After reviewing the four worst teams in the NFL from a fantasy perspective, we’re moving up to the better — but still bad — fantasy squads. Today’s rankings take us through team Nos. 28-25.
A reminder: The power rankings rank the overall value each team brings to the fantasy table. It’s not a ranking of how good each team is on the real football field.
The rankings are based on our own 2017 player projections. The series assumes a 12-team standard league with a starting lineup of one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, and one flex position. Kickers and D/STs are not accounted for.
On with the show!
The list so far:
No. 32: Los Angeles Rams
No. 31: Baltimore Ravens
No. 30: New York Jets
No. 29: San Francisco 49ers
No. 28: Minnesota Vikings
In previous years, the Minnesota Vikings were buoyed in this power rankings series by the presence of Adrian Peterson. But he’s no longer on the team, and the Vikings check in at No. 28. The Vikings offer fantasy owners 52.4 percent as much value as the average NFL team.
The Vikings have six fantasy-relevant players: Running backs Dalvin Cook and Latavius Murray, wideouts Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs, quarterback Sam Bradford, and tight end Kyle Rudolph.
Cook should secure the backfield in Minnesota this season, earning enough volume to put up RB2 numbers. He should also see the vast majority of backfield targets, which helps provide Cook with a decent floor as a rookie.
However, he will be spelled by Murray from time to time. Murray has RB2 upside should anything happen to Cook, but he’s nothing more than a benchwarmer other than that. He’s worth the speculative add in case he wows at training camp, or as a handcuff.
Thielen and Diggs were up-and-down fantasy wideouts last year. Each was capable of putting up massive, week-winning numbers, but neither player had a floor, which was a bit terrifying and made them untrustworthy in season-long leagues. They are both flex options.
They also split duties fairly evenly (a common theme among teammates toward the bottom of these power rankings). However, both players should remain boom-or-bust options. Thielen (seventh) and Diggs (10th) both ranked in the top 10 in terms of deep pass (20-plus yards down the field) catch rate last season. Despite this success, neither player was targeted deep down the field all that often.
Of course, that’s partially because quarterback Sam Bradford has never been one to sling it deep very often. But, overall, Bradford was underrated last year, posting a top-six NFL QB rating of 99.3 while completing a league-high 71.6 percent of his passes. Bradford cannot be trusted in season-long leagues on a weekly basis — he is far too conservative — but he’s certainly a viable streaming quarterback option.
And finally there is Rudolph, who has gained favor with the fantasy community after posting a strong 83-840-7 stat line last year — easily the best of his career. But Rudolph has five other years of career data to examine, and there’s plenty of evidence that he’s more “just a guy” than elite fantasy tight end. For example, last year was the first year in which he topped 500 receiving yards.
Rudolph’s role in the new-look Vikings offense is enough that he should be considered a TE1 for fantasy purposes, but he’s certainly toward the end of that spectrum, and his ceiling isn’t as high as some of the other tail-end TE1s.
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