Our own Pat Fitzmaurice has been among the most accurate fantasy football experts in the industry over the last several years. Fitz was THE most accurate in-season ranker in 2020. What better way to prepare for your fantasy football start/sit lineup decisions than by reviewing his rankings? You can do just that below.
You can also find our expert consensus fantasy football rankings for the week here. And you can sync your fantasy football league for free using our My Playbook tool for custom advice, rankings, and analysis.
Fantasy Football Rankings
It’s nice to have fantasy football back in our lives. The days are more fun when we have fantasy teams to fret over and are faced with the challenges of trying to manage a fake football team to glory.
But fantasy football is a zero-sum game, of course, and for every Week 1 winner, there was a Week 1 loser. Many of us were forced to remember what defeat tastes like. To me it tastes like green pepper — the food I find more vile than any other. Travis Kelce, Christian Watson, Drake London and Najee Harris are among my most heavily rostered players this year, so I was treated to a green pepper stir-fry in Week 1.
“Process over results” is a popular catchphrase in fantasy football.
I hate it.
Give me results over process every time. “Process over results” strikes me as a slogan people use to absolve themselves from blame when things go awry.
As much as I hate the phrase “process over results,” it does convey at least one important message: If the process is sound, the results will be positive more often than not.
Although it’s not something fantasy analysts like to admit, luck plays a big factor in our little game. A good friend in my favorite home league drafted J.K. Dobbins and Aaron Rodgers. He lost both to season-ending injuries in Week 1, so he’s 0-1 with a badly depleted roster. Sometimes the fantasy gods single you out for punishment.
But for most of our 0-1 teams, the situation isn’t catastrophic. Things simply didn’t work out in Week 1.
It is what it is. We’re on to Cincinnati.
If you’re 0-1, don’t make silly trades out of panic. Don’t make ill-advised start decisions because you believe you “need to take a chance” or “need to gamble on upside.” Don’t let desperation convince you that poor decisions are actually shrewd decisions, or else your season might quickly get away from you.
Stay the course, friends. If you’ve played fantasy football long enough, you know how often things fail to go according to plan. Just keep doing your homework and making the best possible decisions with the information available. That’s all you can do.
And don’t fall into the trap of overmanaging. Some people are convinced that the more moves they make, the better off their team will be. But restless micromanagement rarely produces good results. Resist the urge to churn your roster like an Amish butter maker.
So you’re 0-1. It’s no big deal. You’ll have forgotten all about your Week 1 loss in early January when you’ve banked your championship winnings and are dining on steak and lobster.
Just make sure it’s not pepper steak.
As always, feel free to use these tiered rankings as a tiebreaker for your difficult lineup decisions. Beneath the tiers, I’ll offer a few brief thoughts on some of the borderline start/sit guys and some other interesting cases.
Fitz’s Week 2 Rankings, Tiers & Start/Sit Advice
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