Jeff Ratcliffe's top 200 fantasy football rankings for PPR leagues

Having a good set of overall fantasy football rankings is the first step in dominating your drafts in 2020. Below you’ll find the top 200 PPR fantasy football rankings for 2020. Why 200? Well, that’s essentially 16 rounds of players in a 12-team league. With these rankings you can get a sense of how to value players relative to each other across positions. You’ll also get a sense of the trends developing in 2020 fantasy football drafts.

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This year’s fantasy drafts are likely to see running backs fly off the board early and often. So you’ll notice below that there are 21 backs who crack the top 50. While it may be tempting to zig while others zag this year, keep in mind that so many running backs at the top of rankings actually pushes value down the board at wide receiver. So even if you go running back heavy early in your drafts, you’re still likely to find solid value at wideout in the middle rounds.

One of the biggest questions in this year’s fantasy football drafts is whether or not to go tight end premium. There’s a good chance that both Travis Kelce and George Kittle will all be off the board by the end of the second round. We know that having one of these two players last year provided a major advantage on nearly a weekly basis. However, spending such a premium pick means you’ll likely sacrifice landing a top-15 running back or a top-12 receiver. Is that value cost too great? The answer to that question really depends on where the next five tight ends can be had. Current rankings and ADP data suggest between Rounds 5 and 8. If that trend holds, it might actually be more cost-effective to pass on the Big 2 and grab one of the next five to seven tight ends off the board.

Casual fantasy football drafters tend to overvalue quarterback. Things aren’t as bad as they were a decade ago when you were likely to regularly see quarterbacks drafted in the first round. But signal-callers still tend to go earlier than their relative value suggests they should. Lamar Jackson is the consensus top fantasy quarterback this year, but you’ll notice he only comes at No. 25 below. That’s an early third-round fantasy draft grade, and this isn’t a knock on Jackson whatsoever. Simply put, the gap between Jackson and what you will likely be able to get off waivers each week isn’t as large as the gap between the top running backs or wide receivers and a replacement-level player. Like most years, the wise thing to do this year is wait at the position and scoop value in and around the ninth or 10th round.

You’ll also notice that the top-ranked fantasy team defense is the San Francisco 49ers at 156th. That’s a late 13th-round fantasy draft grade, which is nowhere near where the first defense will be drafted. Current ADP has the Patriots as the top DST, with an ADP in the mid-11th round. So, in selecting the top defense at market value you’re likely giving up close to three rounds of value at the position. In this same spot, you could/should be scooping value at wide receiver and running back or grabbing a late-round quarterback option. Any one of those moves will make your team significantly better than drafting a defense in the 11th round. Let someone else make that move. You’ll have plenty of upside options to pick from in the late rounds of your drafts.