With the Stampede Blue Shakedown, and New Era Scouting fantasy football league drafts complete I can release my rankings to help anyone drafting in the last week and a half before the opener. Rankings are based off of Pro Football Prospectus' player projections (adjusted in a few places I thought were out of whack) and I recommend using the scarcity and variation study and opportunity cost drafting strategy outlined by Brian Burke at Advanced NFL Stats.
Based on the scoring used in the New Era Scouting league (most recent draft similar but not identical scoring to the Stampede Blue leagues).
Ranking after the jump.
QBs (broken into a new tier when there is a 5pt drop in projected season total to the next player or 10 point drop from the start of the tier)
- 1. P Manning
- 2. Brady
- 3 Brees
4McNabb - 5 Garrard
6 Romo
7 Roethlisb - 8 Rodgers
9 Jackson
10 Rivers
11 Palmer - 12 Favre
13 Garcia
14 Hasselbeck
15 Anderson
16 Cutler
17 Schaub
18 Bulger - 19 Delhomme
20 E Manning - 21 Croyle
- 22 Kitna
23 Alex Smith
24 Pennington
- 25 Campbell
26 Russel
27 Warner
28 O'Sullivan
29 Ryan
30 Young - 31 Edwards
Massive Drop-off
- 32 Orton
33 Boller
RBs (tiered same as before)
- 1 Tomlinson
- 2 Westbrook
- 3 Peterson
- 4 Jackson
- 5 Lynch
- 6 Addai
7 Grant
8 Graham
9 Jones-Drew
10 Maroney
- 11 L Johnson
12 Jacobs
13 Portis
14 McFadden - 15 Gore
16 MBIII
17 R Brown
18 Lewis
19 Mendenhall
- 20 F Taylor
21 McGahee
22 Chris Johns
23 Parker
- 24 James
25 Bush
26 S Young
27 T Jones
28 DeAnglo W
- 29 L White
30 C Taylor
- 31 J Stewart
32 K Smith
- 33 J Jones
34 Forte
- 35 C Brown
36 F Jones
Big Drop-Off
- 37 R Johnson
38 Norwood
39 Turner
- 40 Fargas
41 Bradshaw
42 A Green - 43 P Thomas
Big Drop-Off
- 44 Ray Rice
- 45 R Williams
- 46 Deuce M
47 Foster
WRs (Same tiering)
- 1 R Moss
- 2 Owens
- 3 Wayne
4 A Johnson
- 5 Burress
6 Holmes
7 Colston - 8 Edwards
9 Fitzgerald
10 C Johns (CIN) - 11 A Gonzalez
12 Galloway
- 13 S. Smith
14 Jennings
- 15 Evans
16 Berrian
17 Driver
18 Welker
19 White
20 Harrison
21 Houshmanzadeh
22 Holt
23 R Williams (DET) - 24 Marshall
25 Porter
26 Boldin
- 27 Chambers
- 28 B Johnson
- 29 S Moss
30 Bowe
31 C Johns (DET)
32 Coles
33 Ginn
34 Cotchery
- 35 Gage
36 Stallworth
37 V Jackson
38 Toomer
39 Hackett
- 40 Burleson
41 Bruce
42 Ward
43 J Jones
- 44 Clayton (BAL)
45 Mason
46 L Robinson
- 47 Crayton
48 Bennet
49 R. Williams (TEN)
50 Rice
51 Randle El
- 52 Walker
53 Booker
54 Patten
55 Wilford
- 56 Gaffney
57 Hagan
58 Curry
- 59 D Williams
60 Muhammad
61 Meachem
62 McCareins
63 S Smith (NY)
64 C Taylor
65 Bryant
- 66 Branch
67 Hester
68 Hardy
- 69 D Jackson
TEs
- 1 Gates
- 2 Witten
3 Winslow
Big Drop-Off
- 4 Gonzalez
- 5 Clark
Big Drop-Off
- 6 Cooley
- 7 Daniels
8 Shockey
9 H Miller
- 10 McMichael
11 Heap
12 Watson
13 V Davis
- 14 D Lee
15 Crumpler
16 Olsen
17 Z Miller
18 Scheffler
19 Carlson
- 20 Shiancoe
21 Keller
22 Lewis
23 LJ Smith
24 Des Clark
- 25 Utecht
26 A Smith
27 Scaife
28 King
- 29 Fasano
30 Royal
31 Boss
- 32 Graham
33 Pope
34 Walker
- 35 F Davis
D/K
- There really isn't a ton a variance. The value just slowly drops at a pretty consistent rate. I never take a D or Kicker before the 2nd to last round in a draft with no IDPs.
With the projected point totals I got from PFP's projections adapted to the league scoring let me use the strategy Brian Burke talked about in the link above. In each player row in my spreadsheet I have columns that list the dropoff 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 14 players down at each position. I estimate the number of players at that position that will be taken at that position before my next pick and look to that column. The player with the biggest dropoff in that column has the best value.
If you want a copy of the spreadsheet I used for the NES draft e-mail me and I'll hook you up (click my name at the top to get to my profile which has my e-mail). And no you can't have the spreadsheet with the PFP projections now. It has my 18 to 88 league rankings and even if I deleted them it would be very quick to rebuild that formula from the projections and league scoring.
As a final note, the projections from Football Outsiders which I used have been far better at predicting declines than calling breakouts. They are the circling vultures on the guys they don't project highly, but their breakout players are hit and miss.
Hopefully this will help a few of you in your late drafts. Good Luck.