Which Fantasy Football Rankings To Use

First I will get one thing straight. This is not an article to lift NFL Fantasy Guide's Rankings above the other experts. I create my rankings for no other reason than to help you. That is why they are free. That is also why I am not against you taking other experts advice over mine either. I'm not making money off of it anyways!

The other day I found some time to start comparing some other experts rankings for my Ultimate Player Rankings. While I was looking up other rankings however, I noticed something. It amazes me how many so called "experts" out there offer a list of the Top 100 players overall. Only 100? Seriously? The standard ten team league at ESPN has 16 roster spots on each team. That is a total of 160 players! Personally, I prefer the 12 team leagues, so that is 192 players. Then you have to consider that someone might load up on a position sooner than you and you might need to be ready to go a little deeper. What is a minuscule 100 player cheat sheet suppose to do for you?

In my humble opinion, if the expert only gives you a top 100 overall players, that expert simply does not want to put in any real time to it. This would identify him as someone who is not digging into it deep enough. This is an expert you don't turn to for advice. There are enough fantasy football experts out there who will offer 150 players or more in their rankings, that you should look for one of them.

Another thing I will point out, and I have written an article on this before, is how they rank kickers. If they rank kickers inside of the top 150 players, you should be wary of them. If they rank kickers, any kickers, inside the top 100, run away as fast as you can.

Yes I know that kickers can get you a lot of points. I don't argue that. I realize and agree that it is important to have a good kicker on your fantasy football team. My point is not to take away from the importance of having a good kicker, but simply that your odds of picking a top kicker is nothing more than a crap shoot! Far more often than not, a kicker who is in the top ten just for kickers in one year, is not in the top ten the following year. It is actually pretty rare that they do make the top ten in consecutive seasons. If you take a kicker with the very last pick of the entire draft, you have just as much of a chance of getting a top ten kicker as the guy who drafted one in the tenth round.

You should load your roster with the best players you can in prime positions and take your kicker last. If you happen to pick a kicker who is having a bad year, you can still pick one up from the free agency. I guarantee you that there will be at least one or two owners who draft kickers earlier who will be looking for one as well. Yet there is a chance that the guy you draft in that earlier pick so you can take a kicker last might actually work out.

The fact is, the kicker is too dependent on too much that you cannot judge for him to have a good year. If his team scores too many Touchdowns, he will not get many field goal chances. If his offense is really bad, he wont get enough chances at extra points or field goals. If his team falls behind too much, they will not settle for field goals as often. The best kickers are the ones who are on teams that get close to the endzone but do not get a lot of touchdowns but are also good enough to stay in the game. They depend too much on the whole team, both offense and defense to play just the right way for them to be in the top ten in kickers. So any expert who claims kickers should be drafted early just don't truly understand the game.

If an expert expects you to pay for a membership to get his list, he is not for you. There are too many good experts out there who know what they are talking about who offer their cheat sheets for free. If they want you to pay in any way, they are more interested in making money than they are trying to help you.

If an expert tells you he knows more than any other expert, guarantees a winning draft or anything else ridiculous, he is lying. The fact is, every expert is biased! Every expert is human and being human, we are prone to have our favorite players and teams. No matter how much we study, we cannot know everything about every team and every player. It is impossible! I actually pride myself in being as unbiased as they come, but I know that even I will fall into the favorite stint now and then if only a little. This is exactly the reason I offer two different rankings here. One is my personal player rankings and the other is a comparison between several other experts. By comparing them I can find which players an expert is biased about and eliminate that ranking. Even NFL Fantasy Guide's Ultimate Rankings are not guaranteed to give you a championship, but I do believe they are the most accurate around. But of course that is me being biased. Hey, you have to expect me to lift my own site at least a little here right?

Seriously though, it does not matter whose rankings you want to trust. The draft is only one part of winning a championship anyway. But starting with a good draft can truly lift your odds much higher, so before you pick an experts rankings to follow, follow these rules in picking that expert. And that is the best advice I can give you in Fantasy Football.