Each week, Footballguys staff members will share the big movers in their respective Dynasty Rankings. Since the contributors will rotate, please check in weekly. The focus of this article will be on the “why” more than the movement itself. Dynasty Rankings are fluid and we hope that sharing the rationale will help you in your quest to create dynasties with all of your teams. The diversity of rankings will result in a variety of opinions weekly.
Quarterback
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Matt Stafford – In the past, I've been very critical of Stafford as an average passer wholly dependent on a herculean workload and the best receiver in football for his fantasy value. This year, though, Stafford's attempts are down, but his completions are up, his yards are up, his yards per attempt are up, his touchdown rate is up, and his interception rate is down. He's even taking fewer sacks, receiving the fewest sacks per pass attempt. His average time before throwing is way down, which is usually an indicator of who is achieving good mastery over his offense. He's still not a true top-tier quarterback, but he's getting close, and his huge volume and Calvin Johnson are making him a top-tier fantasy quarterback.
Nick Foles – If Foles and Vick are still competing for the starting position, I'd say Foles probably has a pretty substantial lead right now. Throwing for 7 TDs and 0 INTs in a single game will have that effect. For the season, Foles has 13 TDs and 0 INTs, and is averaging 8.7 yards per attempt. Those are Peyton Manning numbers.
Bloom
Michael Vick - A record-setting performance is usually enough to buy a young quarterback the rest of the season to make his way as a starter. Nick Foles is "the man" in Philadelphia from here on out unless he suffers another injury, and Vick will be looking for work next year.
Tom Brady - Brady's dynasty stock punched its way out of the corner with a massive game against a reeling Steelers defense. The visions of him returning to elite status with a healthy Rob Gronkowski and Danny Amendola were realized. He has a lot more left than we thought just a week ago.
Grant
Cam Newton – With Ron Rivera taking the kid gloves off in an attempt to save his on job, Cam Newton may just have saved his as your fantasy starter. Newton has been on fire for the last few weeks, and the two interceptions he threw against Atlanta this week were his first in the last four games. Newton has also chipped in three rushing TDS in the last four games as well. He’s returning to that ‘Superman’ form that we fell in love with when he was a rookie and he makes an excellent guy to build your dynasty team around.
Ryan Tannehill – Tannehill may be the starter in Miami, but he seems to have fallen backwards a bit this season. He has only 11 passing TDS against 9 Interceptions through the first half of the season and he’s still only at a 6.8 YPA for the season. At this point, I don’t see how he’s going to improve unless they make some serious upgrades to the offense for next season.
Running Back
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Chris Johnson - Johnson looked like a running back on his leg as a starter in the NFL during the first half of the season. With Jake Locker healthy again and big holes opened by the revamped offensive line, he actually looked as close to old "CJ2K' as he has in a long time. With Jacksonville up this week, Johnson can cement his return to status as a coveted fantasy running back.
Zac Stacy - Duh, Stacy is up, but just how high? He is a young running back seizing a job for good. Forget about his fifth-round draft status and just watch him play. If we were doing rookie drafts today, Stacy easily would go in the top 5. The better question is how high he would go in an initial dynasty draft. My guess is that it would be higher than most think, maybe even in the top 40.
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Trent Richardson – Yes he’s learning a new system, but after six games, you’d expect to see some improvement from Richardson when it comes to the Indianapolis offense. He has only two rushing TDS and that was in his first two games. Since then he’s averaging around 50 total yards from scrimmage. Not exactly a guy you can build your franchise around.
Ray Rice – 259 yards rushing through the first seven games. Less than 2.7 yards per carry. Less than 400 total yards from scrimmage and the season is already half over. I’m not sure if the team is dragging him down or the mileage is finally catching up with him, but Ray Rice is no longer a lock for a 1st round pick – even in a ppr league.
Zac Stacy – There isn’t much to get excited about in St. Louis these days, but Stacy may be the lone exception to that. He’s had over 300 yards from scrimmage over the last two weeks and has scored double digit fantasy points in his last three games. The Rams aren’t going anywhere this season, so Stacy should have plenty of opportunities to continue to showcase his work.
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Eddie Lacy – Since returning from injury, Eddie Lacy has been a Work. Horse. He's now topped 22 carries in five straight games. He doesn't get a ton of targets in the passing game, but his sheer volume and efficiency as a runner, combined with his young age, makes him one of the few shining gems in a pretty bad dynasty RB class.
Ray Rice – The good news, (for Rice owners, if not for Baltimore fans), is that Bernard Pierce has been struggling every bit as much as Ray Rice has this season, as both runners are averaging fewer than 3 yards per attempt. The bad news is that Rice is already on the old-ish side, and it looks as if he's going to lose at least one of his few remaining prime seasons waiting for Baltimore to figure out their running game.
Wide Receiver
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Hakeem Nicks – Nicks is a free agent next season and I don’t know what scares me more: The fact that he may get big money to move to another team, or the fact that he might stay and re-sign with the Giants. Either way, I’m avoiding him until after the free agency period.
Miles Austin – Whether he’s hurt or he’s ineffective, the Dallas Cowboys have fallen out of love with Miles Austin. The guy isn’t anywhere close to a starting lineup from a fantasy prospective, and if he moves to another team next season, I’m not sure it will improve at all.
Justin Blackmon – I’m already low on Blackmon, but the guy’s fantasy value is about as low as it can possibly go now. He’s suspended indefinitely from a bad team with little hope of improvement, even if he returns. Time to sell low.
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Justin Blackmon – So, this is an easy one. Coming into the season, we knew that Justin Blackmon was a rare enough talent to command a top-5 NFL draft pick, but we also heard rumors that he was in stage 3 of the substance abuse program, which means any further violations could result in a year-long suspension. Little did we know that he'd get one of those further violations a mere four games removed from his suspension for his previous violations. It's clear that Justin Blackmon has serious problems with addiction. Unlike many problems, addiction doesn't respond well to logical thoughts of what is at stake. Addiction is often a life-long battle, and the odds of truly overcoming it are not favorable. Even if Justin Blackmon manages to overcome his addictions- and I truly hope he does- there's a good chance he has a few more stumbles along the way. At this point, I don't want to be in a position where I ever have to rely on Blackmon on a weekly basis.
Keenan Allen – Right now, Keenan Allen is on a phenomenal hot streak. I often caution against reading too much into a hot streak, as by definition it represents a player playing well above his true talent level. Still, when you're a rookie WR who is looking and performing like a veteran, you're going to move pretty quickly up my rankings.
Tavon Austin – Tavon Austin is in the opposite situation from Keenan Allen. He's been looking atrocious on the football field, and has been spectacularly unproductive. I'm not ever going to bury a guy for his performance as a rookie, especially if he's a top-10 draft pick like Austin, but a slow start is a good reason to pump the brakes a little bit.
Kendall Wright – I believe Kendall Wright might be on pace for the quietest 80 catch, 1000 yard season in the league. Part of it is due to his low TD totals, but touchdowns are variable and fluctuate more than any other statistic. What's not variable is how much Tennessee's quarterbacks trust and rely on Wright, especially on the so-called “money down”. Wright's 29 targets on 3rd or 4th down rank 5th in the NFL.
Bloom
Justin Blackmon - Blackmon had come out this year stronger, faster, and quicker than he was in 2012, but apparently his judgment did not improve with his physical attributes. Ricky Williams and Michael Vick are players who prove that redemption is possible in the NFL, but Blackmon might be dealing with alcoholism, which is a little different than liking smoking weed or dogfighting.
T.Y. Hilton - So all it took for Hilton to hit his WR1 ceiling was Reggie Wayne going out for the year. It might feel like an overreaction to one game, but Andrew Luck and Hilton are going to make beautiful music together for a long time.
Tight End
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Jared Cook – After a strong preseason where he looked like the only weapon on the Rams, and a monster week 1 where he led all tight ends in production, I was as high on Jared Cook as anyone you'd find. After another 8 weeks, it's becoming clear that I was duped by yet another one of his inconsistent outbursts. Not only has Cook not been producing, but he's been losing snaps to Lance Kendricks. Not a good development.
Tim Wright – A rookie undrafted free agent, it was easy to believe that Wright only got his initial chance because of his previous experience with head coach Greg Schiano at Rutgers. Anyone who still believes that needs to disabuse themselves of that notion, and quickly. Wright has looked more like a receiver than a tight end this season, and has done yeoman's work for Tampa ever since Mike Williams was lost for the season. Even with Schiano on his way out the door, Wright's arrow is pointing up, up, up.
Bloom
Rob Gronkowski - All of those surgeries are far in the rear view mirror now, as Gronkowski took three game to get back to the dominant form that made him one of the most valuable players in fantasy football. Congrats if you traded for him at any time in the last 10 months.
Jason Witten - We were all getting a little worried about Witten. After all, he had only nine catches for 90 yards and no scores in the previous three games. Witten eclipsed that as a fantasy performance in just one afternoon in Week 9. He's still a strong TE1 in fantasy, but that isn't worth nearly as much as the elite pair of TEs are now.
Grant
Jared Cook – The entire St. Louis passing game is a wreck right now and Cook has really suffered for it. His TD reception this week against the Titans was his first since week 1 and even with the TD, he still didn’t have more than 10 fantasy points this week. He’s averaging just three receptions a game now and that just isn’t going to cut it from a guy you expect to trot out every week as the starter.