I don’t know about you guys, but most of the time in my last starting spots (usually WR3 or Flex) I’m looking to find someone with upside. Gambling on players that are not the consensus starts for the week may be ill-advised, but when you’re up against a stacked opponent (e.g. any team with Peyton Manning or Jimmy Graham) sometimes you just have to swing for the fences.
 
With that in mind I wanted to share a simple feature in our Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR) that many of you may have overlooked; the almighty sort function. One way to look for upside is to see what the player’s “best rank” is. This represents the opinion of the most bullish expert for that player. To view Upside Rankings, simply sort our ECR by the Best Rank column. Players will be ranked based on their best rank with ties broken by the players’ ECR.
 
I ran though a couple of these for my own leagues and found some interesting players that jumped up in the rankings based on their Best Rank. As an aside, you should import your league into My Playbook so that all the rankings are color-coded for your players and available players. My Playbook makes everything easier!
 
Here are some examples of Wide Receivers that jumped out based on their Best Rank vs. ECR (note: ranks can change as experts make updates so be sure to check out our latest rankings).
 
Top 5 WR Upside? Justin Blackmon and Cecil Shorts
 
This week could be the perfect storm for Jacksonville’s passing offense to get on track (at least from a fantasy perspective). With Peyton Manning likely putting up 50 points in the first 5 minutes of the game, there could be significant garbage time stats to be had. Having Blackmon and Shorts on the field together should also help open things up (of course, there’s nowhere but up when it comes to the Jag’s offense).
 
Some of the experts seem to be smelling major upside potential too. Both Jacksonville wide receivers have Top 5 Best Ranks this week and are both WR1’s in terms of their Upside Rank (Upside Rank = Rankings sorted by Best Rank with ties broken by ECR). In fact, in PPR, at at least one expert has each player ranked as their #1 WR!
 
Between the two, Blackmon seems to be favored over Shorts but it’s very close. Blackmon has an ECR of WR #19 vs. WR #23 for Shorts. It’s even tighter in PPR, where they rank #18 and #20, respectively. Expert start/sit voting is also tight with Blackmon favored by 64% in Standard and 52% in PPR.
 
Top 15 WR Upside? Miles Austin and Terrance Williams
 
I’m not sure if there’s an easier case to be made for WR upside potential than this: You definitely have upside if your QB can throw for 500+ yards in a game! Coming off his historic (and tragic) game against Denver, Romo now faces a Washington defense that has been lit up in through the air this season. The Redskins may be well rested from their bye week, but it’s hard to imagine Romo struggling to put up at least half the yards he threw for last week.
 
Terrance Williams has a Best Rank of WR #14 in Standard, which is 36 spots better than his ECR of WR #40. Experts aren’t as high on him for PPR with a Best Rank of WR #21. You may be asking, if everyone’s so bullish on Romo (QB ECR #2) why isn’t Williams even higher up the list? If sharing with Dez Bryant and Jason Witten wasn’t enough, there’s a good chance that Miles Austin comes back into the mix this week. In fact, 45% (37% for Standard) believe Austin will outscore Williams this week in fantasy points. Austin has upside of his own too; his Best Rank of WR #20 is 26 spots better than his ECR of WR #46.
 
I think the general takeaway here is that Terrance Williams has more upside but neither Williams or Austin are being given potential WR1 upside given that they may eat into each other’s snap counts and targets. Still, both have upside rankings that are significantly better than our consensus rankings, and could represent smart gambles if you’re looking for guys with high ceilings. That’s what you get when you have Romo throwing to you and the Redskins secondary covering you.
 
A few other WRs that might have nice upside in Week 6:
 
Keenan Allen, SD
ECR: #36 | Best Rank: #16
Back-to-back solid weeks and Rivers has a history of making the most out of big targets (remember Danario Alexander?).
 
T.Y. Hilton, IND
ECR: #25 | Best Rank #5
Coming off a monster week and San Diego has played in its fair share of shootouts.
 
Kenbrell Thompkins, NE
ECR: #41 | Best Rank #22
Amendola’s back but this week’s Saints matchup should look different than Brady’s clunker at Cinci. And, Gronk is out again.
 
Donnie Avery, KC
ECR: #50 | Best Rank #23
Avery is quietly having a decent season as one of Alex Smith’s favorite options (just ask Dwayne Bowe).
 
Emanuel Sanders, PIT
ECR: #43 | Best Rank #16
The Jets are playing tougher defense lately, but Pittsburgh’s passing attack is destined to get back on track… at some point.
 
Jerome Simpson, MIN
ECR: #54 | Best Rank #28
Cassel seems to like him and with everyone focused on stopping AP, a long TD catch wouldn’t shock anyone (would be his first TD though).
 
Best of luck if you roll with any of these guys. Remember to play around with our Expert Consensus Rankings. You can pick and choose your experts, combine only the most accurate and most recently updated rankings, and sort the data as I’ve done here to find players with the most upside.
 
Oh, and don’t forget to enter our free start/sit contest hosted by DraftStreet. It only takes a minute to sign up (just pick 8 players), and there’s $1,000 in prize money this week. Completely FREE to play! You can also view the 8 players our Expert Consensus likes for this contest.