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Welcome, RotoBallers, to my official tiered rankings for week 5 of this NFL season! You can find my core plays at RB and WR each week in my Anchors column as well as the rest of my favorites plays in our premium cheat sheet.
The concept behind these rankings is to give you an idea of how to approach lineup building for this week's slate. I will rank all relevant players based on their point-per-dollar value in one of five tiers and then provide notes on each tier explaining how I plan to utilize each tier this week.
Tier 1 is going to have most of my favorite plays and likely a good bit of chalk, but you're not likely going to be able to build too many lineups ONLY using players from Tier 1.
Tiers 2 and 3 are going to have some players you will want to mix and match in lineups, likely at lower ownership than Tier 1.
Tiers 4 and 5 are players that I likely won't have much exposure to that week and are players that you should only consider in large field GPPs if you are going to be mass multi-entering a large number of lineups.
NFL Week 5 - Premium DFS Rankings
- Rankings are based primarily on DK pricing and are based on points-per-dollar value, not raw points.
- Core plays are highlighted in green boxes.
- Bold black font indicates the player is useable in all formats - tournaments and cash games.
- Bold blue font indicates the player is preferred for tournaments. These are usually lower-owned pivot plays.
- Red font indicates that I am fading that player, and wouldn't suggest any exposure to them even if you are making multiple builds.
- If a player is not on the chart, it's likely because they are only a part-time player on offense. I will attempt to update the rankings and notes each week on Saturday or Sunday morning once injury news becomes more concrete.
Tier 1 Notes:
Tier 1 is always loaded, but this week, especially as there are a lot of guys popping on a point-per-dollar basis in our projections. I have Daniel Jones just ahead of Trey Lance (tier 2) for cash games based on a larger sample size for him, but I think Lance is now cash-viable since he's starting and has shown us he's not afraid to chuck it downfield and won't have training wheels (like Justin Fields). Running back is absolutely loaded this week with Henry and Zeke being my top two cash backs and Fournette being my favorite cheap back in cash. DO NOT SLEEP on Nick Chubb and James Robinson, however, as I think both of them have massive upside for tournaments. I'm still torn on whether I will jam Adams into cash at WR or if I will take a more balanced approach with two mid-tier guys like Allen and Deebo Samuel. My top two cheapish TE's this week are Schultz and Gesicki as you can see.
Tier 2 Notes:
We have a bunch more backs here that I like - mainly for tournaments, but I suppose you could even consider Damien Williams in cash. A few cheap receivers really stand out to me with Curtis Samuel being my top guy for cash and Kadarius Toney being a really solid GPP option in that potential shootout in the Dallas-NYG game. Hockenson is my sneaky TE play this week but there are a number of other cheap guys at the position I like here as well.
Tier 3 Notes:
One thing you'll notice in Tier 3 a lot is that I don't have many of these guys highlighted as cash or preferred GPP plays but I also don't have any fades here. This is usually the tier of guys who I view as "okay" plays but not "smash" plays and I would have no issue mixing them into your player pool if you are playing a large number of lineups. If you are playing just cash or only a handful of GPP lineups then I would often try to keep it to just Tier 1 and Tier 2 plays most of the time.
Tier 4 Notes:
Some notable fades here are Miles Sanders (bad matchup, Gainwell stealing snaps) and Mike Evans (tough matchup, just don't see the volume that we want). I have Callaway down here as a large field GPP option that you could stack with Jameis as Washington's pass defense has been really, really bad. Not many of these tight ends excite me and I will try to condense my player pool at the TE position to the top 3 tiers.
Tier 5 Notes:
Most of my fades are down here and guys that I don't see having much upside. I rarely dip into Tier 5 even in my GPP builds and you really shouldn't either, unless you are max-entering and want to grab a small percentage of a player there.
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