Dynamic Tier 2022 Wide Receiver Rankings Primer

Linear fantasy football rankings are making you worse at this game. There, I said it. We’ve held our tongue on the topic for far too long but it’s becoming abundantly clear. And no amount of fantasy football mock drafts or trade analyzers can save you. Running through a long list of players, trying to pick out the fantasy football sleepers and identify the busts, is an antiquated approach. You need to start thinking differently. You need to start thinking DYNAMICALLY.

 

Let’s just take a section of some linear wide receiving rankings as an example. These are based on current Underdog ADP in the early WR3 range from WR 25 to 33 so this could realistically be the rankings of an analyst out there.

Think about how insanely different some of these players are, just in this short stretch. We literally don’t know how many games Chris Godwin will play and, for someone like Amari Cooper, we don’t know how many games Deshaun Watson might miss. So how do we compare them to a steady guy like Brandin Cooks who routinely puts up around 1,000 yards, no more, no less? How do we compare a hypothetical upside guy like Rashod Bateman to the conservative pick in JuJu Smith-Schuster? Or a rookie split end in Drake London to a field-stretching flanker in Darnell Mooney to a low aDot, target-dependent slot receiver in Amon-Ra St. Brown. Those guys hardly even play the same position. It’s a fool’s errand.

Think back to past seasons. Have you ever gone too far in the high-risk, high-reward department and ended up struggling to find starters? Let’s say last year you took Calvin Ridley, an injured Michael Thomas, Brandon Aiyuk in the doghouse, a crazy Antonio Brown, and Kenny Golladay on a brand new team. You didn’t have enough safety to even field a competitive lineup for large stretches. Or you could have been on the flip side. Drafting Keenan Allen, DJ Moore, Christian Kirk, Tyler Boyd, and Jakobi Meyers. Now you are just playing a weekly guessing game with a bunch of medium floor, medium ceiling guys. Cruising along on the commuter rail to third place.

What if I told you there was a better way to look at fantasy football sleepers and busts? To break free from the constraints of linear rankings? Where you can have a better idea of when to take the “best player available” or when to balance safety and upside. Where you can get the right exposure to breakout players without sacrificing the crucial early games of your season. For that, we introduce to you our new Dynamic Rankings!

 

Dynamic Tier Wide Receiver Fantasy Football Player Rankings

The idea is pretty simple. Nearly every league has at least two starting wide receivers. Some have three, some might even have four. Maybe you have one flex spot, maybe you don’t have any, or maybe you have a bunch. Regardless of your setup, our goal is to help you build a more dynamic roster that minimizes your risk while providing you the correct exposure to the upside. Because not every league is the same, so not everyone should be thinking the same way. And you definitely don’t want to just draft off some arbitrary list.

Here’s a look at how the dynamic rankings are set up and how to use each section.

 

And here is a quick rundown of how the different sections work:

Must Start: Virtually every league has at least two starting wide receiver spots. If you have these players, you find a way to get them in your lineup every week, whether it’s a WR spot or a Flex spot.

WR Three: This is where you need to start considering your league rules and format in who to draft or roster. You don’t want to exclusively have guys from one side or the other. You want some sort of balance.

  • Safe WR3: If you have three WR spots, I’d strongly consider having three guys from the top section or this secondary area. You should also have at least someone dependable from this section on the bench for bye weeks. 
  • Upside Play: You need to have some exposure to upside if you want to win. If you took relatively safe guys from the top group or are in a relatively shallow league, load up from this group. Just know these guys also carry higher risk and a potentially lower floor so you may not be able to depend on them early on. Some might end up being bench stashes that never pan out and that’s okay if you have the right balance. 

Upside Stash: Do you have an IR spot? Does your league have deep benches? Or are the starting spots shallow enough that you really just want to maximize long-term upside and ignore short-term production? These guys are typically either injured, suspended, or unsigned so they offer limited usefulness early on but also provide a glimpse of high upside down the stretch.

The Rest: For deep leagues and deep benches, this is how we prioritize the remaining fantasy-relevant options. 

 

Fantasy Alarm Members 

This isn’t your first rodeo. You are a Fantasy Alarm member so you take this seriously. So, on top of the classic linear rankings from your favorite personalities like Howard Bender and Adam Ronis, we are offering a new way to look at rankings. And we’ll be there with you every step of the way keeping these updated and offering our advice in the Discord Channel and on the Thursday and Sunday Live Streams to help you craft the perfect roster. If anything, these Dynamic Rankings are just another tool in your fantasy tool chest to help you think outside the box and outsmart your opponent every week. Now let’s win some leagues!

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