A look at the 2015 rookie class

Greetings, FFers. As I mentioned earlier this week, I've got my crew of awesome writers back for 2015 and Bob is here with some thoughts on which rookies you might want to consider, particularly those of you in dynasty leagues. Enjoy!

Hey folks, the Fantasy Football season is just around the corner and one of the first things I do is research my picks for my Dynasty League Rookies. I’ve looked up six Fantasy sites for their inputs and then compiled them into a consensus ranking. Here are the sites that I used for this compilation:

• This one is already a consensus rankings from FantasyPros.
• And this one is from Fantasy Football Today, one of the best free sites out there.
• Next up, this link is from the Dynasty Nerds website, a pretty good one for Dynasty Leagues and this is from a mock draft.
•  This next ranking only lists the top ten prospects from Yahoo
•  Finally another Dynasty League free site. This one goes 50 deep, but I only consider the top 20.
• This ranking is the current MyFantasyLeague average draft position to date.

But first, let’s take a look back at last year’s Rookies to see if we can gain some insight on who we might pick this year. Below is a comparison of the top 24 rookies picked in the 2014 draft as compiled from MyFantasyLeague.com, along with their performance during the 2014 season.

Rank	Player/Team/Position	ADP	2014 Pos Rank	2014 Overall Rank	AVG Fantasy Pts
1	Sankey, Bishop TEN RB	67	44	223	6.9
2	Watkins, Sammy BUF WR	82	27	83	11.9
3	Cooks, Brandin NOS WR	87	55	179	13.3
4	Benjamin, Kelvin CAR WR	102	16	53	13.7
5	Evans, Mike TBB WR	104	13	44	15.7
6	Hyde, Carlos SFO RB	109	57	270	5.5
7	Freeman, Devonta ATL RB	122	54	261	5.2
8	Hill, Jeremy CIN RB	128	11	43	14.9
9	West, Terrance CLE RB	133	32	173	9.8
10	Matthews, Jordan PHI WR	136	26	79	12.1
11	Ebron, Eric DET TE	136	40	328	3.9
12	Williams, Andre NYG RB	139	22	106	10.7
13	Lee, Marqise JAC WR	156	No appreciable performance
14	Manziel, Johnny CLE QB	156	53	456	2.5
15	Mason, Tre STL RB	164	28	136	13.2
16	White, James NEP RB	169	No appreciable performance
17	Latimer, Cody DEN WR	171	No appreciable performance
18	Beckham, Odell NYG WR	172	6	29	24.2
19	Bortles, Blake JAC QB	173	23	64	15.1
20	Bridgewater, Teddy MIN QB	174	22	60	16.4
21	Seferian-Jenkins, Austin TBB TE	180	43	331	5.7
22	Rodgers, Richard GBP TE	185	42	330	3.2
23	Carey, Ka'Deem CHI RB	190	No appreciable performance
24	Carr, Derek OAK QB	194	20	45	14.5

Clearly it was the year of the rookie WR last year. I can’t remember another year in my 15 year history of Fantasy Football where WRs took off in their rookie year. In fact, it was well accepted that picking a rookie WR in the draft was folly. But last year changed things, and it may be a trend to continue. 

WRs: The big winner was Odell Beckham who ended up 6^th in overall WR performance. But Kelvin Benjamin and Mike Evans cracked the top twenty as well. Brandin Cooks, Sammy Watkins, and Jordan Matthews did well when they played with good per game averages. Last year I was laughed at when I picked Kelvin Benjamin and Brandin Cooks with my 6^th and 7^th picks…I won the league.

RBs: Jeremy Hill surprised last year and ended up an every week start before the end of the season. Three other RBs performed well when they played, with good points averaged per game: Andre Williams, Terrence West, and Tre Mason. But they were mostly the recipients of getting starts because of injuries to previous starters; Rashad Jennings, Isaiah Crowell, and Benny Cunningham. 

QBs: Manziel, drafted first, was a bust but that didn’t come as a surprise to many. Carr, Bortles, and Bridgewater did pretty well as starting rookies, so don’t discount this year’s probable rookie starters.

TEs: All a bust, so beware taking any rookie TE this year. TEs have a tougher time becoming familiar with team playbooks because the position is so versatile and has so many decisions.

So that takes us to this year…

Here’s the compilation averaging the rankings of the top 20. I don’t give much credibility beyond 20 rookies each year but went 27 deep to watch for those. I would never give up a spot on my roster to a rookie that lowly ranked when I can use it for an active player. I’ve included the AVG rank which is the compilation results along with the average draft position data to date. 

Rank	Player/Position/Team	AVG Rank	MFL ADP	MFL ADP Rank
1	Amari Cooper, WR Oak	2.00	39	3
2	Todd Gurley, RB StL	2.20	36	2
3	Melvin Gordon, RB SD	3.00	35	1
4	Kevin White, WR Chi	5.20	56	4
5	Nelson Agholor, WR Phi	6.20	82	9
6	DeVante Parker, WR Mia	7.25	76	6
7	T.J. Yeldon, RB Jac	7.40	61	5
8	Ameer Abdullah, RB Det	7.60	79	8
9	Dorial Green-Beckam, WR Ten	8.33	93	10
10	Tevin Coleman, RB Atl	8.40	78	7
11	Breshad Perriman, WR Bal	8.50	96	11
12	Jameis Winston, QB TB	12.00	116	14
13	Duke Johnson, RB Cle	14.00	102	12
14	Devin Funchess, WR Car	14.25	126	15
15	Max Williams, TE Bal	15.67	138	20
16	Jaelen Strong, WR Hou	15.75	126	16
17	Chris Conley, WR KC	16.00	190	26
18	David Cobb, RB Ten	17.00	132	19
19	Phillip Dosett, WR Ind	17.00	145	21
20	David Johnson, RB Ari	17.25	127	17
21	Marcus Mariota, QB Ten	17.40	129	18
22	Jay Ajayi, RB Mia	17.75	106	13
23	Javorius Allen, RB Bal	21.33	173	22
24	Tyler Lockett, WR Sea	22.00	182	25
25	Devin Smith, WR NYJ	22.50	191	27
26	Sammy Coates, WR Pit	22.50	179	24
27	Matt Jones, RB Was	24.67	173	23

The top ten rankings are equally spilt between WRs and RBs, no surprise there. That was the same as last year. Notice in the ADP that RBs move up a little due to the scarcity of RBs in later rounds in most drafts.

I agree with most of the data here, and will be using it in my drafts, updating as ADP changes and injuries are discovered. But be cognizant of the situations per team, such as opportunities to start or glaring openings at positions and dependency on the QB. Amari Cooper deserves the top spot and I like Derek Carr to continue to improve. Most experts are predicting a vast improvement from Oakland this year as well. So this looks like a great situation for Cooper. Todd Gurley, depending on his questionable health situation, has only Cunningham and Mason to beat for the spot. Gurley wins easily if he’s healthy. I love Melvin Gordon in SD, he will fill a big void at RB and get lots of touches. Same with Kevin White, filling in for Brandon Marshall. Nelson Agholor has an opportunity to start with Maclin gone and will be in a pass-happy offense. Big question in Philly is the QB. DeVante Parker doesn’t have as good a situation as others, but I like Tannehill. Both T.J. Yeldon and Ameer Abdullah have great holes for them to fill in Jac and Det, respectively. Winston is slated to start by all indications but temper expectations; he’s not going to be an every week starter that I can see. There are a lot of questions on whether Mariota will start the season, I don’t see it, but will probably end up there by the end of the year. I like Mariota as a dynasty stash. And as for TEs…don’t bother.

So there you have it, have another great year and look to the Fantasy Football Librarian for more insights in the coming weeks.