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New York Giants Pre-Season Fantasy Football Rankings

By Salvatore Stefanile

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Yahoo! fantasy football is now live and late last week the website unveiled their pre-season rankings for every position so I thought I’d check them out to see where some notable Giants players landed in their rankings. Below you’ll find the relevant rankings.

Let’s start off with the overall Top 200 fantasy football 2012-13 pre-season player rankings with each player’s overall ranking in brackets…

Top 200 Overall

Victor Cruz (26)
Hakeem Nicks (36)
Ahmad Bradshaw (50)
Eli Manning (53)
David Wilson (96)
Reuben Randle (149)
New York Giants (198)

Three Giants in the top 50 and with Manning narrowly missing the cut at #53 overall the Giants have some fantasy firepower one could conceivably build a team around. If I were to draft a team right now and it consisted of Cruz, Nicks, Bradshaw and Manning I think that would be a team I could win with. Take a look at the below 2011-2012 NFL season stats for each player to get a better understanding of the types of years each of those players had:

Victor Cruz: 82 catches, 1,536 yards and 9 touchdowns.
Hakeem Nicks: 76 catches, 1,192 yards and 7 touchdowns.
Ahmad Bradshaw: 659 yards rushing, 267 yards receiving and 11 total touchdowns (9 rushing, 2 receiving).
Eli Manning: 4,933 passing yards, 29 touchdowns, 16 interceptions, and 1 rushing touchdown.

While Bradshaw’s numbers aren’t as eye-popping as you’d like them to be for a fantasy football #1 running back he was injury riddled last season and only appeared in 12 games; yet he still managed 11 total touchdowns. If you take a look at his stats from the previous season it shows a much brighter picture: 1,235 rushing yards, 314 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns.

I would put Bradshaw in the second tier of #1 FF RBs, as I think he’ll have a bounce back season and rookie first round pick David Wilson should only help ease Bradshaw’s work load. Cruz and Nicks are both going to produce #1 FF WR stats and you can’t go wrong with drafting either player. As for Manning I think he will have another great year and with the league being a pass first league now with more emphasis being placed on the quarterback play Manning will enjoy throwing to all the weapons he has, which will lead to a lot of stats; the most important thing any fantasy football league manager cares about.

Now what about the rooks that made the Top 200 Yahoo! fantasy rankings Wilson and Randle? Randle’s season will be based on where he plays. If he gets that dangerous slot receiver role he could easily have a season like Cruz did last year. He might not get 1,500 yards and 9 touchdowns but 1,000 yards and 6 or 7 touchdowns could be within his reach and that would make him a good #3 WR candidate. Wilson could be the real sleeper here. I already mentioned how I think Bradshaw will return to form but if Wilson comes in and impresses the coaching staff he could be in line for a lot of carries and overshadow Bradshaw. I would draft as a #2 FF RB who could produce #1 FF RB stats.

The Giants’ defense with their sack potential is a worthy team to have on your roster and if you miss out early on some top fantasy defenses like the 49ers or the Ravens then you’ll be happy taking the Giants later on.

Let’s check out the Yahoo! fantasy rankings by position and below you can see how some notable Giants were ranked by position with their overall position ranking in brackets:

A few notes based on the Yahoo! positional rankings… I think they have Eli right where he should be with Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Cam Newton, Matthew Stafford and Michael Vick ranked ahead of him. The only one of those guys I wouldn’t take before Eli would be Vick… I counted seven running backs (Shonn Greene, Isaac Redman, DeAngelo Williams, Peyton Hillis, Donald Brown, Mark Ingram, and James Starks) I wouldn’t take before Wilson… Nicks is going to be a top ten player by the end of the year and his low ranking is surely due to his pre-season foot injury… Bennett is a wildcard and if he finally puts everything together could be a very late round steal… Tynes is dependable but a kicker is a kicker… The Giants’ D will end up in the top ten and is ranked accordingly.

So, there you have it GMEN HQ readers. Let us know in the comments section what you think of the rankings and which Giants you’re looking forward to drafting this upcoming fantasy football season!

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