Coming from someone who’s been doing fantasy football for years, a tier list is essential in creating a great team. A tier list is basically a ranking system you make yourself in order to figure out who to take with your next pick. It allows you to determine who would be the best pick for your roster, whether it’s a third wide receiver or a starting tight end, or maybe even a quarterback. The list makes it easy to see who you should take if they drop to your lap.
So if I were to make a tier list for the 2013 RBs, here’s a glimpse of what it might look like. Keep in mind that tier 1 players I would take over anyone else if they became available to me.
TIER 1–
Adrian Peterson, Vikings
Arian Foster, Texans
Doug Martin, Buccaneers,
Jamaal Charles, Chiefs
Marshawn Lynch, Seahawks
Ray Rice, Ravens
Trent Richardson, Browns
TIER 2–
C.J Spiller, Bills
Alfred Morris, Redskins
Steven Jackson, Falcons
Matt Forte, Bears
Chris Johnson, Titans
Stevan Ridley, Patriots
Now obviously there would be more tiers, but that’s for you to figure out. It all depends on what your league make-up is, and how many points you can get per position.
A QB Tier List is a little harder to generalize, because there are clearly elite quarterbacks who deserve to be picked early, but you may rank someone like Kaepernick above someone like Brady. Who knows? So if you were to make your tier 1 quarterback list include Rodgers, Brees, Peyton Manning, and Kaepernick for instance, you would have to compare that list to your RB and WR list to see who’s available. If Kaepernick is the highest ranked player on your list that is still on the board, you should take him with your next pick, based on your own personal rankings. So Tier 1’s should be picked above Tier 2’s until the position is filled or the whole Tier comes off the draft board.
It may sound confusing at first, but if you were to try making a tier list, you would find that navigating through your draft is a breeze. All it takes is a little pre-draft preparation and you could have a championship caliber team.
The only exception with this tier list is with defenses and kickers. You obviously don’t want to take a top defense with your 4th round pick if that’s your only tier 1 choice available. This list should only be made for the QB, RB, WR, and TE positions.