The hottest fantasy football players going into week 1
Ten players, ranked by what they averaged per game last season and shown with the defence they meet in week 1. Five from the top tier, five from below it. These are the cards that would burn in DraftIcon, the free weekly draft game, once the season gives them a reason to.
The hottest players in the Icon tier
The hottest players below the Icon tier
Who are the hottest fantasy football players right now?
Nobody has scored a point yet: week 1 has not kicked off. So the honest answer this week is a projection rather than a reading, and it is built from two things we do have. The first is how many fantasy points each player averaged per game last season. The second is the matchup: which defence he meets in week 1, and how that defence held up against his position.
What the list is not is a full ranking of the league. It is the top of the DraftIcon pool, the two hundred players you can actually be dealt in a draft, split into the top tier and everything below it. A player who is not in the pool will not appear here however well he plays.
Who should I start in week 1?
The two questions that decide most start-sit calls are on every row above. Is he playing at all, and who is he playing against. An injury designation is shown against the name, and the matchup carries the rating the pool assigns it: an easy one, a neutral one, or a defence that has been hard on that position.
Where that rating helps most is the middle of your roster. Your first-round back starts whatever the matchup, and no rating changes that. The call between two similar flex options is where the opponent is worth more than a ranking list, and it is the one place a rating like this earns its keep.
What it cannot do is tell you about a snap count that changed on Wednesday or a coach who has said nothing yet. This page is rebuilt from data, not from beat reporting, so check the team news before kickoff. That is true of every ranking you will read this week, ours included.
Are these week 1 sleepers?
Not in the usual sense, and it is worth being straight about why. The second table holds players outside the Icon tier who score like players inside it, and before a single game has been played that ranking rests on last season. Points per game also flatter quarterbacks in almost every scoring system, so the lower table often reads quarterback-heavy. A name you recognise is not a sleeper, whatever a list calls it.
The genuine cases turn up once the season is running: someone below the top tier who starts scoring like someone inside it, usually because a role changed rather than because he improved. That is the moment a season league fights over a waiver claim. In a weekly draft he is simply a card you are happy to be dealt, and being wrong about him costs you one weekend.
What a hot card is in DraftIcon
These ten are not only a ranking, they are the hot cards in DraftIcon for week 1. It is a free draft game that lasts a single week: you open packs, draft a roster from the cards you are dealt, and it expires on Monday night. A card in form burns in the pack, and a hot card with a hard matchup costs you one weekend rather than a season.
That is the practical difference to the league you are already in. There is no waiver wire to win, no trade to negotiate and nothing to lose in October, because you draft again next week. Plenty of people run both: the season league with friends, and a weekly redraft alongside it. If your season is already gone, it is the shortest way back into caring.
The pack decides. You decide after that.
Free, in the browser, and the practice draft needs no account.