Thin Air

One of the keys to building a winning fantasy team is stockpiling wide receivers. These players can be impacted by many factors beyond their control, including quarterback play, target share and scheme in the long term, and by injuries, match-ups, and weather in the short term. So get a bunch of them.

Wide receiver is deep, but you don’t want to wait too long to start adding them. A 20 round, 12-team draft will see over 80 WR selected. Such an unwieldy number will require me to slightly revise the way I rank them. I’m going to loosely rank them, but once I talk about one WR, I’ll discuss all the fantasy relevant WR on that team at the same time. This will eliminate a lot of repetitive information.

Continue reading Fantasy Football 2021: Wide Receivers

There are many ways to win in fantasy football, but the most tried and true template for success is drafting 1-2 RB in the first two rounds and then drafting WR over the next few rounds. The position I don’t like to find myself in is where I feel forced to go RB in round three. This year, and every year, the WR available between 20-35 in ADP are pretty much guaranteed points. They’re number one receivers who are locked in to receive the lion’s share of targets on their teams. The only real obstacle to a good season for one of these guys is injury. This is not the case with these third tier running backs. The runners still available between 20-35 start around RB13. The backs in this range are extremely talented, but they tend to be in time shares which can negatively impact their numbers or they’re getting solid opportunities in bad offenses. If you want a Clyde Edwards-Helaire, D’Andre Swift, or JK Dobbins, you pass up the likes of Justin Jefferson, Terry McLaurin, and Keenan Allen. I can see these runners losing opportunities for any number of reasons, but the only way these wideouts don’t produce is personal injury or their quarterback going down. Otherwise, they’re going to see well over 100 targets each year and they’re immune to game scripts and backfield committees. I’m not saying never take a running back in this range, but history shows the bust rate is higher than it is for a legit WR1.

Continue reading Fantasy Football 2021: Running Backs