10 Fantasy Football League Winners in 2018

These ten players could swing the entire fantasy landscape. Make sure they do it on your team instead of your opponent’s…

Fantasy football gets easier every year with the wealth of information out there, and that makes it harder every year to distinguish yourself from the crowd. If everyone’s drafting off of the same projections and sleeper lists, how do you build a team that can win your league? For all the time and money poured into the fantasy industry, surely it’s more than sheer luck.

At the end of each season, you find a handful of players that appear over and over again across the rosters of fantasy football league champions. Nobody saw Alvin Kamara coming last season, but there was plenty of reasons to predict big seasons for Todd Gurley, Keenan Allen, Kareem Hunt, and Zach Ertz. Those guys weren’t exactly sleepers, but they were underdrafted, with a median value worthy of their pick and a giant high-end potential each one hit. Those were last year’s fantasy football league winners.

Some players are disqualified. Christian McCaffrey is good, but first-round picks are supposed to be awesome. Bilal Powell and Jamaal Williams look like great RB2 values, but they’re not going to blow up. JuJu Smith-Schuster and Tevin Coleman have upside that hits only if a key teammate gets injured. Any number of RB handcuffs could be great in the same situation.

This is not about handcuffs or injury what-ifs. It’s about range of outcome. League winners are drafted at an Average Draft Position where their median outcome is already valuable but with a high-end that could blow away their draft slot. Never draft a player at a spot where they must have a dream season to justify their pick. Draft where their upside can win leagues.

I won’t own every player below, and I wouldn’t want to own all 10 at once. You need stability too, some surer outcomes. But playing it safe is no way to win in fantasy. You’re going to need a couple players to blow up and win a position, and that means you need to take a few big swings.

These 10 players are already good picks. And if the dream season arrives, they just might win you your league…

WR Jarvis Landry CLE (ADP 5.06)

Landry is the one guy I have nabbed in every single draft. He’s my favorite player in fantasy football this year, PPR or not, and I believe he has the potential to finish as a WR1. Wait, I said that wrong.

I believe Landry has the potential to finish as the WR1. Atop the WR rankings.

You’re going to read a lot in this article about coaching fit. So much changes in the NFL each season that it’s impossible to predict, and one season’s stats are high variance across a 16-game sample. But coaches have years of history we can learn from, and new Cleveland offensive coordinator Todd Haley has a wealth of offensive success. Haley likes to throw to his RBs — that’s the lazy analysis you’ll read at most sites, and it’s true, but it misses the point. Haley makes his QBs far more efficient, and he makes superstud WRs.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Antonio Brown, Dwayne Bowe, or Larry Fitzgerald:

Those are super-duper-star fantasy numbers. Over 11 seasons, Haley WR1s average 10.1 targets, 6.3 catches, 88 yards, and 0.64 TDs per game, which projects to a 100/1400/10 season. Seems good, right? Check out the final PPG ranking of those WRs in PPR leagues: 1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 30, 20, 6, 25, 3, 4. That’s eight of 11 seasons a Haley WR1 finished top-6, and the other three seasons they were a solid WR3. It’s massive volume, at least 125 targets a season for all but one on the list.

Landry is going as the WR22 in standard leagues and WR17 in PPR leagues. He’s caught 400 balls in four seasons and has looked dynamic in preseason, no longer just catching dump-off passes in the slot but now moving all over the field and making plays down the field too. Landry is more than just a high-receptions guy, and he’ll have the chance to show it in a new role in Cleveland.

Landry averaged 153 targets the last three years in Miami, so maybe that drops, but maybe it doesn’t. The chart above shows a 162-target pace for Haley WR1s, and Cleveland doesn’t many other receivers to throw to. Haley offenses are typically very pass-heavy and have made big fantasy seasons out of late-career Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Cassel, and Arizona Kurt Warner. But it’s not just volume. It’s also quality of opportunity.

Fitzgerald had the highest TD rate of his career under Haley, with had two of his three best YPC seasons. Bowe had 15 TDs and a 16 YPC one season under Haley. Brown almost quadrupled his TD rate, from 2.3% to 8.8% under Haley. Look back at the chart above. All but one Haley WR1 averaged at least a half a TD per game, and all but two were over 13 YPC. These are not just a lot of looks for Haley WR1s — they’re a lot of good looks.

You’re skeptical. It’s the Browns, and they may start a rookie QB, and maybe you don’t believe Landry has the same talent as the guys above. Let’s say Landry only gets 80% of the volume, and say he gets only 80% of the TD rate and YPC too. That puts him at 80/1125/8, which would make him… still a top 10 fantasy WR. And that’s being cautious. Throw caution to the wind with a 160-target season and typical Haley boosts at YPC and TD rate, and you can imagine something absurd like 110/1450/9.

There’s no way little old Jarvis Landry could produce a monster fantasy season like that, right? I remember thinking that about Antonio Brown and Dwayne Bowe a few years ago too. Even the downside for Landry still looks like a pretty good season. But the upside could win your league.

QB Deshaun Watson HOU (ADP 4.06)

The Deshaun Watson argument is easy. Watson averaged 266 yards and 3 TDs a game last season just by passing, then added 42 rushing yards per game on top of it. A full Watson season paces to 4200/48 passing, with a bonus 675/5 rushing just for the heck of it. AKA the greatest fantasy season of all time.

Of course, Watson’s not going to do that. He’s played seven professional games with completely unsustainable numbers. His TD rate is certain to drop, and his rushing stats may lag as he regains his speed and mobility after a torn ACL. Take away 50 passing yards a game and cut his TD rate by 50%, then pull back on the rushing. That would leave Watson at 3400/32 passing and say 500/4 on the ground. Now he’s Cam Newton, who’s been a top-5 fantasy QB every healthy season in the NFL.

Watson is a huge risk, but this dude finished as the #27 fantasy QB in six starts last season. He scored 36 points in half of them, and there’s no player you’ll have more fun rooting for. If his ADP slides while league mates wait on QBs or favor pocket passers, he might be a huge swing worth taking.

RB Mark Ingram NO (ADP 4.07)

Ingram was RB6 in standard scoring. He was second in the NFL in rushing TDs. Let’s compare two seasons from last year.

• Mark Ingram: 1124 rushing yards, 58 catches, 416 yards, 12 TDs
• Melvin Gordon: 1105 rushing yards, 57 catches, 470 yards, 12 TDs

Gordon is a top-10 pick in every draft. Ingram is suspended four games, but those games come at the beginning of the season when your team is healthy and the bye weeks haven’t started. You can fill in those weeks. You get Ingram for the weeks that really matter in the back end of the season, and he’ll be healthier and fresher after sitting out the first month.

It’s not like Ingram’s performance last year was unusual. He had 9, 6, and 10 TDs the three previous years and 46+ catches twice, and he missed a few games in two of those three seasons. His YPC is in line with his career rate. Ingram is good, the Saints are good, and he’s going to play and produce.

Put it another way. If Ingram weren’t suspended, where would you take him? Probably around the middle of the 2nd near Jordan Howard and Joe Mixon range, right? Would you take Howard or Mixon at the end of the 4th round or in the 5th or 6th where Ingram often falls? Of course you would!

But what if Alvin Kamara runs away with the job the first month of the season with Ingram out? That’s possible, I suppose. But Kamara posted gloriously unsustainable numbers all last season and that didn’t exactly stop Ingram from producing, and the Saints have shown no intention of going away from a second runner. What if Kamara isn’t as good as he looked last year, or what if he gets injured with that extra workload? That feels just as possible, and then Ingram is a top-5 RB. That’s league-winning upside if you can find a RB for the first month.

WR Marquise Goodwin SF (ADP 5.07)

Remember Todd Haley WR1s? Meet Kyle Shanahan WR1s. They’re not quite as consistent, and they don’t catch as many touchdowns, but they typically have a massive volume. Here are Shanahan WR1s over the last decade:

That’s five of 10 seasons with at least 1345 receiving yards and six seasons at a 93+ reception pace. Shanahan WR1s pace to 147 targets, 91 catches, 1289 yards, and 6 TDs over a full season. Remember how Marquise Goodwin exploded in the final five games of the season with Jimmy Garoppolo? His 16-game pace from those Jimmy G games would be 138 targets, 93 catches, 1230 yards, and 3 TDs. Looks familiar, doesn’t it?

Goodwin has looked every bit the part as the 49ers go-to WR this preseason, and he sure looked the part last December. History says he could get a massive target share as a Shanahan WR1, and with literally Olympic speed, he could run away with some huge numbers. Goodwin’s ADP is soaring but he’s still being drafted as a WR3 in most leagues. You just won’t find this sort of upside from many other guys in the 5th or 6th.

WR Josh Gordon CLE (ADP 4.09)

In 2013, Gordon had 87 catches, 1646 yards, and 9 TDs. Maybe that’s ancient history, or maybe he’s the real Haley WR1 on the Browns. There’s no denying his talent, unless he doesn’t actually get himself on the field to use it.

You don’t need to read more about Josh Gordon. You know who he is and what he can do. He has the talent and situation to finish as the #1 fantasy WR. I’m rooting for the guy but not optimistic — that’s part of why I love Landry — but he’s obviously a league winner if he hits.

QB Andrew Luck IND (ADP 8.03)

4… 2… 4…

That’s Andrew Luck’s rank among fantasy QBs his last three healthy seasons. He’s averaged 4275 yards and 31 TDs those seasons, plus an always sneaky 330/3 on the ground, a free 50 points most other pocket passers don’t get. Those are basically Aaron Rodgers numbers.

You know all about Luck’s injury history, and many fantasy owners have been burned by Luck in recent years, but good fantasy players have a short memory. Luck appears to be healthy now and there’s little reason to believe his shoulder injury should recur (Drew Brees had a similar injury… 13 years ago). Luck is available late, as a low-end starting QB, so he’s not going to cost much. He’s a really easy risk to mitigate in most leagues since there are abundant useful backup QBs available later in drafts or even on waiver wires.

Luck could finish as the #1 fantasy QB. He’s arbitrage Aaron Rodgers, available four to seven rounds later.

RB Sony Michel NE (ADP 7.07)

Sony Michel is finally back at practice after missing most of August. He’s probably still not going to make an impact the first few weeks as he gets up to speed, and his ADP dropped a full three rounds in the last month.

Patriots RBs can be very frustrating, but they can also be very valuable. Pats RBs had 25 TDs last year, and 23, 20, 17, 22, and 25 the five years before that. That’s a lot of TDs, almost 1.5 RB TDs per game.

New England has one of the league’s easiest schedules, including six divisional games against the terrible Jets, Dolphins, and Bills. Two of those juicy matchups come in the fantasy playoffs, with the Fins in Week 14 and Buffalo’s historically bad run defense in Week 16 Super Bowls. Think of all the carries Michel will get as the Pats run out the clock on big second-half leads.

Michel may take some time to get healthy and win reps, but the upside is massive. If he finds a bigger role by midseason, he could single-handedly win fantasy playoff games in December.

WR Corey Davis TEN (ADP 6.03)

The Titans are another team that made significant coaching changes that should send the offense on an upward trajectory. I like Marcus Mariota and Dion Lewis too, both of whom just missed the cut for this piece, but Davis is the highest upside of them all.

New Tennessee OC Matt LaFleur promised to get rid of the smashmouth Titans offense and open up the attack with spread formations and downfield passing. That means a lot of playaction and RPOs for Marcus Mariota, fitting his strengths, and it means needing a big, fast, physical receiver that can stretch the field. That’s Corey Davis.

LeFleur’s worked with the league’s #1 scoring offense two years in a row, the Rams last year and Falcons two years ago, learning under Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay. I wrote an entire article on what to expect from Tennessee, and they’ll likely spread the targets around more than Cleveland and San Francisco so that may limit Davis’s upside some. He’ll need to make up ground with big TD numbers, but this is a guy that caught 46 TDs his last three years in college.

Davis is being drafted as a WR3, a pretty easy reasonable expectation if he stays healthy and the Titans embrace a new more modern offense. If the upside hits, Davis has top-10 WR potential.

TE Jordan Reed WAS (ADP 8.12)

Can a tight end really win you your league? If you answered no, you probably have never gotten a free 5-point weekly boost from Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham, or Antonio Gates. Points matter from any position, and a superstar TE is a bigger advantage than anything else in fantasy.

Jordan Reed belongs on that list — when healthy. His PPG TE rankings the last three seasons are 9, 1, and 2, and the #9 finish was last year, when Reed injured his toe in the preseason and never got healthy.

Reed is being drafted as TE9 and he’s more or less healthy. A healthy Reed is like getting 10 games of Rob Gronkowski in the 8th or 9th round, and it’s not like you get 16 games from Gronk anyway. If you don’t have a TE by the 9th round, you’re stuck picking between a bunch of random long shots anyway. Why not ride Reed as long as you can, then replace him with one of those dudes halfway through the season if you must? If Reed stays healthy all season instead, he could absolutely win your league for you.

WR Adrian Peterson WAS (ADP 9.06)

Listen, I’m not a believer either. I’m a Vikings fan, and Adrian Peterson is one of my all-time favorite players. He was an insane talent, but he’s old now and he has too much wear and tear on his tread and too much injury history.

Still, if Peterson is even 75% of what he once was, he’ll have a stranglehold on this terrible backfield, and how many bell-cow guys are available in the 9th round? LeGarrette Blount, C.J. Anderson, and Kelvin Benjamin are three names being taken around Peterson in the 9th round. If you honestly think one of those guys is more valuable to your team than Peterson’s potential upside, then we have both wasted our time.

Peterson’s probably not going to hit, but neither are the other guys you take in the 9th. But his top 10% outcome is double-digit TDs, so shouldn’t you find out just in case?

Late-round picks will never lose your fantasy league. But the right one can win it. Play those ranges of outcome and find yourself some league winners.

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