Fantasy Football Top-100 Players Ranked To Prepare For Trade Deadline Season
Little Week 10 fantasy football check-in for you. Sorry for the overlapping figures lower down. Still need to find a way to smooth that out properly. Whatever. Trade deadlines are coming around the corner so it's time to get a good look at what rank all the top players are currently in when accounting for differences in position played. Now that we have a good nine to ten week sample size, things are starting to crystalize.
I didn't mean for that to rhyme.
If you want the business casual nerdy nitty-gritties on how I calculate wins above replacement, check out my Substack blog below. I do weekly updates there for those interested. But let's check out a few names here and you can peruse the full list as well yourself.
Jonathan Taylor
The only reason Christian McCaffrey isn't worlds behind Taylor is because of the fake crutch PPR gives you. Check out my Week 10 Substack post if you want to see how dominant he is in standard settings. Although in true fantasy football style, my buddy with Taylor in the home standard league somehow managed to lose with him this week. Jordan Love and Romeo Doubs had something to do with that too.
Christian McCaffrey
My overall #1 ranked player coming in. No one had JT on their board at #1, so I'm still feeling good about this take. Everyone was scared off from the calf concern. Injury this. Injury that. The funny thing is he's pretty much the only 49er that hasn't gotten injured this year. But his opportunity as a premier dual-threat work horse was clear as day even when his efficiency is down due to the aforementioned morgue of a team by his side.
Looks like I knew ball, after all. (meant it on that one)
Jaxson Smith-Njigba / Amon Ra St. Brown
So, this is the part where I admit I actually don't know ball. I was down on both of these guys. Wasn't sold on Darnold being real. WRONG. Wasn't sold on Detroit's offense being as explosive without Ben Johnson. WRONG WRONG! You win some, you lose some. Any fantasy analyst that tells you otherwise is selling you something.
Quarterbacks
Josh Allen being worth a second round pick is pretty low for his standards, but still returning at least a little value for those who took him at him 23-26ish overall ADP. He's the surest thing in fantasy football. Then you have Pat Mahomes, who I liked pre-draft as well. A bounce back from last year just seemed pretty much automatic, especially with the bad glare the Super Bowl left in everyone's eyes. That's how you buy low.
Then we have Drake Maye. He hasn't had his bye yet, so this might slip down once a replacement-level performance is inserted in the model. But I really liked him and Caleb Williams as sophomore quarterbacks to take a chance on. Even getting them both and seeing who pops or just playing the matchups. Never expected Maye to be the MVP favorite in real football though. The Patriots seem to be playing the Colts Manning to Luck card. Although probably a better deal since the odds of Maye retiring in his prime are pretty slim.
I'll stop there, but this list can at least give you a frame work for evaluating some trade options. Obviously, not perfect, but something.
Let's have a little fun now. I always like to remind people that things can be worse when you have a player who goose eggs you or gives you 2.5 out of a projected 11.67 when you need 2.8 to win your week. Those 88% win chances they give you going into those games sure seem to lose about 88% of the time. But - it could be worse! Here is the worst realistically possible PPR team for Week 10 (player must be started in at least 30% of ESPN leagues).
28.3 PPR points
Honestly. I've seen worse. But maybe your team smashed in Week 10. Feeling good about yourself? Well, just know that you could have scored more had you picked up this squad of losers all available on the free agent market Sunday morning:
Nice of George Holani's family to have the faith and start him up. I have not idea who the hell that is. Or Chris Rodriguez. Seems like Chris had more friends than George at least.
That's it for now. Again - if you want to nerd out on how WAR is calculated, check this out below. I even have some Week 10 Standard / 2QB top-100 WAR graphs as well for Week 10's post.