Tiers have many uses in Fantasy Football, certainly more than rankings, even if everyone seems to prefer the latter. You can use them to find values on Draft Day and you can use them to make trades. In Dynasty, they have an added value because they help rebuilders and contenders work together to make fair deals.
What you'll see highlighted by the tiers below is that there is no fair one-for-one trade for Bijan Robinson. He's in a tier, and a class, of his own. But as soon as Tier 2 you start to see the value. Jahmy Gibbs and Christian McCaffrey in the same tier, which almost makes a trade by itself. Now, to be clear, I would rather trade McCaffrey for wide receivers and picks if I was starting a rebuild, but Gibbs fits if you see things differently.
Where you really start to see the value is in Tier 6. James Conner has league-winning upside this season but he is also 28 years old with an extensive injury history. Conner is exactly the type of cheaper back a contending team should be looking to add and a Round 2 rookie like Tank Bigsby, Kendre Miller, or Tyjae Spears should get the job done.
I expect I am a little lower on Bigsby and Miller than most, but there's a good reason for both. While Bigsby has had a good camp, he's still firmly behind Travis Etienne and I expect that to be the case for at least thre next two seasons, most likely the next three. Miller has injury concerns, and both Alvin Kamara and Jamaal Williams ahead of him this year. There is nothing in Miller's profile that suggests he will be a three-down back, and these are PPR rankings.
One other vet in Tier 5 is Dalvin Cook. Yes, he's fallen yet another tier. It seems the best two offers he has are with the Jets and the Dolphins, neither of which seem likely to offer him a job as a workhorse back. Cook's metrics took a pretty big hit last year and I would suggest anyone who is not rebuilding should be strongly considering taking a 2024 second round pick for him. It's possible in a month or two you can't even get that for the former superstar. Note, you'll have to get even further down the tiers to find free agent backs Ezekiel Elliott, Kareem Hunt, and Leonard Fournette.
Here are my updated Dynasty Tiers at running back:
