The bracket: Which division has the best fantasy football roster? (Part 1)
NFL divisions don’t work together, obviously, but we still often think of them as a unit in some form or another. So, as we start thinking about fantasy football for 2020, I thought it would be fun to pit them against one another.
Which NFL division can make the best fantasy roster? There are eight divisions, meaning we have a pretty easy way to make a little bracket. I built the best roster for each division to face them off.
Since we’re trying to make our best fantasy rosters, I tried to go with deeper teams — two quarterbacks, three running backs, four receivers, two tight ends, one defense. I built these rosters under PPR scoring, but then it’s largely semantic for the sake of this conversation.
To pick the players on each roster, I simple used ESPN’s most updated consensus rankings, because I haven’t updated mine in a little bit and this isn’t exactly the most in-depth exercise. Today, it’s East division vs. East division, and North division vs. North division:
AFC East vs. NFC East
Quarterback
AFC East: Josh Allen, Sam Darnold
NFC East: Dak Prescott, Carson Wentz
Spoiler: The AFC East struggles a bit throughout this exercise, but nowhere does it struggle more than at quarterback, where Josh Allen is a perfectly fine QB1, but Sam Darnold edges out Jarrett Stidham/Brian Hoyer and Ryan Fitzpatrick/Tua Tagovailoa as the QB2. If you told me you knew which of Fitz and Tua would be the starter in Miami, that one guy would probably beat out Darnold, but either way, the AFC East quarterbacks easily come in behind the NFC East.
Winner: NFC East
Running back
AFC East: Le’Veon Bell, Devin Singletary, James White
NFC East: Saquon Barkley, Ezekiel Elliott, Miles Sanders
Bell and Singletary and White are all fine, but you could easily argue all three of the NFC East backs should slot ahead of all three of the AFC East guys (and in fact they do in ESPN’s rankings). Given the competition for touches each AFC East back has (Frank Gore for Bell; Zack Moss for Singletary; Sony Michel for White; Matt Breida and Jordan Howard vulturing one another in Miami), this is a division of decent (at best) backfield situations but not as much for fantasy.
Winner: NFC East
Wide receiver
AFC East: Stefon Diggs, DeVante Parker, Julian Edelman, John Brown
NFC East: Amari Cooper, Terry McLaurin, Michael Gallup, Sterling Shepard
Neither of these divisions is exactly laden down with superstar wide receivers — in the ESPN rankings, Cooper and McLaurin come before any AFC East guys, but Gallup and Shepard come after all but Brown. The sticking point here is the question marks from the quarterback section. We have no idea how Edelman’s quarterback situation will play out, Parker could have his had-a-connection guy from 2019 in Fitzpatrick but could also have the wild card in Tua, and Diggs/Brown both have worlds of upside but could get hamstrung by Allen.
Winner: NFC East
Tight end
AFC East: Mike Gesicki, Chris Herndon
NFC East: Zach Ertz, Evan Engram
I’m a bona fide Gesicki stan — I think he could be the next big thing at tight end this year — and Herndon had a strong 2018 before a lost 2019, so the AFC East situation could look better in 2021 than it does right now … but come on. This is an easy call.
Winner: NFC East
Defense/special teams
AFC East: Buffalo
NFC East: Dallas
The AFC East has good defenses! Well, outside of Florida. The Bills and Patriots could both argue to be the No. 1 overall defense in 2020, and the Jets are at least an above-average unit. Congratulations on winning one position, AFC East!
Winner: AFC East
Final decision: NFC East
AFC East team population: Bills 5, Jets 3, Patriots 2, Dolphins 2
NFC East team population: Cowboys 5, Eagles 3, Giants 3, Washington 1
The AFC East pretty comfortably has the worst roster in this exercise of any division, so this shouldn’t come as a big shock. To illustrate it, I highlighted where each player on each roster falls on ESPN’s rankings (green is NFC East, blue is AFC East). Keep in mind that the rankings are more important than the names here, so … the chart’s small. Just look at the pretty colors:
That should pretty much do it.
AFC North vs. NFC North
Quarterback
AFC North: Lamar Jackson, Ben Roethlisberger
NFC North: Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford
The AFC North obviously wins at QB1, though there’s a fair argument whether Rodgers and Stafford together outclass Jackson and Roethlisberger, given Roethlisberger’s risks and downside at his age.
Winner: AFC North
Running back
AFC North: Nick Chubb, Joe Mixon, James Conner
NFC North: Dalvin Cook, Aaron Jones, D’Andre Swift
Swift and Conner are roughly equal in the rankings, and Jones and Mixon are roughly equal. But while Chubb has strong upside, the presence of Kareem Hunt in the Browns offense caps his ceiling — a cap Cook does not have from Alexander Mattison. The AFC North is strong here, but the NFC has a small edge.
Winner: NFC North
Wide receiver
AFC North: Odell Beckham Jr., JuJu Smith-Schuster, Jarvis Landry, Tyler Boyd
NFC North: Davante Adams, Kenny Golladay, Adam Thielen, Allen Robinson
If all breaks right in the AFC North, there are four fairly high ceilings there (even if it’s unlikely both Beckham and Landry get there simultaneously, and Boyd will have a hard time reaching his individual ceiling with about a hundred different productive receivers in Cincinnati). But that’s an “all breaks right” scenario; just from a baseline, it’s easy to argue that all four NFC North receivers should be ranked ahead of all four AFC North guys.
Winner: NFC North
Tight end
AFC North: Mark Andrews, Austin Hooper
NFC North: T.J. Hockenson, Irv Smith Jr.
The two AFC North tight ends not only come off the board before either NFC North guy, they come off far before. Hockenson obviously has a huge ceiling, but even that ceiling is likely below what Andrews did just last year, and while Hooper isn’t likely to pop in Cleveland like he did in Atlanta, if for no other reason from a “mouths to feed” perspective, the AFC clearly takes this one.
Defense/special teams
AFC North: Pittsburgh Steelers
NFC North: Chicago Bears
The Steelers are the early favorite to be the top fantasy defense of 2020, though there are pretty easily 4-5 units that could justify that title right now. The Bears are probably in the next tier, so while they should be good, the winner of this position is pretty clear.
Winner: AFC North
Final decision: NFC North
AFC North team population: Steelers 4, Browns 4, Ravens 2, Bengals 2
NFC North team population: Lions 4, Packers 3, Vikings 3, Bears 2
This one is pretty clearly closer than the East division battle, with Lamar Jackson and Mark Andrews doing a lot of the grunt work to carry the unit. But the massive gap at wide receiver was enough to tilt the scales for me, where it’s easy to argue that the best AFC North receiver (Odell Beckham Jr.) should come in behind the worst NFC North guy (Allen Robinson). All the Lamar Jackson in the world is hard to overcome that.
The chart (orange is NFC North, yellow is AFC North):
(Wednesday: AFC South vs. NFC South, AFC West vs. NFC West)