PIGSKIN PAPERS RANKINGS

(Posted August 30, 2021, updated August 31, 2021)

Welcome back - it was a busy weekend with a full slate of preseason games, plus lots of news and notes and a few key injuries. If you haven’t drafted yet (and we hope you haven’t - as we discussed over a month ago, nobody should be drafting until right before the season starts), make sure you get caught up on all the goings-on.

A number of readers requested player rankings. Those of you who have read our various pieces on draft preparation know that the Pigskin Papers strongly recommends that anyone who is playing fantasy football should make his or her own draft board, as opposed to relying on commercially available lists. Only by compiling your own rankings can you accomplish all of these things at once: (a) thinking about every player, his relative fantasy value, and how you see the season unfolding for him, if only for a couple of seconds, (b) ensuring that your rankings are reflective of your league’s rules, scoring system and tendencies, and (c) combatting the inherent biases that result from relying on the consensus of perceived values rather than your own beliefs and analysis. They call them cheatsheets for a reason - so don’t cheat yourself by using them as your own rankings. 

With that said - here are our partial cheatsheets for QB, RB, WR and TE. These reflect information available today. The assumptions here are as follows: one half of a point per reception, typical TD and yardage scoring, and 4 points for throwing a TD pass. The cheatsheets are ranked far enough down to cover the top “starters” at each position, in a 12 team league.   

QUARTERBACK

TIER I	

1 P. Mahomes			

2 K. Murray

3 J. Allen

4 L. Jackson				

TIER II 			

5 A. Rodgers

6 D. Prescott

7 J. Herbert

8 R. Wilson				

9 T. Brady			

10 R. Tannehill

TIER III

11 M. Stafford

12 J. Hurts

13 M. Ryan

14 J. Burrow

15. T. Lawrence

RUNNING BACK

TIER I

1 C. McCaffrey

2 D. Cook

3 D. Henry

4 A. Jones

5 E. Elliott

6 A. Kamara

TIER II

7 N. Chubb

8 A. Ekeler

9 N. Harris

10 C.E. Helaire

11 S. Barkley

12 J. Taylor

13 J. Mixon

14 A. Gibson

TIER III

15 C. Carson

16 D. Montgomery

17 J. Robinson

18 D. Henderson

19 D. Harris

20 G. Edwards

21 M. Davis

22 J. Jacobs

23 D. Swift

24 M. Sanders

25 R. Mostert

26 M. Gaskin

27 K. Hunt

WIDE RECEIVER

TIER I

1 D. Adams

2 T. Hill

3 C. Ridley

4 S. Diggs

5 D. Hopkins

TIER II

6 A.J. Brown

7 K. Allen

8 J. Jefferson

9 D.K. Metcalf

10 C. Lamb

11 A. Robinson

12 T. McLaurin

13 R. Woods

TIER III

14 J. Jones

15 M. Evans

16 T. Lockett

17 C. Kupp

18 A. Cooper

19 D.J. Moore

20 G. Godwin

21 A. Thielen

22 T. Higgins

23 D. Johnson

24. O. Beckham

25. C. Sutton

26. B. Aiyuk

27 C. Claypool

TIGHT END

TIER I

1 T. Kelce

2 D. Waller

TIER II

3 G. Kittle

4 K. Pitts

5 M. Andrews

6 L. Thomas

7 T.J. Hockenson

TIER III

8 R. Tonyan

9 T. Higbee

10 N. Fant

11 T. Higbee

12 M. Gesicki

13 R. Gronkowski

14 D. Goedart

15 J. Smith