Fantazzle Fantasy Football Games – 2009 Quarterback Rankings

Ranking Credibility
In 2008, Fantazzle Fantasy Sports Games, was the #1 preseason fantasy football ranking site by the FSTA and Fantasy Football Librarian besting over 20 fantasy sites, including household names and leaders in sports and fantasy football.

Fantasy Football Quarterbacks – Overall
I have never liked to select a QB early. I always grab two QBs around round ~10 or later where one can be counted on to be consistently avg to above avg. And the other has decent upside. That changed last year when I selected Tom Brady in a lot of drafts where I had a mid first round pick. Well, that didn’t work out so well. QB is starting to become a priority no matter if your playing in a 4pt or 6pt per passing TD. There are just not enough guys I feel comfortable using as starters to wait this late this year. I’m not going to reach for the top tier, but I’m not going to risk missing out on tier 2 guys. Tier 3 are just way too much of a risk with all the team changes and injury concerns.

That said, I feel QBs are relatively easy to rank in the top two tiers, but much harder after that.

Fantasy Football Quarterbacks Scoring
4pts TD; 1pt every 25 yards; -2pts Int/fumble

QUARTERBACKS TIER 1
TIER 1 Fantasy Football Quarterbacks
1 Drew Brees
2 Tom Brady
TIER 2 Fantasy Football Quarterbacks
3 Kurt Warner I hate the injury concern, but he’s a clear #3 if he stays healthy.
4 Philip Rivers
5 Tony Romo I don’t see as big a drop off as everyone else. Big value pick.
6 Peyton Manning Great QB, but he’ll drop slightly from last year making him overrated.
7 Aaron Rodgers Is he as good as everyone thinks? I think he’s slightly overrated.
TIER 3 Fantasy Football Quarterbacks
8 Donovan McNabb His weapons are getting better. He could finish even higher.
9 Matt Schaub Healthy, you’ll get incredible value where he’s being drafted.
10 Jay Cutler He’s too good to drop too much. Not sure people realize that the Bears throw a lot.
TIER 4 Fantasy Football Quarterbacks
11 Matt Hasselback He doesn’t have Holmgren, but I think people forget how good he is.
12 Carson Palmer Risky pick…worth a shot if he drops far enough.
13 Eli Manning
TIER 5 Fantasy Football Quarterbacks
14 Kyle Orton Risky…I’m hating life if I have to start him or anyone below him.
15 Matt Ryan
16 David Garrard
17 Chad Pennington
18 Brett Favre More 2pt games than 20pts. Plus the injury that’s bound to happen.
19 Brady Quinn I’m not recommending, but he does have a lot of potential.
20 Matt Cassel Is he going to miss time with his injury?
21 Ben Roethlisberger There is no way he plays all 16 games.
22 Trent Edwards
23 Jake Delhomme
24 Jason Campbell
25 Joe Flacco

Fantasy Football Quarterbacks – Conclusion
If you get a tier 1, your set. Personally, I’d rather have a Tier 1 WR or top Tier 2 RB, because I know I’ll get a Tier 2 and they’ll do pretty good. I dont see much risk with the Tier 2′s. Barring an unexpected injury, its hard to see any of those guys being busts. Thats makes them a lot different than RBs and to a degree, WRs where a bust is more possible with a T2. If you get a QB you feel is risky, then you better get a good backup (tier 3 or 4…I don’t recommend messing around with T5s).

Good luck!
Fantazzle Weekly Fantasy Games
Fantazzle’s Fantasy Football Games

Fantasy Football Tight End Rankings tomorrow.

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Fantazzle Fantasy Football Games – 2009 Running Back Rankings

Ranking Credibility
In 2008, Fantazzle Fantasy Sports Games, was the #1 preseason fantasy football ranking site by the FSTA and Fantasy Football Librarian besting over 20 fantasy sites, including household names and leaders in sports and fantasy football.

Fantasy Football Running Backs – Overall
Running back strategy has shifted. You have heard it before and I’ll repeat: if you don’t have one of the first 4 overall picks, you’re taking a chance at this position. In the first round you want a sure thing and running backs just don’t offer that anymore. Split time, injury concerns, inconsistency, you name it. If I’m in the bottom half of the draft order, I’m picking WRs with my first two picks and stacking up on RBs with upside starting in round 3 through 6 (depending on how the draft goes, ONE of those picks may be for a QB or WR if certain guys fall to you).

Running back is by far the hardest position to rank. As of August 28th, there are 7 to 8 teams that haven’t given a clear position of who the starter is or how much time the named starter will play. For all other positions, you know who is starting and in most cases, you know these guys will play 90-100% of snaps. At running back, there is no guarantee that someone like Addai or Barber or even DeAngelo will play as much as expected. Thats why you can’t count on these guys and should stockpile in later rounds. You want as much a sure thing as possible in the first couple rounds.

Fantasy Football Running Backs Scoring
Standard. 6pts TD; 1pt every 10 yards; -2pts fumble (no points for receptions)

RUNNING BACKS TIER 1
1 Adrian Peterson — #1 in non-PPR leagues.
2 Matt Forte — #1 in PPR leagues.
3 Maurice Jones Drew
4 Michael Turner

RUNNING BACKS TIER 2
5 LaDainian Tomlinson
6 DeAngelo Williams — Hard schedule; Overrated.
7 Frank Gore
8 Chris Johnson
9 Brandon Jacobs — If he plays all 16 games, he can be ~#5.
10 Marion Barber — F Jones will help, rather than hurt ranking.
11 Clinton Portis

RUNNING BACKS TIER 3
12 Brian Westbrook — Really hard to rank given his injury history. I’m not drafting.
13 Steven Jackson — See BW…only he plays for a much worse team. I’m not drafting.

RUNNING BACKS TIER 4
14 Kevin Smith — No RBBC here. Big potential.
15 Steve Slaton
16 Julius Jones — Value Pick.
17 Ryan Grant
18 Ronnie Brown
19 Pierre Thomas
20 Larry Johnson — High-risk, high-reward
21 Derrick Ward — Value Pick.
22 Darren McFadden

RUNNING BACKS TIER 5
23 Marshawn Lynch — Top 15 if no suspension.
24 Thomas Jones — I’m staying away.
25 Joseph Addai
26 Jonathan Stewart
27 Ray Rice
28 Cedric Benson
29 Willie Parker
30 Knowshon Moreno — Who knows….
31 Reggie Bush — Always a disappointment.
32 Chris ‘Beanie’ Wells

RUNNING BACKS TIER 6
33 Willis McGahee
34 Felix Jones
35 James Davis
36 Michael Bush
37 Rashard Mendenhall
38 LenDale White
39 Donald Brown
40 LeShon McCoy — Major upside
41 Ahmad Bradshaw
42 Kevin Faulk — Not drafting any NE RBs.
43 Tim Hightower
44 Earnest Graham — I think D. Ward is going to produce.
45 Jamal Lewis — Not drafting even if its round 16
46 Fred Jackson
47 Correll Buckhalter
48 Darren Sproles
49 Glen Coffee
50 Shonn Greene — Helluva keeper league pick.

Fantasy Football Running Backs – Conclusion
The tiers are incredibly important. If you don’t have a top 4 pick, then stay away from RB. Look at Tier 2. How many of those guys do you feel 99% confident on? Tier 3, do you feel 50% confident they’ll be healthy? There are no sure things in Tier 4 or 5, but if you grab 3 or 4 of these guys and 1 or 2 Tier 6 (and free agent pickups), your bound to get two RBs you start week to week. Don’t risk your top picks with guys you can’t fully feel confident on. Go for a guy you can count on in another position.

Good luck to you all! QB and TE coming Sunday. WR shortly after.

Fantazzle Fantasy Football Games

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In case you didn’t hear, last year Fantazzle took home 1st place for having the most accurate 2008 fantasy football player rankings. I think its important to note that this wasn’t a small time award between a couple of fantasy football centric sites. Nor was the contest run by a unfamiliar name with little credibility. It was run by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) and the Fantasy Football Librarian which is a great site recognized industry wide who doubles as the writer for the NY Times NFL blog called The Fifth Down. The contest run last year attracted more than 20 top name sites in fantasy football including household names like ESPN, CBS Sports, and Yahoo. Not to mention the best of the best in fantasy football centric content, rankings, and analysis.

So it was no small task for a first year fantasy games site to win this award. Fantazzle was/is honored to win the award and gain credibility in the fantasy football industry.

With that said, the past is the past and 2009 fantasy football rankings is what counts and what your all interested in. We hope that the info we provide in the coming days will give you an edge over your competition for FANTASY FOOTBALL 2009!

We are releasing our rankings in a series of posts over the next week. I apologize to any of you who have already drafted or will be drafting this weekend. We wanted our 2009 football rankings to coincide with the re-launch of the new Fantazzle Fantasy Games website which we hope you all like and see as a major upgrade. I feel it is the true beginning of Fantazzle just in time for our weekly fantasy football games. In addition, I understand that some sites released their rankings 3 months ago. I just don’t see this providing a major amount of value. If I released the rankings then (or even a couple of weeks ago, I don’t think it would provide any real insight. These rankings will change, but I think after 2 weeks of pre-season there are actual strong arguements that can be made to support them.

So with that said, on Friday we will start our 2009 fantasy football rankings with the position we ranked #2 for in 2008 – running backs.

Talk soon,
Ryan

Fantazzle Weekly Fantasy Football Games

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So we have received tons of emails asking about when our fantasy football rankings will be up. With our #1 fantasy football ranking award from 2008, I’m very happy to have the recognition. We worked hard on the rankings and hope to have a repeat for the 2009 fantasy football ranking award. We look forward to the competition that was done last year by the FF Librarian and FSTA.
We are working on a site upgrade that will be ready in the next ~week and we will release our initial rankings simultaneously. Stay tuned as we get the fantasy rankings out to you in the next week or so.
Thanks for your support and we hope to add to your fantasy football success this year.
Ryan Parr
Founder and CEO – Fantazzle Fantasy Sports Games

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