Now that fantasy football draft season is in full swing, I have curated a selection of all the best arguments I’ve made about my favorite players to draft.
I’ve gone into much greater detail across Anatomy of a League Winner, my deep dive into the fantasy impact of returning and new playcallers (seriously, this angle is massively important and the piece is an absolute banger), and my Statistically Significant series. But if you simply trust me and want to draft all the players I like the most, this article will be all you need.
My “official” rankings are the ones Scott Barrett and I collaborated on here (which will be continuously updated throughout August); however, at the bottom of this article, I’ll also include my personal top-60 overall rankings as they stand after Week 1 of the preseason. These should help you strategically navigate the first few rounds of your drafts based on your host site’s unique ADP, while the players I’ve written blurbs for below should just about take care of the rest of your draft. (Note that I am not including any players with Round 1 ADPs in the write-ups; check the rankings at the bottom for those.)
For this article, I’m going to err on the side of giving you more names to target rather than fewer. The players below are ranked and tiered in order by desirability and value at the ADPs for the platforms listed (ESPN, Yahoo!, or Sleeper). I’d advise you to prioritize higher-ranked players (and higher-tiered players across positions) when deciding between multiple of my targets at similar ADPs.
If a platform isn’t listed below a player’s name, they aren’t a major target for me at ADP on that site. If major differences exist in a player’s value between listed platforms, they will be noted. (Platform differences are the biggest deal at QB and TE, mostly because those positions as a whole are drafted much earlier on ESPN, affecting the values.)
Everything below assumes a 12-team PPR league that starts 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 TE, and a FLEX. My targets won’t change drastically in other starting lineup formats, but my overall draft strategy and prioritization of different positions will (e.g., I’m more likely to spend up for Jayden Daniels in a 10-team league, and less likely to start a draft RB/RB in a 3WR + 2 FLEX league). My strategy for ESPN’s default settings (different from what I outlined above) is covered in detail here.
I’m also going to denote potential “power-law” players — as Scott Barrett discussed them in Upside Wins Championships and formerly in our Underrated Upside series — with a bolded (PL) next to their name and team. Think of these players as the highest-upside selections you can make at their respective ADPs. You’ll notice these largely align with my rankings; that is by design.
