Fantasy Football 2014: Position Value 101

Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

This post comes from Justin Becker of FantasyFootballOverdose.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NFLRankings or the Fantasy Football Overdose Google+ Page, and for more 2014 Fantasy Football Rankings visit Fantasy Football Overdose, a fantasy football blog.

Every year you see ridiculous reaches in fantasy football drafts that make your jaw drop. Maybe it’s the homer pick where a Packers fan takes Aaron Rodgers with the number one overall pick. Perhaps this year it will be some owner being silly and taking Johnny Manziel in the first round of a standard league, or maybe someone overvalues a rising running back like Giovani Bernard and takes him with the fifth overall pick.

Part of that problem is fantasy owners not knowing or not caring about the value of each position. If you don’t care, then you don’t care. There isn’t much helping that. If you do care, however, it’s important to enter your draft with proper understanding of ADP (Average Draft Position), player value and position value.

Player value can shift throughout the summer, as can ADP. Position value, however, really only changes every so often, and not necessarily year to year. Over the past couple of seasons, it’s mostly stayed the same. Different fantasy enthusiasts will have different interpretations of position value and when/where certain guys should be drafted, but the following is a logical breakdown of the proper value for each major position in fantasy football: