Fantasy Football Week 1 Projections: ESPN Fantasy Rankings
September 11, 2009 by The Sports Watchers
TheSportsWatchers.com: This post was published 2 years 4 months 29 days ago which may make it irrelevant to your fantasy football inquiry. For up to date fantasy football projections and predictions, go to our homepage at TSW Fantasy Football. 
So the Fantasy Football experts at ESPN have laid out their rankings for Week 1 of the fantasy football season. Certainly there are a lot of similarities between their Week 1 projections and mine, but there are some slight differences.
I’ll lay out their rankings and give you my analysis of them, and of course you can see my top picks, every week, right here at TheSportsWatchers.com.
ESPN’s Quarterback Rankings for Fantasy Football Week 1:
1. Drew Brees – Drew Brees is facing the Detroit Lions, so this ranking makes perfect sense. That’s why I have Brees over Brady in my quarterback “Face Off” of the week.
2. Tom Brady – Brady faces a Buffalo defense that the Patriots have been 11 times in a row. It suffices to say, he’ll have a pretty good outing passing the ball against this Bills team that couldn’t beat Matt Cassel last year.
3. Peyton Manning – Manning will be up against the Jacksonville Jaguars, who’s defense took a step back last year, and because of that, I too think he will have a very effective day passing the ball. However, ESPN had some dissension here, with one analyst ranking Manning the 6th best fantasy quarterback on the Week 1 schedule.
4. Aaron Rodgers – Statistically, Rodgers had a great season in 2008, and really, that’s all that matters in fantasy football. He’s up against the Chicago Bears defense in Week 1, fortunately for him, this defense is far from what it used to be. Although I don’t have Rodgers quite this high in my projections, he should have a decent day.
5. Kurt Warner – I definitely think that Warner’s matchup with the 49ers garners a higher ranking that Rodgers against Chicago, but most of the ESPN brass disagrees with me on this notion. I guess they didn’t see the 70% completion percentage, nearly 600 yards and 4 touchdowns Warner had against the 49ers in 2 games last season.
Rounding out ESPN’s Top 10 projected quarterbacks:
6. Philip Rivers vs. Oakland Raiders
7. Matt Schaub vs. New York Jets
8. Donovan McNabb vs. Carolina Panthers
9. Matt Ryan vs. Miami Dolphins
10. Tony Romo vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
I like Rivers, Schaub and McNabb in the top 10 for this week, but Ryan might have a tough day if the Miami stops the Falcons ground game, and I just don’t see Romo playing too well in his first game without Terrell Owens. Hasselbeck and Carson Palmer would have better options for inclusion in the Top 10.
