Top 200 for 2021 Fantasy Football Update: The Home Stretch

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The biggest fantasy football draft weekend of the season is finally upon us. Saturday morning, as you shower and brush your teeth for the first time in three weeks in anticipation of the big day, don’t forget to pull up your buddy Donkey Teeth’s handy dandy top 200 rankings for reference—these rankings will be frequently updated all weekend as football news breaks. Also, don’t forget to put pants on. I know you haven’t been wearing pants very often the past three weeks, but it’s time to put some bottoms on and get out there. Unless you’re in a nudist fantasy league, then you’re already good to go. Speaking of which, does anyone have any openings in their nudist fantasy league? Asking for a friend. Anyway, here’s who’s moving most in my rankings in recent days, along with my updated top 200 rankings for 2021 fantasy football:

Gus Edwards – The big news this was the very unfortunate injury to Ravens star running back, J.K. Dobbins. Gus the Bus is the obvious beneficiary here and he jumps up to #29 in my RB rankings, though I do expect his price to inflate higher than I’m willing to pay in late drafts. I was a fan of Justice Hill when he came into the league two years back, and there’s still some intrigue, but Ty’son Williams is actually the backup I want to own after a fantastic preseason has vaulted him up to #2 on the depth chart.

Jakobi Meyers – Huge news out of New England this week as Billy Boy cut bait on the Ghost of Cam Newton and anointed Mac Jones as the savior in Patriot-land. Essentially all players in the Patriot offense should benefit from this move as Newton will no longer be culturing touchdowns from Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson and Jones will actually be able to deliver accurate throws to Jakobi Meyers and company. Dave Richard of CBS Fantasy Sports joined me last week to discuss why he already loved drafting Meyers even before this news:

Tony Jones Jr. – Word out of New Orleans is that Latavius Murray came dangerously close to getting cut this preseason. Part of that can be attributed to the great training camp for an undrafted second-year man out of Notre Dame, Tony Jones Jr. If you’re looking to handcuff Kamara or just in need of some deep league upside, look no further than TJJ.

Irv Smith Jr. – This was supposed to be THE YEAR for Irv The Perv! Now it will just be the year lost as he underwent season-ending meniscus surgery. Tyler Conklin is currently atop the Vikings depth chart at TE, but Chris Herndon is the guy I’m keeping an eye on. He showed flashes when on the field with the Jets.

Wayne Gallman – The Falcons waived Qadree Ollison and brought in Wayne Gallman as their number two. This is pretty big news since Mike Davis, as good as he was last year filling in for CMC, isn’t exactly a sure thing as an every-down back. And Gallman was fantastic last season behind a terrible Giants offensive line.

Quez Watkins – It’s not Heisman winner DeVonta Smith, nor sophomore breakout candidate Jalen Reagor who’s garnered the most buzz out of Eagles camp this preseason. The Eagles took Watkins in the sixth round of the 2020 draft and our new writer, Paul Blake, just highlighted the sleeper in his debut deep-league targets article. Make sure Quez is on your radar.

Michael Pittman – One of my favorite late wide receiver targets in early drafts was T.Y. Hilton. But Hilton didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express is and is now dealing with neck issues that could force him to miss a chunk of the season. The guy can’t catch a break since Andrew Luck retire. Anyway, the takeaway here is that second-year breakout candidate Michael Pittman should be moving way up our draft boards as a heavy dose of targets will be headed his way.

Brandon Aiyuk – Yet to resume practice with a hammy. I already wasn’t crazy about Aiyuk at his draft price but this is the nail in the fantasy coffin for me. I’m not into drafting hurt players unless they’re really cheap or rosters are really deep. That was poetic, I’m going to go write a song!

*Note: I have not included my own projections in any of this year’s rankings. Rudy Gamble’s World-Renowned 2021 Fantasy Football Projections are all you need! These preseason projections are available free of charge, while Rudy’s in-season weekly projection subscription is currently available until September 9th at an early bird discounted price of only $17.99 for the entire season! These are the same weekly projections that won Rudy Gamble the FantasyPros designation of “Best Bold Ranker” for the years 2017-2019 (and likely 2020!).