Fantasy Football Draft Prep: Ben Gretch's 2020 wide receiver rankings and tiers

Ben Gretch reveals his PPR wide receiver rankings for 2020.

By Ben Gretch

Aug 18, 2020 at 11:55 am ET • 4 min read

The word I have taken to using to describe the wide receiver position in Fantasy is "misunderstood." Because of general running back hysteria — a natural and understandable response to the value of the RB position — wide receivers are treated like they are a dime a dozen. This trend isn't helped by end of year stats, which typically show that the difference between elite RB seasons and the production at any benchmark down the line is larger than the difference between elite WR seasons and the same WR benchmark.

Of course, that doesn't consider where the elite seasons come on Draft Day from or how best to structure your roster to take advantage. And the simple fact of running backs is that outside of the very elite in the first couple of rounds, you're typically looking at players with much higher bust rates than elite upside, something we've referred to as the Running Back Dead Zone before.

Meanwhile, because drawing targets is a skill, and because wide receivers tend to get injured at a lower rate than running backs, wide receiver rankings are typically more stable. There is not the substantial downside at wide receiver, and while there are breakout wide receivers every year, you're likely to see many of the same names in the top five or even top 20 in the end of season wide receiver ranks as you'd expected going into the year.

The idea that wide receiver is deep and you can always wait until later to draft one tends to be ignorant to those realities, especially since there's nothing saying you can't draft multiple early wide receivers. While you might see the depth of the position into Round 4 as an opportunity to wait until then to draft your No. 1, I see it as an opportunity to have a potentially elite WR3, especially considering the high bust rates historically at the RB position in that draft range.

Below are my 2020 PPR wide receivers rankings as of today, split into tiers, which I always use when drafting. In any draft where I can start up to four wide receivers (three plus a Flex), I want to have at least five from my first five tiers below. Since I'm typically drafting several early wide receivers, I don't necessarily draft directly off that list — players like Stefon Diggs, for example, I will frequently wait a round on and first draft a player ranked behind him like Terry McLaurin or D.J. Chark, because I know I have Diggs ranked well above ADP.

If I don't accomplish five from the first five tiers, you can bet I'll be reaching for some of my favorite upside plays that you see in Tier 6, including N'Keal Harry, Brandon Aiyuk, and Laviska Shenault, all of whom I have ranked at least 10 wide receiver spots above recent ADP. However, in a draft where I do accomplish the heavy early WR plan, I'm less likely to reach on any Tier 6 option, because I want to use those Round 8 to Round 13 picks loading up on high-upside running backs, as well as potentially addressing quarterback and tight end.

These rankings won't be updated between now and the beginning of the season, but you can always find Jamey Eisenberg's, Dave Richard's, and Heath Cummings' rankings for both PPR and non-PPR formats on the Draft Prep landing page, along with mock drafts, team outlooks, sleepers, breakouts, busts, and so much more. You can hear more about how to approach wide receiver in the Fantasy Football Today Wide Receiver preview: