With both college football and the National Football League passing the halfway point of the season, we take a look at the midseason 2020 dynasty rookie rankings for the 2020 NFL Draft.
Running backs Travis Etienne, D’Andre Swift, and Jonathan Taylor lead the best available running backs available in the 2020 NFL Draft, while Jerry Jeudy and CeeDee Lamb are the best of the wide receiver group.
Fantasy football players have anticipated this draft since many of these players were in high school, and the hype only grows by the day. With a deep and talented pool of skill position players expected to enter the league, the 2020 NFL Draft sets up as one that could swing dynasty leagues across the globe. Here’s a look at our midseason 2020 dynasty rookie rankings.
Note: As the regular season ends, check out my updated 2020 dynasty rookie rankings for all the newest information on these prospects.
Tier One
1.01 – Travis Etienne
1.02 – D’Andre Swift
1.03 – Jonathan Taylor
Tier One of my mid-season 2020 dynasty rookie rankings features three running backs with the potential to be workhorses in the National Football League. Incidentally, all three running backs are unique prospects that win in different ways on the football field.
Travis Etienne is my RB1 and the top fantasy football player to own in the 2020 NFL Draft, but it’s admittedly by the slimmest of margins. Etienne wins with pure speed and acceleration, but he’s also effective on inside-zone plays out of the Shotgun Formation. Etienne is an improving pass-catcher and pass-blocker, but it’s probably the main question mark about the Clemson running back.
Etienne opened the season with 205 rushing yards against Georgia Tech then suffered through a midseason slump that saw the running back fail to reach 100 yards in four straight games. After Clemson’s bye week allowed the running back to get fresh for the stretch run, Etienne has rushed for over 100 yards in four consecutive games, including a career-high 212 rushing yards and two touchdowns in nine first-half carries against Wofford.
D’Andre Swift is the best receiving back in the 2020 NFL Draft with 622 career receiving yards along with over 2,500 rushing yards. Possessing excellent vision and the innate ability to make defenders miss in the open field, Swift is the type of swiss-army-knife player that should excel as a three-down running back in the National Football League. While I have Etienne slightly above Swift in my current rankings, you can’t go wrong with either running back as your top pick in 2020 rookie drafts.
Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor wraps up Tier One as a nice consolation prize for RB-needy dynasty fantasy football players in search of a potential workhorse. Taylor might be the purest runner in the 2020 NFL Draft, but he entered 2019 with huge question marks about his ball security and passing game prowess.
Entering the season with 16 career receptions for 155 receiving yards, the Wisconsin running back has silenced some of his critics in 2019 by almost doubling his career output through the air with 17 receptions for 143 yards after only eight games. However, Taylor’s questionable ball security and knack for fumbling should have dynasty football owners at least a little weary. Taylor has 14 career fumbles in three seasons, which is more than Etienne (3), Swift (4), and Ohio State’s J.K. Dobbins (3) have combined in their careers.
Tier Two
1.04 – Jerry Jeudy
1.05 – CeeDee Lamb
1.06 – Laviska Shenault
Tier Two of my mid-season 2020 dynasty rookie rankings features three intriguing wide receiving prospects with WR1 potential. All three wide receivers should be first-round draft picks in the 2020 NFL Draft, so their fantasy pecking order largely depends on where they land.
Alabama wide receiving Jerry Jeudy is my WR1 and one of the purest route-runners in all of football. Jeudy has incredible lateral quickness in and out of breaks while also being one of the toughest players to bring down in the open field. Jeudy might have dropped down from #1 in my initial 2020 dynasty rookie rankings, but that’s mostly due to running backs being so scarce in fantasy football.
After the departure of 2019 first-round pick Marquise Brown, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb has taken his game to the next level as Oklahoma’s #1 option in the passing game. In fact, Lamb has impressed so much there’s a legit discussion to be had whether Lamb or Jeudy is the top prospect at the position.
While I think putting Lamb above Jeudy is a bit of an overreaction, I have zero doubts that Lamb will be a successful fantasy football player for the next ten years. Lamb is one of the most exciting prospects in college football, and I fully expect the shifty wide receiver to excel in the slot on the next level.
Colorado’s Laviska Shenault Jr. hasn’t had the same statistical season as a season ago, but don’t let that alter your opinion of the wide receiver too much. Shenault Jr. is still an incredible football player that excels with the ball in his hands.
Last season, Colorado routinely peppered Shenault with short targets near the line of scrimmage to take advantage of his yards after catch ability. Shenault finished his sophomore campaign with over 1,100 total yards and 11 touchdowns, but that number has dropped to 644 yards and five total touchdowns so far this season.
Tier Three
1.07 – J.K. Dobbins
1.08 – Tee Higgins
1.09 – Cam Akers
1.10 – Bryan Edwards
1.11 – Jalen Reagor
1.12 – Tua Tagovailoa
If you’re a RB-needy franchise that misses out on the big three mentioned in Tier One, Ohio State’s J.K. Dobbins and Florida State’s Cam Akers are the two running backs to target in dynasty rookie drafts.
Dobbins has been one of the most consistent running backs in college football with three straight seasons of over 1,000 rushing yards, while he’s also on pace for his third straight 20-catch season. Akers has excelled in 2019 despite the overall ineptitude surrounding him at Florida State. Akers has 16 touchdowns this season to equal the 16 total touchdowns the running back scored in 2017 and 2018 combined. Akers is a tremendous athlete that looks like an NFL running back on film, but his nine career fumbles are something worth keeping an eye on.
Clemson’s Tee Higgins, South Carolina’s Bryan Edwards, and TCU’s Jalen Reagor are the three wide receivers to target in the late first-round of 2020 rookie drafts. Both Higgins (6’4″) and Edwards (6’3″) have the size and ball-skills to be outside wide receivers in the NFL, while Reagor is smaller and likely destined for the slot.
Reagor’s stats have suffered this season thanks to horrific quarterback play in Fort Worth and ball security issues. Reagor has less than 500 receiving yards and six fumbles this season, but the speedy TCU wide receiver remains one of the most dangerous returners in college football.
Tua Tagovailoa, the sensational quarterback out of Alabama, wraps up the first round of my mid-season 2020 rookie dynasty rankings. While some dynasty players wouldn’t dare draft a quarterback in the first round of this loaded 2020 NFL Draft class, you know some QB-needy dynasty owner is going to take the chance on the Crimson Tide quarterback phenom.
Tagovailoa is one of the greatest quarterback prospects in recent memory, and he’s more than lived up to the hype this season. The southpaw has 27 touchdown passes with only two interceptions in 2019 to push his career touchdown-to-interception ratio to an absurd 81-10 in three seasons.
Next Tier: Tyler Johnson, Chuba Hubbard, Henry Ruggs, Tylan Wallace, Eno Benjamin