Do player rankings matter in fantasy football or real football playoffs?
The player rankings and those neat cheat sheets from August are not as important as the player rankings from week 16. Let’s look at Fantasy Sports Optimizer’s (FSO) year end player rankings and see how they did in the first round of the playoffs.
Kickers: Top four were Ackers, Crosby, G…ski and Feely. Two did well and two not so well. A note, rated low was Graham of the Bengals and he did miss two big kicks. G…ski missed one big one. So a very mixed bag at best.
QBs: Top rated were Brady, Romo and Rodgers. Right behind that group was the trio of McNabb, Flacco and some guy named Warner. Needless to say Rodgers and Romo did well, with Brady so,so. In the trio group, McNabb, so,so: Flacco not much and then Mr. Warner had more TDs than incompletes. Wow!! By the way, Palmer was rated 8th out of the Wildcard Weekend QBs. So a good indicator, though not perfect.
RBs: Top rated was Ray Rice. A bull’s eye. Also rated high were Grant, T.Jones and Benson. One not so hot and two outstanding performances. FSO’s player rankings gets an A here.
WRs: The top were Moss, Fitz, DeSean, Mason, Chad and Jennings. Two did super, two OK and two not much. So,so, but it is interesting that spreading the ball around was very prevalent last weekend, whatever that means.
TEs: top rated were Witten, Celek, Heap and Finley. Well Finley was outstanding and the others did a little more than just showup.
Team D/STs: The top two were Ravens and Jets; the third was the Pack. Well, Two were great and one wasn’t so hot.
In summary, as with all player rankings one game does not a season make, unless, of course, it is the playoffs and then for four teams last week, it was over. Never-the -less, the rankings do give a decent guide, but match ups and a great performance by an opponent can make a great performance by your highly rated player, just a one game wonder. If in doubt, ask Aaron Rodgers.
One foot note: Mock drafts are now occuring for 2010. Use FSO’s week 16 rankings to give you a leg up in the early fantasy football fun.