How to use these rankings

Rankings are a starting point for a decision, not the decision. Set the scoring and league format first: a full-PPR board and a standard board disagree most about pass-catching running backs and low-volume receivers, and the difference is large enough to change a flex call. Superflex reorders the entire top of the board, because a second startable quarterback is worth more than almost any skill player.

Read tiers before you read ranks. The gap between the fourth and fifth ranked player is often noise, while the gap between one tier and the next is real. If two players sit in the same tier, take the one whose week you are more confident about rather than the one a slot higher.

What moves a player up or down

• Usage: snaps, routes, carries and targets. Opportunity is the most stable predictor week to week, and it moves before production does.
• Efficiency: what a player does with the work he gets, measured on a per-play basis rather than by totals that flatter whoever plays the most.
• Game environment: the expected shape of the game. A projected shootout lifts everyone catching passes; a low total suppresses the whole board on both sides.
• Health and role: an injury to the player ahead of someone on the depth chart is often worth more than anything that player did himself.

Weekly, rest-of-season, and dynasty are different questions

Weekly rankings answer "who do I start on Sunday" and lean hard on matchup and game environment. Rest-of-season rankings answer "who is worth more from here" and care about schedule, health and trajectory instead. Dynasty rankings answer "who is worth more over years", where a 23-year-old with an ascending role outranks a productive 30-year-old almost every time.

Using the wrong board is the most common ranking mistake there is. A rest-of-season list will tell you to hold a player through a bad matchup; a weekly list will tell you to bench him. Both can be right at once.