"I Hate My Fantasy Football Team" Week 3 Report
A little bit of order is starting to restore as we look across the top performing fantasy football players through three weeks. What you're seeing above is a draft capital agnostic ranking of the top-24 players so far. I still get some people asking for the details on how WAR is run so once again, you can check it out in my past work with Fantasy Points.
Let's break down the best of the best so far before moving piecemeal in two 12-team league draft round sections.
Running Backs are Back
Six of your top seven fantasy players through three weeks are running backs with Malik Nabers sneaking in there as the lone top-seven wide receiver. I think it's safe to say Saquon Barkley is the heavy favorite to be the 2025 consensus #1 pick should he stay healthy. The only other player in his stratosphere is Kamara who is largely up there from one blow up week. But Barkley is giving you two whole estimated wins over the course of a 17-game season more than the #3 overall player in the game - Breece Hall. As wrong as I've been on a lot of players I thought would be values seemingly so far (McLaurin, Kincaid, Deontae Johnson, Caleb Williams, Evans), I couldn't believe people doubted what Barkley could be on a competent offense. Just because most running backs that leave to new teams don't fare well doesn't mean anything when you're talking about the mismanagement of the New York Football Giants.
Josh Allen - knocking on the Round 1 value door
And Jayden Daniels is already in the room. What an absolute masterpiece of a performance from a kid who's contagious to root for. Meanwhile, as I've stated a million times, Josh Allen is always worth a first round draft pick and I expect him to sneak into the top-12 where he belongs soon enough.
Wait, a Kicker??
God damn right a kicker. 21. 17. 11. Those are his respective weekly outputs. Not bad at all. Now kickers are very hard to predict week to week and season to season so you might actually get some good trade value out of the guy if your friends are dumb enough. But I'm actually hoping he continues to show up in the top ranks. A fantasy football Rudy story in the making.
Let's move on.
Just a few notes from these rounds. Tight end is so mid all it took for Goedert to become the number one at the position was a 27 point outing after a couple average seven point games to start the season. Brock Bowers is looking great, but I have to recommend selling high on him with the Raiders shaky quarterback situation. I think they've announced the Minshew will start this week which means his days are numbered.
Jalen Hurts has been a disappointment so far but I think when AJ Brown gets healthy he'll be fine. Wouldn't hate buying low there. Also going to be honest I just noticed the name Brayden Narveson for the first time ever after making the graph. I have no clue what team he plays for but I don't even feel like looking it up. That way I can assume he is a kicker on some team, and not some wild error in my data.
Remember Isaiah Likely?
Week 1 illusions that cost you half your FAAB are never fun. Just goes to show you how random this game can be. Dude looked like one of the elite tight ends of all time. Good reminder that matchups matter I guess and whoever was guarding him on opening night was not great.
Had a rough week? Benched Dalton Kincaid for Hunter Henry? Well let's have a little perspective and compile the worst possible realistic team from Week 3 (any player started in 30% of leagues or more). Here's an astounding 11.9 PPR effort from this Longest Yard like compilation of compost.
Then of course we have our all star nobody's. I swear every week I run this there's a name I've never heard of.
That's good for 161 points you could have had all from the waiver wire. This is the game we play. The randomness knows no bounds.
Working on some WAR across ADP research coming at you soon. We'll explore who the best values have been so far and the biggest mega duds. As a Jauaun Jennings and CMC owner, I'm both excited and dreading what I'll find.