?

Thanks. Good read as always
Probably not, but an exception should be made. I mean, who are the other candidates? Geno? CMC? Henry? I don't think overcoming an on-field injury, or a career of underperforming is a greater comeback than being shot in the preseason.

Side note, my current picks for awards:
MVP-Patrick Mahomes
OPOY- Justin Jefferson
DPOY-Nick Bosa
COY-Nick Sirianni
OROY-Garrett Wilson
DROY-Sauce Gardner
 
Joe Burrow is a cut above the others in tier 2. I think he belongs in tier 1.

And thanks as always for this thread.
 
Joe Burrow is a cut above the others in tier 2. I think he belongs in tier 1.

And thanks as always for this thread.
I think he's closer to the guys in his tier than he is to the top-3. The stats back that up as he's about 2.6 PPG behind any of the tier 1 guys, but only 1.7 PPG ahead of Fields.

Burrow doesn't have the rushing ceiling (despite a few TDs) that Hurts/Allen have, and he doesn't have the volume that Mahomes has.

I toyed with the idea of having Burrow in a tier of his own, but I hate doing that unless it's for somebody like a Kelce, who is so clearly a tier of his own.
 
71-901-5 in 14 games and you got my man Devonta at 27th in tier 6? I get AJ is the WR1 but Smith is a stud too.
 
much more involved in the redzone, since Jones shin injury.
This is criminally low based on his last 3 weeks.
Timeshare guys who are TD dependent aren't really my guys. Dillon only exceeded 14 touches in 1 of those games, and its the one Jones got injured in. 2 of those games were against rally bad teams as well, where GB had the luxury of staying with the run. I'm a little concerned about the MIA/MIN/DET schedule all being shootouts. Dillon is one of the better bets to score a TD in any game, but 60 yards seems like a reasonable over/under.

13. Tyler Lockett (15)
Seems high since he’s out week 16. 🤔
I did say I am ranking for leagues where week 18 matters. Lockett is probably a top-10 WR the last 2 weeks, maybe even top-5 in week 18. Pass heavy team, that will be playing for their playoff lives.
 
much more involved in the redzone, since Jones shin injury.
This is criminally low based on his last 3 weeks.
Timeshare guys who are TD dependent aren't really my guys. Dillon only exceeded 14 touches in 1 of those games, and its the one Jones got injured in. 2 of those games were against rally bad teams as well, where GB had the luxury of staying with the run. I'm a little concerned about the MIA/MIN/DET schedule all being shootouts. Dillon is one of the better bets to score a TD in any game, but 60 yards seems like a reasonable over/under.

13. Tyler Lockett (15)
Seems high since he’s out week 16. 🤔
I did say I am ranking for leagues where week 18 matters. Lockett is probably a top-10 WR the last 2 weeks, maybe even top-5 in week 18. Pass heavy team, that will be playing for their playoff lives.
Regarding Dillon, he’s not entirely TD dependent. I feel like that’s misstating his usage. Last game he was tested for a concussion, and they opted to hold him out the 4th quarter. Apparently he was not concussed.

I’m reasonably certain it would have been the AJD show to salt the game away, as that’s been GB’s preference when playing with a lead.

Also he does get receptions. I think you’re misunderstanding his value.

Those two were my only nits to pick. Otherwise yeoman’s work. 👍🏼
 
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71-901-5 in 14 games and you got my man Devonta at 27th in tier 6? I get AJ is the WR1 but Smith is a stud too.
I think his numbers, and Brown's to a lesser extent, have been inflated due to Goedert being out.

Smith with Goedert in 9 games: 46 catches, 481 yards, 3 TDs. An average of 5,1 catches, 53.4 yards, .33 TDs. Which over 17 games would be 86-907-5.

Smith without Goedert in 5 games: 25 catches, 420 yards, 2 TDs. An average of 5 catches, 84 yards, and .40 TDs. Which over 17 games would be 85-1428-7.
 
71-901-5 in 14 games and you got my man Devonta at 27th in tier 6? I get AJ is the WR1 but Smith is a stud too.
I think his numbers, and Brown's to a lesser extent, have been inflated due to Goedert being out.

Smith with Goedert in 9 games: 46 catches, 481 yards, 3 TDs. An average of 5,1 catches, 53.4 yards, .33 TDs. Which over 17 games would be 86-907-5.

Smith without Goedert in 5 games: 25 catches, 420 yards, 2 TDs. An average of 5 catches, 84 yards, and .40 TDs. Which over 17 games would be 85-1428-7.
Possible. But I'd still take him over slly of the tier 5 guys and some tier 4.
 
Deandre Hopkins, can do it no matter the QB. I bump him into top 20-24, He is a must start.
As someone who has him in 2 leagues, I hope you are right, but I'm not as optimistic. Sitting him in 1, and starting in the other where I have no choice.
Picked up Tampa D and now it's McSorley for ARI. Also have Hopkins. Start 3 WR's (Kupp out, Hopkins, Godwin, G Wilson, Higgins, Burks). It's too early to pick 3.
 
Interesting read as always, GB. We don't always agree, but you sure always follow the game.

Any thoughts on Deon Jackson with Johnathan Taylor out?
 
I kinda debated whether to keep doing these this late in the season but figured, why not? At this point its probably less about roster management and more about who to start rankings. I'm ranking injured players as if they are playing (at least among non-IR guys) and am ranking as if week 18 matters, because for many leagues it does. With all that said:

QB
Tier 1:
1. Jalen Hurts (1)
2. Josh Allen (3)
3. Patrick Mahomes (2)
Tier 2:
4. Joe Burrow (4)
5. Justin Fields (5)
6. Trevor Lawrence (10), sure is looking like the #1 overall pick he was supposed to be of late. Jags control their own destiny to win the AFC South right now.
7. Geno Smith (6)
8. Justin Herbert (8)
9. Lamar Jackson (7)
Tier 3:
10. Kirk Cousins (14)
11. Tua Tagovailoa (9)
12. Dak Prescott (11)
Tier 4:
13. Daniel Jones (13)
14. Tom Brady (15)
15. Derek Carr (NR), been in the top-15 3 of his last 4, and just got Waller/Renfrow back.

Dropped off: Deshaun Watson (12), they seem to be hiding him a bit, and not using him all that differently than Brissett, which is disappointing, but its also resulted in a 2-1 record.

Thank you! These are always difficult to do so thanks for sharing.

I don't understand not factoring injuries in though. Can you elaborate on that?
 
Interesting read as always, GB. We don't always agree, but you sure always follow the game.

Any thoughts on Deon Jackson with Johnathan Taylor out?
I actually think now that he's had a fair amount of time to learn the playbook, Zach Moss is the RB to own in Indy. I would have had him somewhere in the mid/late 30s at RB.

I think Jackson is more in that Nyheim Hines role, with room for a little more, because Moss obviously isn't Taylor.
 
Interesting read as always, GB. We don't always agree, but you sure always follow the game.

Any thoughts on Deon Jackson with Johnathan Taylor out?
I actually think now that he's had a fair amount of time to learn the playbook, Zach Moss is the RB to own in Indy. I would have had him somewhere in the mid/late 30s at RB.

I think Jackson is more in that Nyheim Hines role, with room for a little more, because Moss obviously isn't Taylor.

I hear ya. I'm biased because i have Jackson. I want to start him because of the Chargers' weak run defense and the likelihood they'll be ahead causing Jackson to play a larger role in a catch-up offense, but it's a risky, risky move to do so.

I also always thought Moss was pedestrian at best. I think Jordan Wilkins is actually a better back.
 
I kinda debated whether to keep doing these this late in the season but figured, why not? At this point its probably less about roster management and more about who to start rankings. I'm ranking injured players as if they are playing (at least among non-IR guys) and am ranking as if week 18 matters, because for many leagues it does. With all that said:

QB
Tier 1:
1. Jalen Hurts (1)
2. Josh Allen (3)
3. Patrick Mahomes (2)
Tier 2:
4. Joe Burrow (4)
5. Justin Fields (5)
6. Trevor Lawrence (10), sure is looking like the #1 overall pick he was supposed to be of late. Jags control their own destiny to win the AFC South right now.
7. Geno Smith (6)
8. Justin Herbert (8)
9. Lamar Jackson (7)
Tier 3:
10. Kirk Cousins (14)
11. Tua Tagovailoa (9)
12. Dak Prescott (11)
Tier 4:
13. Daniel Jones (13)
14. Tom Brady (15)
15. Derek Carr (NR), been in the top-15 3 of his last 4, and just got Waller/Renfrow back.

Dropped off: Deshaun Watson (12), they seem to be hiding him a bit, and not using him all that differently than Brissett, which is disappointing, but its also resulted in a 2-1 record.

Thank you! These are always difficult to do so thanks for sharing.

I don't understand not factoring injuries in though. Can you elaborate on that?
Not factoring injuries, in the sense of guys like Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson where I was ranking them as if they were playing this week because of the uncertainty of their status on Tuesday afternoon.

Tyler Lockett was another one, where I was ranking him as if he is playing week 17 and 18, so I don't wanna throw him down in the 30s just because he's out 1 game, only to move him right back up next week. Trusting fantasy managers to not start guys who are inactive but wanting to make sure they don't just outright drop somebody to an extent.
 
Interesting read as always, GB. We don't always agree, but you sure always follow the game.

Any thoughts on Deon Jackson with Johnathan Taylor out?
I actually think now that he's had a fair amount of time to learn the playbook, Zach Moss is the RB to own in Indy. I would have had him somewhere in the mid/late 30s at RB.

I think Jackson is more in that Nyheim Hines role, with room for a little more, because Moss obviously isn't Taylor.

I hear ya. I'm biased because i have Jackson. I want to start him because of the Chargers' weak run defense and the likelihood they'll be ahead causing Jackson to play a larger role in a catch-up offense, but it's a risky, risky move to do so.

I also always thought Moss was pedestrian at best. I think Jordan Wilkins is actually a better back.
Moss is a pedestrian back (which pains me to say, because I loved him at Utah) but they liked him enough to trade for him, and their actions when Taylor went down seemed to signal he's next in line.

I 100% agree that Jordan Wilkins is probably better than Moss (or Jackson) and always seems to do well when called upon (4.9 career YPC) but there is some reason he's been bouncing around practice squads.
 
but there is some reason he's been bouncing around practice squads.

I agree about Moss. Their actions did signal that, and they did acquire him for a reason, one presumes.

As far as the quoted, I agree also. At some point deference to scouting and the guys around him every day is a good thing to have. We often get in the evaluation game and can't figure out things the people closest to the players know.

Or sometimes they're so bad they just botch the situation...like hey-o!
 
Not factoring injuries, in the sense of guys like Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson where I was ranking them as if they were playing this week because of the uncertainty of their status on Tuesday afternoon.

Tyler Lockett was another one, where I was ranking him as if he is playing week 17 and 18, so I don't wanna throw him down in the 30s just because he's out 1 game, only to move him right back up next week. Trusting fantasy managers to not start guys who are inactive but wanting to make sure they don't just outright drop somebody to an extent.

Thanks. That's one of the biggest things that factor though in rest of season. If not, Kyler Murray and Kyle Pitts should be ranked. It's tricky, but predicting availability is as important as predicting performance for lots of these. And it's where things are most likely to go wrong.

I agree though, it's definitely a ton of work to try and account for injury.

Thanks again for these. It's a nice value add.
 

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