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Fantasy Football Rankings 2023: Dynasty rookie top 60

2R19N5X Atlanta Falcons rookie running back Bijan Robinson (7) is shown during the team's NFL rookie minicamp football practice Friday, May 12, 2023, in Flowery Branch, Ga. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

  • Bijan Robinson leads the running backs: Robinson is the best running back prospect of the last few seasons while landing with a run-first team behind a great offensive line.
  • Clear-cut top-eight: There will be a clear eight players who should be picked first based on the draft capital spent on them mixed with their talent. There will be a variety of opinions after that based on perceived talent, draft capital spent, team fit and positional value.
  • Most players will take time to develop: Several of the top prospects landed with teams where they will see significant competition for touches in their first season.
Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

With the conclusion of the 2023 NFL Draft, here is the most recent version of my rookie dynasty rankings for single-quarterback, PPR leagues.

Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, June 28


1. RB Bijan Robinson, Atlanta Falcons (RB1, Round 1-Pick 8)

Landing in Atlanta was the best-case scenario for the top running back prospect in years.

  • The Falcons were the only team to run the ball on more than half of their offensive plays last season, which included maintaining the run even when playing from behind.
  • They ran 48.8% of the time while losing, which was five percentage points more than any other team.
  • Those rates remained similar when Desmond Ridder took over as the team’s starting quarterback.
  • The Falcons' depth was a talented Tyler Allgeier and 32-year-old Cordarrelle Patterson. Allgeier can give Robinson a rest at times, but that shouldn’t stop Robinson from seeing 20 touches per game.
  • He will be running behind some of the best interior linemen in the league. Chris Lindstrom and Matt Hennessy are two of the five interior linemen to earn a 90.0-plus PFF run-blocking grade over the past two seasons.
  • He should be an early first-round pick in redraft leagues, and the top option in single-quarterback dynasty drafts rookie or not.

2. RB Jahmyr Gibbs, Detroit Lions (RB2, 1-12)

Gibbs landed with a Lions team that will love to utilize him, but he might not receive the goal-line touches.

  • The last five running backs picked in the top 12 of the NFL draft played a minimum of 550 offensive snaps during their rookie seasons. A team picking a running back that early will have them at the top of the depth chart.
  • Gibbs replaces D’Andre Swift, who was the best receiving running back of the 2020 class while Gibbs was the top such player of this 2023 class. Gibbs will take Swift’s role completely.
  • There is still a decent chance David Montgomery will still maintain fantasy value. He’s the biggest running back of the three and is most similarly built to Jamaal Williams.
  • Williams was consistently scoring touchdowns from the one- or two-yard line in 2022, leading to 17 touchdowns.
  • This might prevent Gibbs from being a consistent top-10 fantasy running back week in and week out, but he can still be a top-20 running back.
  • Both Williams and Swift finished among the top 20 fantasy running backs in five separate weeks last season and have two games in the past two seasons where both finished in the top five.
  • That pairing will be Gibbs and Montgomery this season, and the offense could be even better than the 2022 version.
  • Gibbs could have been the 1-1 dynasty rookie pick in most seasons but only falls to second because Robinson was also in the class.

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