Early 2019 Fantasy Football Rankings (Top 300): Tiers 1-4

It is the first week of February. Super Bowl LIII has just come to an end, which sadly means the NFL season is over. After eight months of mini-camps, training camps and a season full of big plays and big games, a champion has been crowned and for our purposes here a new fantasy season will start anew.

For those of you like us who feel fantasy football is a year-round activity, we are bringing to you our Never Too Early Player Rankings for 2019 redraft leagues. You may agree or disagree but don’t forget it is still very early and a number of things are going to change based on free agency and, of course, the NFL Draft.

These rankings are a fun way to look ahead to the next season and find out where players are likely to be taken in fantasy drafts with league mates who go worship ADP rather than making their own projections. We are going to take a look at these players broken down by tier (as always) and then discuss a few players in each group. Today, we'll start with the upper tiers. Be sure to also check out my analysis on Tiers 5-14 in part two of these rankings.

Top 300 Redraft Rankings (February 2019)

Tier One - 2019 Rankings

Of the top three running backs in the rankings, Ezekiel Elliott has the greatest chance for a possible regression in 2019. The talent is not going to diminish, and he will be on the field barring injury, but he will have more surrounding him in Amari Cooper for a full season and the second season of Michael Gallup.

In his rookie season of 2016, Elliott had 32 receptions on 39 targets with a competent receiving group led by Dez Bryant and Jason Witten. Last season, with a far lesser group of receiving options, it fell to him to be everything on the Cowboys offense. This led to 77 receptions on 95 targets - a number sure to fall again with Cooper, Gallup and a litany of tight end options including Blake Jarwin, who started coming on at the end of 2018. This means the 95 targets will not be needed and the Cowboys will return to using him as a runner first. He is still going to be a top-tier player and should be drafted as such but after only rushing for six touchdowns in 2018, he will need to be closer to his 2016 number of 15 to stay in the same range after his decrease in receptions and receiving yards is figured in.

What could be with Melvin Gordon... He is a true three-down back with the ability to run the ball or catch the ball. He is loved by Philip Rivers and he is super talented. He is also, at least as compared to the other top running backs, always injured and is good for a few missed games each season. Most frustrating to fantasy owners, these games always seem to come at the most unfortunate time. The Fantasy Playoffs.

885 rushing yards and 10 rushing touchdowns on 175 carries are not super elite numbers for a running back in the NFL. But, combined with his receiving numbers in which he caught 50 passes for 490 yards and four touchdowns, he becomes the elite running we are looking to build a fantasy team around. Again, the issue is he did all of this in only 12 games, which leaves you with a lot to figure out on those weeks where he sits down. If you are going to take Melvin Gordon as your first-round pick you had better load up on running back, as there will be weeks they will need to be used.

You can’t deny Nuk's ability and his connection with Deshaun Watson. What you can worry about is his surrounding cast on offense. Lamar Miller had a solid season in the backfield for the Texans, but he has been an overall disappointment in his time there. Will Fuller is a good downfield threat to counterbalance Hopkins, but he is never healthy and after a torn ACL, is not going to do much in 2019 to draw coverages away from Hopkins. Hopkins has become one of the best receivers in the NFL over the past two seasons, moving ahead of a player like Antonio Brown, who is getting older and crankier which makes him a safer pick when you are drafting your team for next season.

Coming off an incredible season of 115 receptions for 1,572 yards and 11 touchdowns, it is easy to see why Hopkins is ranked by many as the top wide receiver for next season. Even with the unknown surrounding the other receiver spots on the Texans, he is still going to feast on opposing corner backs as long as Miller and Foreman can provide a solid running threat to go along with the scrambling ability of Watson from the quarterback position.

Tier Two - 2019 Rankings

What a great season third-year receiver Michael Thomas had in 2018. I don’t know what the future will hold after the eventual retirement of Brees but for our purposes here, it doesn’t matter as he will be back for 2019 and this is all we care about.

In an All-Pro campaign, Thomas had 125 receptions for 1,402 yards and nine touchdowns, helping the Saints to a number one seed and a place in the Super Bowl. Oh wait, I forgot about that non-call...

In 2019, Thomas should again lead a high-powered offense which will again be near the top of the league. With a running game anchored by one of the best offensive lines in the league and Alvin Kamara and a Hall of Fame quarterback in Drew Brees, all the tools are there for another monster season for Michael Thomas.

Whether you take Thomas, DeAndre Hopkins or Davante Adams as the first receiver off the board, you won’t go wrong. But with the offense surrounding Thomas in New Orleans, he may have the highest ceiling in 2019.

Antonio Brown is still listed as a Steeler but in reality, who really knows where he'll be next year? The best receiver in the game for the last few seasons, AB has played himself out of the Pittsburgh locker room. Not with his on-field play, which is as high as ever with 104 reception, 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns, but instead with his off-field antics and his cancerous presence in the locker room. And this is on a team with Ben Roethlisberger and Le’Veon Bell.

His talent is undeniable and no matter what team he ends up on he is going to remain an elite asset. What team he goes to matters quite a bit. If he ends up on the Patriots (God I hope not) or the Colts he will feast, maybe even more so than he has been. If he goes to a team like the Jets or the Jaguars though, he will be a border line WR1. Lucky for us, we should not be drafting until August when all of these matters have already been determined and we will have a good handle on things. Otherwise, I would be worried about drafting him at his current spot in drafts.

Le’Veon Bell, ah, the diva himself. Clearly a great running back. Or is he??? This is something we are going to find out this season as he signs a huge contract with a new team and tried to prove it was not just the Pittsburgh offensive line which made him look good. I mean, it is not like James Conner was able to have success in the lead back role with Bell missing this past season...

Much like with Antonio Brown, his value is going to depend on which team he ends up with in free agency. He will still be a low-end RB1 in PPR leagues, but whereas before this was his floor, now this may be his ceiling. Not only is he going to be going to a worse team with a lot of money to throw at him, but at 27, he is not getting any younger.

Bell is no longer a first-round pick but instead is someone you can take in the mid to late second- round at the earliest. If you are able to do it, try grabbing him in the second round after getting Alvin Kamara or Ezekiel Elliott in the first round. But if he is your first running back, I would immediately be concerned with my roster.

Tier Three - 2019 Rankings

You seemingly never know what you are going to get out of Evans on a yearly basis. You know he needs a ton of targets to be productive as his hands are not the best. You also know there is not going to be much, if any, running after the catch. Other than this it is a crap shoot. He has had seasons of double-digit touchdowns and he has had seasons with three touchdowns. We are all confused.

This year should be one of the boom seasons as he has a wide receiver-friendly coach in Bruce Arians coming in to take over for the mercifully-dismissed Dirk Koetter. 86 catches, 1,524 yards and eight touchdowns in 2018 with a mixture of Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jameis Winston shows the ability he has when given the targets needed. His 17.4 yards per catch average, which is almost a full two yards more than his career average, shows his ability to get down the field and out body smaller cornerbacks with his 6’5 231-pound frame. These factors will make for another good season in 2019 as the Bucs continue to struggle to find a run game with the likes of Ronald Jones Jr. and whomever they draft in the upcoming draft to compete for time. Arians loves pass-catching backs and this is not the forte of Jones, making the passing game even more likely to run through Evans and to a lesser extent Adam Humphries and Chris Godwin.

Evans is going to be a receiver drafted in the early third round who will have the potential to become a monster for your team as he and Winston grow together in the Arians offense. With more upside then similarly drafted players like A.J. Green or Stefon Diggs and with a higher floor, Evans is a great pick up in drafts this season, especially if you go running back heavy in the first two rounds.

There were flashes this season of what we can expect from Hilton when healthy. He had to deal with a groin injury for much of the season but when he was in the lineup, he showed us he still has a connection with Andrew Luck despite almost two years apart. In 2019, this connection is only going to grow, and Hilton will have a full offseason to recover. Plus, Andrew Luck is a year further removed from the six-week shoulder injury which cost him the entirety of the 2017 season.

When Luck is right, he is one of the top quarterbacks in the game today and with his health goes the performance of T.Y. Hilton who is much better with Luck than with any other quarterback. More so than possibly any other top receiver, Hilton is very quarterback-dependent, but this bodes well for his 2019 season after a 2018 season of 76 receptions for 1,270 yards and six touchdowns in 14 games. Taking him in the third or maybe the fourth round would be a solid pick for those of you who started off with two running backs, or even as a second receiver after going Christian McCaffery and Mike Evans in the first two rounds.

The player who might just be the riskiest player in any of the top tiers, Damien Williams could have a top-five running back season. But he could also fall off a cliff and finish outside the top-50 at the position.

If the Chiefs go into next season with Williams as the full-time starter, he will be a top-10 running back for both draft position and draft rankings by analysts. These are lofty ambitions for sure, but in the Kansas City offense, they should be easily attainable.

If the Chiefs decide to draft a running back to split time with Williams, his value will diminish on an enormous scale making it a wasted draft pick. A pick you will have to make in the fourth round at the latest to get him on your fantasy team.

The good thing for us is that we will know about the draft results before we have to decide when to take him in our drafts. The other good sign for us is Andy Reid. Whether it was in Philadelphia with Duce Staley or LeSean McCoy, or in Kansas City with Jamal Charles or Kareem Hunt, Reid has always employed a one running back backfield, and this is not going to change anytime soon. If he wins the job, Williams will dominate like he did after Hunt's dismissal. If he is not going to be the full-time starter, you simply don’t draft him.

Tier Four - 2019 Rankings

Patrick Mahomes- Chiefs- Have we seen the start of the next great quarterback career? Quite possibly. 50 touchdown passes for only the third time in NFL history and what should be his first MVP award highlighted a season in which, although coming up just short of the Super Bowl, he still went toe to toe with the greatest of all time in Tom Brady. Including leading a Brady-like drive in the last 30 seconds of regulation to send the game to overtime giving the Chiefs at least a chance to win a game the defense let slip away in the second half.

Being the highest quarterback in the rankings, Mahomes is going to be taken in the second round in some drafts and maybe even the first round by someone who just has to have him. Not a proponent of drafting a quarterback early, this will not be me, but if he were to somehow drop to the fourth or fifth round, you have to really think about it.

We know quarterbacks score more points as a position than any other on the roster. But this means most quarterbacks will score more not just Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers but if you were to look at Mahomes compared to another player available in the fifth round, does it then make sense? I would wager at that point in time it does. I would rather take a chance on Patrick Mahomes over a receiver or running back at the same draft point and this should be a time to look for him as a value for you rather than a risky play. If you are dead set on taking a quarterback high, Mahomes should be your number one target.

Phillip Lindsay- Broncos- Not only may he not beat out Royce Freeman again next season, but Lindsay also has a wrist injury which could leave him gimpy to start next season in Denver.

Although the same was said before this season, it looks again like the Broncos want to try to use Freeman as the lead back in the coming season. If this happens, Phillip Lindsay will become this season’s version of Alex Collins for fantasy owners.

In a season no one expected in his rookie year. Lindsay rushed the ball a team-high 192 times for 1,037 yards and nine touchdowns while catching 35 passes for an additional 241 yards and one touchdown. At 24 years of age he is still young although old for a rookie and with his now injured wrist a worry he could and should slip a bit in fantasy drafts as his ceiling for 2019 is not a high as other backs and his floor is much lower with his impending time share upcoming and a whole new offense coming in with a new coaching staff.

Taking him in the realm of a Nick Chubb or Joe Mixon might be tempting to some, but it will lead to a lot of heartbreak if he does not return to form. Instead, he should be looked upon at the level of a player with a good ceiling but a high amount of risk in the realm of Marlon Mack or Jerick McKinnon.

Don’t be fooled into over drafting Lindsay based on one season in which all things lined up for him to succeed. These stars are not likely to align the same way again and instead of getting a great view of your competition, you may be stuck in a solar eclipse.

Talk about bolstering stats. Before his incredible last month of the season starting with his 230 yards and four touchdowns against the Jaguars, Derrick Henry used the rest of the season to move up from running back 40 to finish at #16 in what I would consider still a disappointing season for those of you who drafted him early.

If you did hold on to him long enough to have him when these games occurred, he was probably on your bench against the Jaguars and possibly against the Giants the following week figuring it would not happen two weeks in a row especially with the latter game being on the road.

215 rushes for 1,059 yards was a very nice 4.9 yards per carry average and if the Titans were smart, they would use him as the man next season and see if he can replicate these numbers as well as his 12 rushing touchdowns.

With Dion Lewis still under contract though, you need to follow the money, and this means, as much as we want them to release Henry from his team-imposed purgatory, it may not happen. Being a second-round draft pick, Henry is still cheap, and they will be able to control him for three more seasons before letting him test the market meaning this will most likely be a season of committee back work and more disappointments for owners who try to take him to high in drafts. Draft him yes, but draft carefully.

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