DFF AccuRankings Deep Dive: Consensus “DFF Guys” – Part 1

What’s up, DFF Army, and welcome to a brand new series here and on the DFF YouTube channel. For those of you who don’t know, I am part of the DFF rankings team, and in this series, I will be giving you guys a closer look into our member-exclusive DFF consensus rankings. 

You can find the complete rankings on our website at dynastyfootballfactory.com by joining the DFF army. By purchasing our annual membership, you’ll get full access to our entire staff of creators and editors in the DFF discord on top of all the member-exclusive articles, and of course, the centerpiece of this series, the DFF AccuRankings. We also have extremely deep Devy rankings as well, which I can attest are extremely hard to come by online. I won’t give this spiel in future episodes, but I urge you to give some consideration to the best value currently in all fantasy football content. 

With that out of the way, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of today’s episode, where I’m going to give you guys a quick intro of how these rankings work as well as give you a sneak peek at who we DFFers are much higher on than consensus.

THE RANKINGS

The DFF AccuRankings appear on our website as an aggregate ranking of over 300 quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends. Four of my DFF colleagues and I (who I hope to bring to this series soon) are constantly adjusting our rankings, which are then used to generate our overall rankings. Ranking updates usually go live twice per month.

This series will focus on two main aspects of our rankings. Firstly, I’ll keep you guys updated on major stock risers and fallers from update to update. Secondly, I’ll do my best to highlight players who are much higher in our AccuRankings than perceived market value. To quantify that, we’ll be using the dreaded KeepTradeCut, which is certainly not a perfect resource, but by its crowdsourced nature, does fit the bill of what kind of rankings I’m looking for here. I’ll spend this first episode introducing you guys to some of DFF’s consensus “my guys”.

THE DFF GUYS

Kicking off the “DFF guys” is going to be none other than Deshaun Watson. If you’re an avid fan of DFF’s Factory Tour, hosted by my good friend Paul Patterson, you’ll know I’ve struggled to come around on Watson as a legitimate, elite QB1 in Dynasty. However, I’ve recently come to terms with Watson as a late 1st/early 2nd startup pick, which is reflected in my ranking of him as the 15th overall asset in dynasty startups. 

Watson is DFF’s consensus QB9 and #12 overall asset, with him being ranked as high as 10th overall and as low as 18th. This is in stark contrast to his supposed market value, as he currently sits at the time of this recording at QB11 and #29 overall on KeepTradeCut. Watson currently sits behind the likes of Jaxon Smith-Njigba, DeVonta Smith, Tee Higgins, Tyreek Hill, Bryce Young, and many more players who I consider absolute blasphemy to rank above Watson.

I want to highlight the comparison between Watson and those young receivers. Those are players who will likely finish in the WR8-15 range on a yearly basis, and I have a hard time seeing them raising their value much past where they sit currently. While they’re great assets to have rostered and will provide a safe, locked-in WR1/2 option for the foreseeable future, the depth at the WR position makes the value above replacement minimal at best for guys like a Higgins or Smith. 

Watson, on the other hand, provides genuine top-5 positional upside at the most important and highest-scoring position in Superflex. To me, this is pretty simple. Watson playing at his worst will provide at minimum 16 FPPG, whereas that is right around the best-case outcome for Tee Higgins, Devonta Smith, and JSN.

Similarly to Watson, Dak Prescott and Kyler Murray are criminally undervalued by the market. Prescott’s DFF rank sits at QB11 and #17 overall, while his KeepTradeCut value is currently at QB15 and #38 overall. Murray’s DFF rank sits at QB10 and #14 overall, while his KTC value is currently at QB12 and #32 overall. I won’t go in-depth on these two, as the logic is pretty much the same as Watson’s. These guys are screaming values, and you should be scooping them up in every startup at this ADP and acquiring on all of your rosters based on this trade market value.

The next player I want to take a look at is Mark Andrews, who we have ranked as our TE1 and #15 overall. KTC has Andrews as the TE2 and #31 overall. It is important to note that our rankings are for tight-end premium leagues, while KTC does not factor in TEP scoring. However, Andrews is still one of our favorite values in startup drafts and just in general currently. I’ve scooped him up in a recent TEP startup in the third round, which is just way off compared to where he should be going.

My stance on Andrews boils down to a few things. First is his past track record of production, which includes four straight top 6 fantasy TE finishes. He’s the only TE not named Travis Kelce to record a TE1 overall finish in the past seven seasons.

Second is his projected role in this Baltimore offense, which I’m very much all in on in 2023. The arrival of Todd Monken brings the promise of a considerable uptick in passing. While the Ravens have made significant additions to their receiver room, most of those pieces will serve as complements to Andrews, who is the true #1 target in this offense. If anything, the addition of field stretchers like Zay Flowers and a healthy Rashod Bateman should ease defensive pressure on Andrews and create easier matchups for him to exploit. Additionally, Monken’s previous offense featured star TE Brock Bowers heavily, so there’s no reason to think he’s averse to heavy utilization of pass-catching TEs.

Andrews has shown the ability to get open constantly and be dynamic as a receiver after the catch and should see a ton of volume. I love Andrews at cost right now and think he absolutely has the potential to finish as the TE1 this coming season.

The last player I want to highlight in our first edition is Diontae Johnson, who sits at WR22 on our AccuRankings and 55th overall, while on KTC he’s the WR34 and #74 overall. I’ve found that Johnson is often available even later than this in startups, which is just absurd value to strike- I recently picked him up in the back of the eighth round.

People forget how talented Diontae Johnson is. I genuinely think he’s one of the best route runners in the entire NFL. He’s an incredibly smooth mover, but he’s also abrupt and efficient with his breaks and consistently gets open as well as anyone else in the league. 

His struggles with drops are incredibly overblown, as he went from 13 drops in 2020 to just 5 in 2021 and then a slight regression to the mean with 7 in 2022. I won’t make the argument that he’s an incredibly reliable receiver, but his hands are very good, and every season without fail, he makes a few bids for “Catch of the Year”. 

Johnson was the WR8 just one full season ago, posting over 100 receptions for over 1,100 yards and eight touchdowns. Now with a full offseason to develop rapport with Kenny Pickett, if even a fraction of that Diontae returns to form next year, you’re in for a crazy value at his current startup ADP and market-based trade value.

CONCLUSION

Thank you so much for joining me today for a quick sneak peek at our DFF rankings. Remember to check out the video and like this video and subscribe to DFF’s YouTube channel so you don’t miss any of the amazing free content coming your way. Head over to dynastyfootballfactory.com to gain access to our full comprehensive AccuRankings, as well as the DFF Discord where you can get personalized advice from me and a platoon of other experienced dynasty players. See you guys next week, when I’ll give my first stock up/stock down report!

Thanks for reading! Go check out some other recent DFF videos and articles to learn how to dominate your leagues, and get at me on Twitter @bwinknfl for more football takes and fun discussions!