Eric Karabell is a senior writer for fantasy baseball, football and basketball at ESPN. Eric is a charter member of FSWA Hall of Fame and author of "The Best Philadelphia Sports Arguments".
It sure is nice rostering one of the top running backs in fantasy this season, like Todd Gurley II, Saquon Barkley and Melvin Gordon, but that hardly means we cannot adjust the rankings at the top of the position! Six weeks are complete this season and there was some minor jostling not only for the best running backs but also in the overall top 10. Same at wide receiver!
Here are the end-of-season rankings we are always updating -- at least every Tuesday -- and you should see the surprising performances of Week 6 reflected, while some of the disappointing players are heading in the other direction.
As always, use the rankings for whatever purposes you desire, whether it is for trade talks (deadline in standard leagues is five weeks away!), bar bets or for eventual shredding. We will not take it personally.
Note: "UP" and "DOWN" indicate a move of at least five spots from the previous week's overall rankings, or at least three spots from the previous week's positional rankings.
Overall top 100
Quarterback
The top 10 remains as such, but a few players later on moved up after excellent performances. Tampa Bay's Jameis Winston leads the way in this regard and one can make a case for him as a fantasy starter right now, since he played so well on Sunday, and has averaged more than 21 fantasy points over his past six starts. The schedule looks appealing, too. The entire NFC South defends poorly and should aid many a fantasy manager this season!
As for Jacksonville's Blake Bortles, we did not get any garbage-time numbers this week. How sad. Those in multi-quarterback formats should look at Buffalo as ol' fantasy friend Derek Anderson could be back in play for the short-term, Miami in case Ryan Tannehill misses more time, and prepare for a potential replacement situation in Denver.
Running back
The Saints served their bye week but the performances of rookie Barkley and veteran Gordon -- mainly through the passing game -- were enough to convince me to slide them past Alvin Kamara. The presence of Mark Ingram II helped, too. Arizona's David Johnson is scoring touchdowns and the yards are not there but check out his schedule. He remains someone to invest in, though it is possible Le'Veon Bell and Ingram move up to his range soon. Hey, if the Steelers decide they do not want Bell back, James Conner moves into the top 10. What an unfortunate mess that situation has become.
Things are also not trending so nicely for Chicago's Jordan Howard, but check the back end of the RB2 choices and it seems none of them is so enticing. Put simply, there are fewer than 20 running backs to deserve top-20 status. Howard and Alex Collins do not catch passes and both share snaps, but we must rely on them. Conner is no lock to get the snaps next game. Marshawn Lynch and LeSean McCoy remain hampered by bad offenses. Dalvin Cook remains hurt. And look what San Francisco did on Monday, bypassing Alfred Morris for Raheem Mostert. It is a weekly adventure at running back.
Wide receiver
Find a more valuable wide receiver than Minnesota's Adam Thielen. I shall wait. It says in this space each week that he gets 100 receiving yards because literally nobody else is doing this. Thielen has also scored a touchdown in four of six games. He is doing what we recall Pittsburgh's Antonio Brown used to do. It is impressive. Thielen rises to the top spot and it does not reflect poorly on the other stars. The Chargers' Keenan Allen moves out of the top 10 and Cleveland's Jarvis Landry is out of the top 20, while Philadelphia's Alshon Jeffery, Cincinnati's Tyler Boyd, Chicago's Taylor Gabriel, San Francisco's Marquise Goodwin and Atlanta's Mohamed Sanu move up to better flex positioning.
Tight end
The movement at this position occurred for two reasons, one of them being that Cleveland's David Njoku and Atlanta's Austin Hooper come off big performances that seem to be sustainable, while several injured folks are regaining health. Hooper, incidentally, now has more PPR points than Rob Gronkowski. So do Eric Ebron, Jared Cook and George Kittle. This is why Gronk has been the No. 3 tight end in this space for a month. Carolina's Greg Olsen returned in Week 6 and he plans to play in Week 7. Evan Engram and Jack Doyle seem close. We sure do miss Delanie Walker.
