With Robert Turbin due back this week from suspension there is no better time to do our first Rest of Season rankings for the 2018 fantasy football season.
All kidding aside, with players such as Julian Edelman and Mark Ingram back from suspension this week as well multiple swings from the pendulum of fantasy value at the seasons quarter pole, there is indeed no better time to dig deep and take a hard look at the rest of season values for all fantasy relevant players.
Wide Receivers
Risers
Michael Thomas forced his way up four spots to first overall following a record setting reception pace after four games; JuJu Smith-Schuster rose ten spots to eighth overall after being anointed 1b in Pittsburgh; Julian Edelman is back from suspension and jumped 18 spots to 13th overall while fellow WR1s Adam Thielen and Alshon Jeffery both jumped eight spots to 16th and 17th respectively. Brandin Cooks jumped nine spots with Jared Goff proving he’s legit while teammate Robert Woods jumped 33 spots to 22nd overall. Kenny Golladay climbed twenty spots to 26, while fellow sophomore Mike Williams leaped 18 spots to 28th overall; rookie Calvin Ridley leaped 29 spots to 32, while John Brown and Cooper Kupp both saw seven spot jumps and now rest firmly in the WR3 ranks. Other notable risers include Devin Funchess, DeSean Jackson, Sterling Shepard, Quincy Enunwa, Taylor Gabriel, Keke Coutee and Ryan Grant who has emerged as the number two receiver in Indianapolis. The biggest winners in terms of ranking jumps at the seasons quarter pole include Geronimo Allison who jumped a massive 55 spots as we expected him to be pushed out of the rotation by J’Mon Moore and Marquez Valdes Scantling and third year receiver Tyler Boyd who saw our biggest movement with an unheard of 62 spot jump. We had Andy Dalton pegged as only being able to support two fantasy receivers and Tyler Eifert but erroneously had the mistake prone John Ross penned in as the number two.
Fallers
Players that took the biggest tumble in our rankings include Amari Cooper who fell 17 spots due to inconsistent play from both himself and his quarterback. TY Hilton dropped 17 spots as well with Andrew Luck still not yet all the way back (his YPA has improved week to week though) and thus mitigating his deep ball upside. Larry Fitzgerald took a 19 spot tumble due both to horrible quarterback play but also due to other names jumping out in front of him as far as rest of season expectations and projections go. Michael Crabtree fell 13 spots with John Brown emerging as the Ravens yardage and touchdown leader and the 1b in this offense. Doug Baldwin fell seven spots to 22nd overall due to lingering injury issues while Marquise Goodwin experienced a 17 spot drop due to the season ending injury to his quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Randall Cobb dropped twelve spots mostly due to ineffectiveness while Pierre Garçon saw an eleven spot dip due to the aforementioned injury to Jimmy G.
Other notable fallers include Kelvin Benjamin, Josh Doctson and Donte Moncrief who fell from flex rankings to bye week filler options to Robby Anderson, Michael Gallup, Josh Ross, Chris Hogan, James Washington, Allen Hurns and DaVante Parker who have found themselves on waiver wires in many leagues after looking like flex2 options this summer.
Running Backs
Risers
At running back we have seen the biggest value jumps from: undrafted free agent Philip Lindsay who jumped an incredible 68 spots and is now ranked ahead of fellow rookie in teammate Royce Freeman; in San Francisco Matt Breida appears to have secured the lead back job and has seen a 21 spot jump; Austin Ekeler has been on fire for San Diego and has seen a 25 spot jump as he has carved out standalone value; with Kenneth Dixon on IR and Alex Collins running on fumes Javorius Allen has jumped 23 spots; James White has seen a 26 spot rise with both Rex Burkhead and Jeremy Hill landing on IR and Nyheim Hines who is conservatively ranked but still saw a 22 spot increase based largely on the strength of him leading the Colts in receptions after four weeks.
Fallers
The most notable dip in our rankings is former consensus top three fantasy back David Johnson who slipped seven spots in our rankings to ninth overall. The Cards just aren’t very good right now limiting offensive snaps and with that DJ’s upside. Two of our offseason RB2s slipped seven spots apiece in Lamar Miller and Derrick Henry while fellow RB2 Rashaad Penny saw a drastic 20 spot fall with both Chris Carson and Mike Davis currently working ahead of him for the Seattle Seahawks. Ranked as potential volume backs both Alfred Morris and Jordan Wilkins have seen twelve spots drops while Jamaal Williams has dropped 13 with Aaron Jones back from suspension and Williams looking pedestrian thus far in his NFL career. Projected to have sizeable roles both LaGarette Blount and CJ Anderson have disappointed this season leading to 19 and 14 spot drops respectively.
Tight End
The tight end position has seen quite a bit of volatility namely because of injuries but there has also been some outstanding play from players like Jared Cook who jumped 17 spots from 23rd overall to sixth overall, and this is a ranking that is admittedly conservative based solely on what we have seen over the first four weeks of the season from the Carr and Cook connection. Cook currently leads the Raiders in all receiving categories and with the volume and air yards he is seeing this is a trend that could continue for the rest of the season. Another tight end who has seen notable upward movement is the San Francisco 49ers George Kittle who jumped seven spots in our rest of season rankings due largely to the fact that Jimmy G was lost for the season as CJ Beathard seems to have a greater affinity for the talented tight end who was his college teammate at Iowa. On the other side of the spectrum however our most notable movement includes Chicago Bears tight end and popular offseason breakout candidate Trey Burton who has dropped four spots in our rankings to ninth overall. Trubisky has not utilized Burton as ‘his Travis Kelce’ in the Nagy offense and perhaps we were all a little too bullish on a non comparable talent tied to a sophomore QB who has only shown flashes in the NFL. We have also seen a pair of injured tight ends move down our rankings with Greg Olsen tumbling five spots to 12th overall and Evan Engram falling four spots to 13th overall. This movement is notable because OJ Howard who is also injured and expected to miss 2-4 weeks actually did not move a spot in our rankings (though this is because tight ends ranked ahead of him this preseason dropped). With Greg Olsen we still do not have a firm timetable for his return while with Evan Engram, well, Eli.
Quarterback
The quarterback position has been a fun one to watch with all sorts of records being set through the first four weeks of the season. We have seen some major movement in our rankings versus what we had in the preseason including Patrick Mahomes who we ranked as a QB1 at 11th overall but now finds himself ranked as our number two overall QB for the rest of the season. Other QBs that have seen dramatic rises include Kirk Cousins who has been able to throw at will with the Minnesota Vikings forgetting how to play defense and run the ball. Jared Goff has jumped all the way into our top-12 due to his extraordinary play with his trio of pro bowl level receivers. We have seen Matt Ryan recapture his MVP form following the emergence of Calvin Ridley and he now sits at 13th in our RoS rankings. Our other most notable upward movement includes Jameis Winston who is back at the helm of the Bucs and currently sits comfortable at 14th overall; Andy Dalton who has a very fantasy friendly schedule and has found new life with Tyler Boyd emerging as a legit number two receiver and last but certainly not least, one of my least favorite QB’s in the league in Joe Flacco who is on pace to smash a number of his career highs including total passing yardage, yards per game, completions, QBR and touchdowns thanks largely in part to his trio of veteran free agent additions at the wide receiver position in John Brown, Michael Crabtree and Willie Snead. Flacco saw a massive jump to 17th overall, climbing ten spots from our offseason ranking that pegged the Ravens as a run happy, conservative offense. Conversely the quarterbacks that had the most notable downward movement include Russell Wilson who dropped precipitously all the way down from fifth to 16th overall. Wilson has struggled this season with Doug Baldwin injured for most of it, and is putting up numbers closer to hs 2014 numbers than the past few seasons that saw him finish as a top fantasy QB. The lack of weapons seems to have finally caught up with him. Other QBs that saw notable drops in our rankings include Derek Carr who dropped seven spots after looking wholly incompetent despite high passing yardage through the first three weeks of the season. It appears that Carr is still adjusting to John Gruden’s offense but his unwillingness or inability to get his talented wide receivers going and the resulting lack of weekly consistency has tanked his stock. Dak Prescott also took a mini four spot tumble down our rankings to 22nd overall. Now while we all knew he had the least talented receiver corps in the NFL and that Dak is more of a glorified game manager, I don’t think any of us realized how bad he would truly be without his two former pro bowlers in the retired Jason Witten and the street agent Dez Bryant.
