Ras Rizzla aka @fantasycontext updates his ROS rankings following some major trades and Le’veon Bell’s impending return to the Steelers.
Creeping up on the fantasy football seasons halfway point there is no better time to take a look at our rest of season rankings. After witnessing the stunning Carlos Hyde trade to the Jacksonville jaguars and the even more shocking Amari Cooper trade to the Dallas Cowboys there was much added need to make an immediate revisit our rankings. Player roles had become more clearly defined and there were some fantasy breakouts. On top of that the imminent return of Le’Veon Bell to the Pittsburgh Steelers now affects two RB1s. Taking all these things into consideration there is no time like the present for us to jump into our rankings.
At quarterback our biggest mover was none other than Andrew Luck. Through the first few weeks of the season Luck’s yards per attempt were at a drastic career low and then there was the Jacoby Brissett hail mary attempt that seemed to confirm all of our suspicions were true. Andrew Luck’s arm s strength has deteriorated; he has lingering injury issues that he will never recover from. Fast forward to today and Andrew Luck is on pace to set new career highs in completions, touchdowns and completion percentage assuaging any doubters along the way. Mitchell Trubisky also saw a notable six spot jump to a very conservative 19th overall. Trubisky has shined as a fantasy performer over his last three games taking complete advantage of the plus matchups he had on tap. Trubisky has emerged from his early season struggles and bust cries as a matchup based QB1 going forward. The Dallas Cowboys’ Dak Prescott has seen a similar six spot leap up our rest of season rankings following some recent strong fantasy play against Washington and the Jacksonville Jaguars and the stunning addition of former first team all pro Amari Cooper.
At running back our biggest mover up the rankings is none other than Nick Chubb who skydived all the way to a conservative ranking of 18th overall following the stunner that saw Carlos Hyde traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Hyde acquisition put a bleak fantasy outlook on starter Leonard Fournette who may not be recovering on schedule and if our suspicions are true may be held out until week 16 or 17 as the Jags look to get him ready for their expected playoff run. Our second biggest mover is Wendell Smallwood of the Philadelphia Eagles who skyrocketed up our rankings to 34th overall following Jay Ajayi being placed on IR. Corey Clement looks like the better runner but it is clear that a Smallwood is the more complete back in Philly. Kerryon Johnson has emerged as the best Lions running back since Matthew Stanford arrived in Detroit and rose nine spots in our rankings to 14th overall. Tevin Coleman saw a ten spot jump with Devonta Freeman placed on IR while Marlon Mack jumped twenty spots to 21st overall following a couple of big games that secured his position as lead back. Elsewhere in the NFC the Chicago Bears Tarik Cohen has emerged as a fantasy star jumping 27 spots to seventeenth overall while dropping teammate Jordan Howard eight spots to 19th overall. The only player that moved up to RB1 territory because of his play this season however is none other than the New England Patriots James White. White has been on an absolute tear this season as he’s on pace for 90 receptions, 900 receiving yards and six touchdowns. White’s fantasy dominance this season is highlighted by his work in the passing game where he leads all backs with 61 targets and is second in both receptions and yards with 45 and 380 respectively. The shifty New England back has parlayed his 119.8 weighted opportunity to 1.42 fantasy points per opportunity, good for ninth among running backs. On the other end of the spectrum two backs not mentioned above that took tumbles down our rankings are the Green Bay Packers Aaron Jones who fell eleven spots to 25th overall and Washington’s Chris Thompson who dropped twelve spots. Aaron Jones’ fall is due largely in part due to his continued failures in the passing game both as a receiver and blocker which have caused him to be taken off the field all too much for his talent level. Chris Thompson slipped both due to Adrian Peterson looking spry and due to weekly injury concerns that are expected to linger throughout the season.
At tight end our two biggest risers are David Njoku and Eric Ebron who have both solidified themselves as TE1’s this season. Ebron seems to finally be living up to his potential in Indianapolis and has jumped six spots to ninth overall. Ebron would be even higher based on his recent play but we need to see his usage, snap share and target percentage when both T.Y Hilton and Jack Doyle are both healthy. David Njoku has emerged as one of Baker Mayfield’s top targets and has the elite target percentage to show for it. Njoku looks to have cemented his position as a high upside TE1 for years to come after displaying a strong rapport with Baker. On the flip side our two biggest fallers are OJ Howard of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Minnesota Vikings Kyle Rudolph who both remain TE1’s but have seen other names get healthy or move past them based on role and production. OJ Howard is arguably a top three talent at the tight end position but unlike his elite counterparts he only plays 60 percent of the snaps and sees a paltry 12.4 percent target share which is 20th among tight ends. As per our friends at playerprofiler Howard is one of the most efficient tight ends in the league ranking fifth in both fantasy points per route with 0.64 and fantasy points per target with 2.24. Howard could truly explode if given a chance but with Cameron Brate receiving an extension this offseason we can bet that may never happen under this current Bucs regime. To say that Kyle Rudolph has been a disappointment this year would be an understatement. The fantasy world at large expected a monster campaign from the pro bowl caliber tight end who was welcoming Jordan Reed aficionado Kirk Cousins to town. Lest, it was not to be. Kyle Rudolph still ranks as a TE1 on the season and is thus still a valuable fantasy commodity. We however had him pegged to push for top five numbers at the position, but with a repulsive 11.9 percent target share that is just not going to happen.
Adam Thielen pole vaulted an improbable fourteen spots to first overall in our rankings after establishing himself as the most consistent receiver in football surpassing even Hall of Fame bound Antonio Brown. After a successful transition to the New England Patriots Josh Gordon moved back to where we had him for most of the offseason jumping 13 spots to 16th overall. The best is still yet to come for Gordon and he could find himself in WR1 mix by the next time we do these rankings. Michael Thomas of the New Orleans Saints, dropped six spots to seventh overall after showing he is still only human. After a record setting pace to start to the season in the receptions department Michael Thomas has 15 total receptions over the past three games, a number he topped in week one. Thomas remains an elite WR1 but may see more valleys than peaks the rest of the way when compared to his torrid start to the 2018 campaign. Popular breakout candidate Corey Davis has seen his share of some of the toughest corners in the league but Marcus Mariota and Titans OC Matt LaFleur have at times proven too comfortable letting him serve as a glorified decoy. Davis dropped seven spots to 21st overall. Allen Robinson also dropped seven spots with Mitch Trubisky struggling to get him the ball downfield while simultaneously leading Taylor Gabriel who jumped 17 spots and Anthony Miller to bigger roles than expected. His target share of 20.8 percent ranks him 31st among receivers, a percentage that makes him look like more of a WR3 or flex than the upside WR2 his fantasy owners were hoping he would be. Other players seeing notable jumps include Jordy Nelson who moved up eight spots to 26th overall following the Amari Cooper trade and Devin Funchess who up until now has remained the Panthers number one receiver with more talented rookie teammate DJ Moore seeing only 35 percent of the offensive snaps. The wide receiver position is often the most volatile and thus saw the most far reaching player movement. Three players whose fantasy outlooks changed pretty drastically over the past few weeks include Calvin Ridley who only dropped six spots but saw his WR2 upside go up in smoke with Mohamed Sanu and Austin Hooper proving to remain heavily involved, ostensibly at the rookies expense. Larry Fitzgerald was an afterthought in Mike McCoy’s offensive scheme and caused him to slip a eye popping 19 spots as he can no longer be trusted as a non bye starting option. There may be hope on the way in the form of the firing of McCoy and the promotion of Bruce Arian’s disciple Byron Leftwich. Will Fuller also saw a six spot drop largely in part due to Deshaun Watson’s inability to keep his star number two receiver consistently involved in the offense when impressive rookie Keke Coutee is on the field. Three players who made mammoth jumps up our rankings are Tre’Quan Smith who leaped 43 spots to 39th overall following Ted Ginn being placed on IR and Martavis Bryant skyrocketing 66 spots following some strong play and the Amari Cooper trade to Dallas. Finally we saw Tyrell Williams jumping 36 spots to 53rd overall dropping sophomore teammate Mike Williams down 23 spots to 51st overall in the process after back to back 118 yard games.
Since the wide receiver position has as little as three fantasy relevant players per team on average we could keep you here all day reading how far and why players dropped or rose up our projections but we will instead tag some of the other major movers in our rankings notes so you can get to perusing them now.
Have fun, enjoy and hit us up @fantasycontext if you agree or disagree, we would love to hear from you as always.
