Each week, Boris Chen – a data scientist at The New York Times – applies an algorithm to the FantasyPros ECR to develop visualized rank tiers. Chen has been gracious enough to share the week 10 tiers along with his analysis below. You can view more of Chen’s work at his blog and by following him on Twitter at @borisachen.

 
How to use the charts: Each black dot represents the player’s average rank and weighted Expert Consensus Rank. The color corresponds to the tier given by the algorithm.
 
Within a tier, there will often be two or more players that appear very close together. This means experts are close to 50/50 on who is better this week. The tiering algorithm says these players are equals this week. Note that the consensus rankings below are as of Wednesday night.
 

Week 10 Overview

Quarterback

Philip Rivers and the Chargers have been hot, and a strong matchup this week against Denver (10th for QB) puts him in Tier 1. Nick Foles makes the jump into Tier 2 after his off-the-charts performance in Week 9 (7 TDs).

Colin Kaepernick, who is usually higher, falls to Tier 3 against a stingy Carolina defense (32nd for QB). Matt Ryan drops to Tier 4 facing Seattle (31st for QB). Jake Locker leads Tier 3 and is a tempting play against Jacksonville (2nd for QB).

Running Back

Chris Johnson is the story of the week, jumping to Tier 1 after looking great in his two games and with the best RB matchup one can have, against Jacksonville. Zac Stacy’s breakout performance against Seattle earned him a spot in Tier 2.

There is a top half and a bottom half in Tier 3 this week. The top features Mike James, Fred Jackson, C.J. Spiller, Danny Woodhead and Maurice Jones-Drew, who all have fantastic matchups this week. On the bottom, we have some of the more worrisome backs in Ray Rice and Trent Richardson (monitor his injury situation), along with two rising backs who have tough matchups, Lamar Miller (vs. TB, 21st for RB) and Giovani Bernard (vs. BAL, 32nd for RB).

Wide Receiver

Tiers 1 and 2 have no real surprises this week. Cecil Shorts makes his debut in Tier 3 in the first week the Jaguars will be without Justin Blackmon.

Tier 4 is where it gets shaky. We have Hakeem Nicks, who has been out of sync this entire year; Mike Wallace, who has only one touchdown this year; Harry Douglas, who faces Richard Sherman this week; and others who have typically had mediocre fantasy production.

This will be a tough week for WR in some leagues with only 29 WR’s in Tier 4 or higher. After Anquan Boldin, the drop to Emmanuel Sanders in Tier 5 is steep.

Tight End

This position should be easy to decide on. Fourteen tight ends are in the top two tiers, and most teams should not own two Tier 1 players.