Fantasy Football: Early 2019 wide receiver PPR rankings

Since it’s never too early for fantasy football owners to figure out how to rank players, here we take an early look at wide receiver rankings for PPR fantasy football leagues.

Here we continue in our series of early positional rankings for fantasy football in 2019. As with our quarterback and running back rankings, we will focus on redraft rankings — how players should be ranked when considering 2019 only. However, they can easily be recast for dynasty purposes by moving up players who are young with big upside, while moving down players who are aging or beginning to decline in value.

The rankings will be done in tiers, which is an optimal way to prepare for drafts because it assists in making an easier choice when on the clock. If a player is the final one left in a tier, while there might be three players left in a tier at another position, that may help highlight which player one should choose. These rankings are based on PPR (point-per-reception) leagues, which is quickly overtaking “standard” scoring as the new standard. Let’s jump in.

Tier 1

DeAndre Hopkins, Houston Texans

Michael Thomas, New Orleans Saints

Julio Jones, Atlanta Falcons

Davante Adams, Green Bay Packers

Odell Beckham, Cleveland Browns

These are the “gold-standard” receivers, players one can anticipate with a high degree of certainty will put up gaudy numbers and be a major factor in their team’s offense. All are very trustworthy for this year with the possible exception of Odell Beckham, since he has moved to a new offense and must get comfortable with a new quarterback. That should happen, so he stayed in the top tier.

Tier 2

Adam Thielen, Minnesota Vikings

Mike Evans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Juju Smith-Schuster, Pittsburgh Steelers

Antonio Brown, Oakland Raiders

TY Hilton, Indianapolis Colts

These players are not to the level of the Tier 1 players, but have consistently put up excellent numbers of targets and receptions, with big upside for touchdowns. Some may disagree with Adam Thielen ahead of his teammate Stefon Diggs, but Thielen is the safer weekly play, without sacrificing the weekly upside. Others may take issue with TY Hilton making the second tier and not Keenan Allen, but Hilton has a clearer path to targets since Allen will be fighting the rising Mike Williams and a returning Hunter Henry for Philip Rivers’ attention. Antonio Brown carries some risk since he is on a new team with a worse quarterback, but with his precise route running he should be wide open plenty and should catch a lot of passes while the Raiders try to stay in games.