Peter Howard: Dynasty Fantasy Football Superflex Rankings Explained
Welcome back to another installment in our series of articles where DLF rankers not only explain their dynasty fantasy football rankings, but also include a number of the 2024 rookie draft pick selections so you can see how we each, individually, value those dynasty rookie picks in comparison to players as if it were a dynasty fantasy football startup draft. As would be expected, you will find a great degree of variability in the valuation of these picks as well depending on the style of the ranker. Each draft class has its own quality and depth and, depending on how the ranker values that quality and depth, individual rookie selections will appear earlier or later on the list.
Be sure to catch all of the Dynasty Fantasy Football Rankings Explained series.
DLF has always offered our readers multiple sets of dynasty fantasy football rankings from different experts to provide a broad view of player rankings. With many different strategies for building a successful dynasty team, no single set of rankings could possibly meet the needs of every coach. Instead, we've long subscribed to the idea of our experts providing their own individual rankings, ultimately giving our readers the opportunity to gravitate to a particular expert who closely matches their own style of ranking or, perhaps, instead choosing to use an average ranking across all experts.
A note about the tables. The Rank column indicates this ranker's personal rankings. The AVG column indicates the consensus rankings value at the time these rankings were created. The "+/-" column indicates how much higher or lower the ranker is to the consensus average.
Each week we will provide rankings for 120 players and 2024 rookie draft picks, alternating between 1QB and Superflex rankings. For a deeper list of rankings, please visit our consensus dynasty fantasy football rankings.
SUPERFLEX DYNASTY FANTASY FOOTBALL RANKINGS: Peter Howard
I’ve taken part in this series before and while I don’t expect anyone to go back and read my last attempt at explaining my rankings in Superflex I also don’t want to re-cover old ground too much. Simply put I’ve come to accept that there are some things I cannot reasonably expect to see coming, or at least not consistently, and at least not by missing more reasonably expected outcomes. I want to get as much right as I can and that means taking relatively few risks and looking for the less expected. I also try to rank value differences, rather the ranking expected performances.
As such, my main ranking strategy is to stay reasonably close to a consensus. I’m not trying to be contrary, and a good consensus of ADP and rankings is a solid enough way to make sure you are getting about as much right as possible with the benefit of it taking relatively little work.
However, there are some reasons I’ve become willing to take notably different stances and where they show up, I tend to try and go all in on those differences.
That’s all well and good, you should rightfully ask, but where in the hell do you think you can know what is expected? I’m not a prophet, after all, and predicting the future is an inherently foolish errand with predictably poor results. However, there are a few places I think the consensus undervalues the past in favor of the hopes and dreams of player evaluation.
Most fantasy football players love to dream about players and maybe their potential, I prefer to reminisce about the known results of the past and the known downside of the present. The main areas I use to find differences are:
Breakout Trends
Most breakouts happen within a specific window, and the vast majority of those happen with at least one key indicator in place. (70% of top 12 breakouts happen by year three, and 70% of those breakouts happen after the player has finished in the top 36 previously, only 45% had finished in the top 24.)
Career Arcs
Players who have been “good,” are more likely to continue to be good, and their careers are more likely to provide better fantasy outcomes for the length of the average player than new or younger players who have not yet hit those production thresholds.
NFL positional trends
The NFL is in constant flux in positional trends based on the available talent from college teams and trying to copy successful strategies of the recent past while trying to exploit potential advantages that become available because of the gaps newer strategies leave open (as defenses get quicker to account for offensive trends, they leave themselves more open to the power, and vice versa.)
How effective am I at using these ideas? Mixed, to be honest, but my focus has always been to try and aim for the right process to gain better results. While I’m okay with getting the wrong answer to the right question, I don’t want to get a good result from a wrong question.
I’ll let you be the judge, as I walk through the first few ranking sections and try to highlight the differences and why, based on one of these areas, I have them ranked differently.
Now, let's get to it.
