By Chris Barlow and Craig Horlbeck
There are plenty of things that used to be in my life that aren’t around anymore. My childhood home, the San Diego sun, totally my virginity. But of all of these things, there is nothing I miss more than fantasy football. I’ve written multiple love letters to fantasy football in the past, so I won’t go too far into this. Let’s just say, it’s not easy when something that consumed your life for a third of the year suddenly comes to an end.
Luckily for all of us, fantasy can be made into a year-round event, and one of the funnest parts of it all happens to be the offseason. Mock drafts, training camp reports, real-life trades, the blind confidence that next season will be different, all of it is enough to cause fantasy owners to salivate at the mouth in anticipation of draft day.
One of our personal favorite experiences of the fantasy offseason? When the top “experts” in fantasy release their rankings, shifting the entire landscape of speculation and average draft positions (ADP). They can release it whenever they want, late August or late December, we are going to read the hell out of those rankings.
Craig and I compose our own rankings every year (2015, 2016, and 2017), so we figured why not scratch our own itch? Below is a nice, early AF set of top-50 rankings for the 2018 season. To make things easy for readers, we limited our blurbs to a concise 12-word limit.
For those who are new to this, I make a pick, then Craig makes one, then back to me. We do this all the way to 50. To determine who receives first pick, Craig and I pose a question that we equally know nothing about. In this case, we had to guess the population of Libya, and whoever was closest won first pick. I normally make a joke about our process for deciding first pick, but for this one I… uh, I just won’t.
Cheers to the 2018 season ahead of us. Enjoy.
-CB
Chris: Odds
Craig: Evens
- Todd Gurley – This guy ruined so many Christmases lmao.
- Le’Veon Bell – Le’Veon may hesitate at the line—DON’T when drafting him.
- Antonio Brown – Breaks receiving records every year. 2018 won’t be any different.
- Ezekiel Elliott – Dez gets worse, Witten gets older, Zeke gets hungrier.
- DeAndre Hopkins – Nuk could be a WR1 with Ted Cruz as his quarterback.
- David Johnson – Twenty TDs in 2016. Still one of the prettiest belles of the ball.
- Alvin Kamara – If you draft him you must be wearing grillz. I don’t make the rules. Note from CB: Craig got dibs on writing about Kamara after I traded him to Craig midseason. I still lose nights of sleep over it.
- Kareem Hunt – My “don’t feel great about it, but his stats can’t be ignored” pick.
- Mark Ingram – Two backs on the same team in the first round. What a world.
- Melvin Gordon – He’s fine.
- Odell Beckham – Anyone who wears Timbs on a boat is a first-round pick.
- Leonard Fournette – The human equivalent of a battering ram.
- Michael Thomas – The Ricky Bobby of fantasy, for obvious reasons.
- Keenan Allen – His hands could catch Christopher Dorner (too soon?).
- Julio Jones – Breaks out in hives when near the endzone.
- LeSean McCoy – Next year will tell us if Shady ages like wine or milk
- AJ Green – Andy Dalton sucks again, but Green still doesn’t.
- Tyreek Hill – Short and sweet 🙂
- Travis Kelce – Health puts him ahead of Gronk. Future with Mahomes creates uncertainty.
- Mike Evans – He’s just … so fucking tall.
- Rob Gronkowski – Greatest tight end of all time isn’t meant to play 16 games.
- Devonta Freeman – He’s fine pt. 2.
- Jordan Howard – Philip Seymour Hoffman would be an upgrade on John Fox.
- Dalvin Cook – ACL? IDGAF.
- Kenyan Drake – Stats extrapolate to RB7 over a full season. Top-tier usage.
- Carlos Hyde – “CARLOS, HOW TAN IS JIMMY G IN PERSON?!”
- Larry Fitzgerald – Death, taxes, and 100-catch seasons for Larry Fitzgerald.
- Adam Thielen – Winner of “First White WR Off The Board” for the next five years.
- Davante Adams – Broke out, but the same can be said about his brain.
- Christian McCaffrey – Danny Woodhead on uppers.
- Brandin Cooks – Elite talent with a full year in Patriot’s system under his belt.
- Chris Thompson – Danny Woodhead on slightly less potent uppers.
- Doug Baldwin – Doug Baldwin may be underrated only because his name is “Doug.”
- Zach Ertz – And most pun-able name goes to? My Ball Zach Ertz!
- Stefon Diggs – Pros: Amazing when healthy. Cons: Never healthy.
- Alshon Jeffery – More of a vote for Carson Wentz than Alshon.
- Derrick Henry – Let 2018 be the year Derrick Henry thrives.
- Jarvis Landry – Real life Ricky Jerret!
- Robert Woods – Grossest name on this list, but too productive to ignore.
- Dion Lewis – Belichick’s latest RB to fuck us over with.
- Allen Robinson – Dez isn’t on this list, but his 2014 reincarnate is.
- Duke Johnson – The Justin Timberlake to Cleveland’s NSYNC.
- Josh Gordon – One of the best receivers in the 32nd-best scenario.
- Jay Ajayi – Pass the Blount, pick up the Jay (I’m sorry).
- Evan Engram – Expect Engram to build on his historic rookie campaign.
- T.Y. Hilton – I was THIS close to picking Paris.
- Marvin Jones – The ugly, red-headed stepchild of 2017’s WR1s.
- Golden Tate – Ironically winning the silver medal in Detroit’s WR core.
- Alex Collins – The closest thing to Marshawn Lynch we have (yes, I know).
- Saquon Barkley – IDGAF WHERE HE GETS DRAFTED. PICK A TEAM. I DON’T CARE.